Date of Class: 6/23/2014
Day of Class: Monday
Time of Class: 6-7:30pm
MC: Colin Fjeld
DJ: n/a
Assistants: Forrest Scrutton
Module: What do you do?
How Many Learners: 7
Score: Preparation: 8; technique: 7; engagement: 7; connection: 7; poise: 7; reflection: 7; total: 43.
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Good class overall. Dr. Cheryl Cruz came to observe. We spent a good 20 minutes with the “Professions Deck” passing around the cards while repeating “He is a…, She is a…”. Spent some time practicing a script from an interview question and also did a word-find from a page of interview questions. Ended with a TPR that was a lot of fun!

Date of Class:June 25, 2014
Day of Class:Wed.
Time of Class:12 noon – 2pm
MC:David
DJ:none
Assistants:none
Module:English for Getting Around
How Many Learners:5
Score:6+7+7+7+7+10=44
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): I tried a few new things today. We talked about trips we’ve taken, and learners dictated stories about how they come to the US from their countries of origin. We did a transportation brainstorm. I used pictures of Portland bridges, a Portland map, and bridge names on slips of paper, for a matching and putting-in-the-right-order game. This was challenging for even the more English-fluent learners, and provided a chance to work on pronunciation and local familiarity. Then we had a bridge name scramble, also challenging. I was going to finish with a simple song about trains, but we ran out of time.

Date and Location of Class:
June 30, Rockwood Library
Day of Class:
monday
Time of Class
: noon-2 pm
MC:
Patrik McDade
DJ:
Jane McIver
Assistants:
Wes Smith
Module:
You Are What You Eat
How Many Learners:6
Score:
40 (Preparation: 8; technique: 7; engagement: 6; connection: 6; poise: 7; reflection: 6).

What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):

This class began and ended on time. Jane assumed a larger role in each activity, practicing to emulate Patrik’s modeling.
After Alphabet Listen and Point then Yell and Spell Patrik passed a food item around so every learner identified it round robin style, followed by dictation from various nutrition labels. The class then watched the “Bread and Butter” video, wrote down the first verse, then sang it to Jane’s ukulele accompaniment.

Date of Class:July 2, 2014
Day of Class:Wed.
Time of Class:12 noon – 2 pm
MC: David
DJ:
Assistants:
Module:English for Getting Around
How Many Learners:9
Score:6+7+7+7+6+10=43
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
We had a lot of people come in after class started. I started out telling what I did yesterday, and had people write it down, then I had people tell what they did, how they got there, and had the other learners write it down. Then we practiced saying things aloud, with learners telling their stories and others echoing back to them. I also had them write down and sing with me Blue Skies.

Date of Class: 07/07/2014
Day of Class: Monday
Time of Class: Evening
MC: Joshua
DJ: None
Assistants: None
Module: Talking with the Boss
How Many Learners: 4
Score: 8+8+9+10+10+6=46
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): This felt like my most successful class taught thus far. After the alphabet, yell n spell warm ups, we did a listen and point with the deck of professions that I had prepared. It was challenging enough, but not overly challenging. After we moved into dialogues that were a little bit more challenging than usual -slightly longer, 4 line dialogues. After that, we worked on “What would you say?” with work related topics. We finished with a “Can you swim” activity.
What made this class feel particularly successful is that there was a high level of engagement and working together. Though there were learners at very different levels, there was plenty of learning taking place. Everyone was appropriately challenged. I also was able to easily help one particular learner to keep up with the rest of the class even though he typically has greater struggles. The class also wanted to engage with questions, humor, and conversations related to culture, language, and the activity at hand. However, we never diverged from the lesson for more than a few moments and we were able to keep pushing through all of the activities with focused, high energy. I was very pleased with this class.

Date of Class:July 9, 2014
Day of Class:Wednesday
Time of Class:12 noon – 2 pm
MC:David
DJ:none
Assistants:none
Module:Maps & Addresses
How Many Learners:7
Score:6+7+7+7+7+10=44
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
We focused on directionals with an interactive game using cards and having learners stand in that part of the room, using call and response, then used a tennis ball toss to reinforce the spoken words and to practice saying them as quickly as possible. I used a question from the survey as dictation and choral response, but I think it might work better to bring printed surveys to class, go through a few questions together and have them fill them out on their own. We also did a song using prepositions: around, over, under, through, near & far, and then did a dictation of another song about waiting for the train.

Date of Class: 7/14/14
Day of Class: Monday
Time of Class: 6 pm to 7:30 pm
MC: Joshua Clark
DJ: Ashley Castellanos
Assistants: None
Module: At work dialogue
How Many Learners: 9
Score: 31
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): The class started on time and we first focused on vocabulary of job titles, which went very smoothly. Followed by practicing dialogs one would have at work. Later a new student arrived with her two young children (ages 4 and 6 is my guess) for them to learn as well. Though they only stayed for 10 minutes to test out the class. As she left, one of our regulars left as well. The rest of the class went very smoothly. Everyone was helpful towards each other and seemed to be grasping the content very well.