This week I was mostly doing some more general observations at Bloomington Junior High School as well as observing reading strategies for both of my placement sites. I may have mentioned before in my blog posts that Sue's classes do a lot of error correction in their class; they begin every day with a few different activities. First, they do 4 words with syllable stress, then error correction in sentences made by Sue and made by previous TOEFL exams. On Tuesdays, Sue's students do something called editor-in-chief where they have to pick out 15 errors in a reading from a newspaper or photocopied from a textbook and they go through it together. Sue highlights the errors in the article before they begin, and then they have to figure out what the errors were and how to fix them. Generally the students are very nit-picky about their editor-in-chief and they tend to look for things that are wrong where there are none. I think it is a good thing that they are overanalyzing because it shows that they really understand the task and they know what they are supposed to be looking for in the assignment. Sometimes tricking the students into thinking that there is something to find that is wrong makes them much more critical and it shows what they really have gained from explicit grammar instruction. The students tend to ask a lot of questions about the assignment, especially with idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs; they seem to have the most trouble with those. I noticed that both the morning and night classes have asked the same questions about the material, which I find interesting, because it shows that their information gap is the same no matter how long they have been studying English. This week they were most confused about what "plastered to the wall" meant, so Sue thought on her feet and demonstrated it by acting it out, using facial expressions and gestures, and then generally she gets that 'ohhh' of recognition and the students scribble the words down quickly. They are really good about taking notes on what they learn and what words they are picking up from the lesson. I have benefited from that activity myself with Spanish.
Something else I really enjoyed about my observations this week with Sue at Heartland were that the students read the short story "The Lottery" and had a reading discussion about it. I love the discussions the students have because I like to hear their opinions about the story and how their own cultural stories played into their reading of the story. I get the impression at times that they usually understand the general gist of the story, but if it is not an explicit ending or detail, they get a little lost, which is pretty common in reading comprehension. A lot of them were confused about the ending of the book because it was not explicit in telling them what they happened to the characters, and Sue acted little bits out to help them with comprehension. I think that reading aloud with Sue really helps them too, because then they can get the full picture. Something cool that Sue does is give them the historical context of the short story that they have read, like the fact that the "Lottery" was written during the 1930's South where there were a lot of racial strife and political issues, and students were able to relate that to their own experiences in the Congo with that Big Brother sort of aspect in their government system. It led a bit to discussion about how much they love the government here and how it is so much better because they have freedom to do what they want, and in their countries they are very restricted to what the government wants. They also talked about fighting injustice and social problems and how it starts with young people, about college protests and other similar events, and I learned that the catalyst to the independence of the Congo began with a soccer game. It is really cool to learn all this cultural information and where they come from! I do not know anything about the Congo and I have learned so much so far!
What I have really liked is seeing them analyze the stories they read using the literary devices that Sue has given. They are able to identify now what kind of analysis questions to ask when reading the story, and Sue said that their journals improve every week in that regard. I plan on asking her if I can see some of the journals and how they have progressed.
At Bloomington Junior High School this week, they started their unit on the U.S. Constitution since they need to take the test in May. I will be observing their progress in that area for the next 4 weeks. Kathy has set it up for them so that they go through it slowly and thoroughly so that they really comprehend the material being presented to them. She uses a lot of worksheets, the SmartBoard, and videos in order to help the students understand. I think the SmartBoard is an excellent tool for classrooms because it can be used for everything, except that I have to be critical in the fact that there is so much reliance on technology and I do not know what they would do without computers. They have watched a few videos so far, like Schoolhouse Rock and the Painless Guide to... series on Discovery channel. I think it is great that she understands that these kids will not benefit from lecture alone, so they do a lot of varied activities, like fill-in-the-blank, games, crossword puzzles, etc using the vocabulary and concepts they have learned. I have noticed that they need a lot of repetition in order to remember a concept, but even then the next day they seem to lost it unless Kathy repeats it again and again. I am not sure how some are doing with it, because they are very quiet and do not ask questions. However, Kathy does a good job of noticing who is not responding and getting them to answer questions so that they she can see where they stand. It is important to call out students once in a while because otherwise you are just letting them sit there and risk the fact that they are not understanding the material from the lesson.
Side note about the videos: the videos are all educational, and I thought it was great because it provides differentiated instruction and allows for different learning styles. It also can provide visual representation for the students with weaker speaking and reading skills. I am so glad I got to watch the videos because they are really enjoyable.
As I may have mentioned before, Kathy has created her own Constitution materials at a sheltered level so that the students can fully understand the material. They use material from a third grade textbook instead of a high school level one, like the 8th graders. I think it is ridiculous that the school would allow them to use something that is way above their reading level, considering some struggle at the 3rd grade level. Something BJHS does is silent reading; students are required to silent read once a week in their classes (usually Fridays) and have a book on them at all times. I think that is the school's way of making sure they are reaching all the kids and emphasizing the importance of reading, which I support entirely. My junior high and high school had a similar program and I loved it. I knew people who did not like it at all, but at least it got them to read. I just do not think people realize how important reading can be and how influential it is on your comprehension and word retention and grammar skills. I know I would not be a good writer without reading constantly as a child and adolescent. I just think with the internet, people read less and it is right of the school to instate that kind of program.
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