I will break this into 2 parts: one for Heartland and one for Bloomington Junior High.
As I have mentioned a few times before in my previous observation blogs, the students at Heartland do error correction a lot in their classes. Usually about 30-40 minutes of the lesson are using those error correction activities, and I sort of thought at first that they would be very quick activities, but I was wrong. The students totally pick apart all of the sentences and it is nice to see because it shows that they are learning how to correct their English, but at times it gets distracting and Sue has to go off on a tangent to clear up anything that is confusing. I do understand that ESL teachers do have to do that on a regular basis, and Sue is very patient, but sometimes I just wonder if it can be taken care of more quickly than it does in her classes. She is great with helping them, but sometimes they can get very demanding and come off annoyed, but I am pretty sure that has to do with their fluency and their still-developing tone in their voice. Something I have noticed over the course of the semester is that they still do not understand hyphenated words in English, like "egg-laying" or "rubber-soled" even though Sue goes over it every time it comes up. I wonder if it is just something that does not translate for them and if they do not have it in their language, and I do understand that that can be a problem and hyphenated words are not easy to understand by any means. I think that is just something that comes with reading a lot in English and then being able to figure it out based on that exposure.
The students this week read "Ransom of Red Chief" which is a humorous story about two men who kidnap a boy in the 1800's, and they return him at the end because he is such a brat. It was supposed to be funny for them, but the story got mixed reviews from the morning class and the night class definitely enjoyed it more. A couple students did not even understand the gist of the story in the morning class and Sue had to give them a short summary of what had happened so that they could continue the discussion. Something that I liked about the lesson was that Sue talked about the fact that humor is the most difficult thing to acquire when learning a language, and that is so true. I read things in Spanish for my literature classes and I occasionally get the humor that happens in the story, but I'd say 80 percent of the time I go to class and my teacher laughs at something in the story and I am just blank. I think humor is just one of those things that is very culturally bound and I think it was great that the students were able to find humor in the story that they had to read and Sue was very pleased as well. I think it was great that she mentioned it to them because it definitely helps their self-esteem in their reading skills, which is important for the goals of this particular class. I think that the students are getting better every week in using Bloom's Taxonomy questions to understand the story, because everyone always has something to contribute to the discussion and offer up their questions. Sometimes they get a couple confused, but they are able to understand why they were incorrect and find ways to fix their answers. I think this story was probably just particularly difficult for them because the story was written in the 1800's and the language was very embellished and full of words that are not commonly used like "yeoman" or "reconnoiter". I could see why they got confused.
*Note: Sue is making a book of poetry that the students wrote, so I will have to bring it to practicum when I get a copy so you guys can see! I am interested in reading them!
At Bloomington Junior High this week, they are continuing their study of the Constitution and its Articles. This week was Article 1 and 2. The students receive modified worksheets from an addendum to a textbook, and the textbook is at a third grade reading level. It does bore some of them, but for a few it is very challenging to find the materials. This week I got to work closer to the girls who are the most recent immigrants, and it was certainly an interesting experience to see how much they understood from the reading. I think that Kathy definitely scaffolds their learning because she first highlights what they need to be highlighting in order to teach them organizational skills, and then she has them work on their worksheets from the chapter on their own for a while. I help the girls who do not understand English as well, mostly one of them because the girl who moved here in January has a personal translator to help her with her classes. The girl I work with does pretty well in class; she comprehends about 50-60 percent of what is going on in the class, and I can tell that when she does the worksheets. She has to look at the reading a lot to figure out what is happening on the worksheets, and she will occasionally ask me to translate a phrase or a word for her so she can better understand the reading and the material she has to complete. They took the Article 1 quiz yesterday and Kathy said overall she was pleased with results; the girls got a C and a D, but she said she is going to give them an opportunity to fix their mistakes and get slightly better grades so that their overall grade does not fall too low for them not to pass the unit. She said the hardest thing for them was filling in a table for the amount of years or age a Senator or representative has to be in office, and she said she was confused and switched them on the test. She said it was unfortunate because she would have done better if she had switched them, but she cannot go back and give her a different grade because it is unfair to the other students. It is too bad because I am sure the girl tries really hard, and it is great that she can find everything in the text and be able to find it on the paper, which shows that she is getting some basic skills in reading comprehension. She is at least able to match the words from the book to the words on the test.
Another thing Kathy does to scaffold their learning of the material is to give them a study guide that has pretty much the same questions as the test, but she does not tell them it will be that way because she does not want them to skate by. She tells them it is going to be different so that they actually study the material. I think this is a good tactic for any teacher because I know if I was given the exact study guide I would just memorize the answers and not even really worry about the questions, but for some of the students it does not matter because they do not recognize that they are same questions. Another thing about the girls who speak Spanish is that it is difficult because they are extremely quiet and do not talk unless they really have to; I am sure they are just going through the Silent Period of acquisition and there is nothing I can do at this point but be there and help them through the assignments. After working with them a couple of times, they have gotten a little more comfortable with me and actually attempt to chat with me during the lesson. I do my best to reach out to them, compliment their shirt or nails or jewelery because then they are able to respond and it helps the relationship form so that they feel more comfortable with me later on. I hope that me being there for an extended period will make them perk up a little and boost their confidence.
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