Second Class

5/31/12

I taught my second class today.  Many of the police officers went home today, so only a few students were repeats of the first day.  I had only 7 students today.  It was the perfect number.

I was much more prepared for class today.  Last class, I spent a lot of time writing on my whiteboards (sheet protectors) and lost valuable teaching time.  Today, I had key phrases and questions strategically written beforehand.  When I changed topics, I only needed to show a new white board.  When students struggled with already covered concepts, I had the old boards still available.

I also gave the students more time to practice what they learned.  They liked having so many opportunities.  I first modeled the target language and showed the grammar on whiteboards.  Then, I let them practice while I held the whiteboards for those who needed it.  Then, I took the “cheat sheets” away completely.

Today’s lesson was a repeat of the first: “To be” in the simple present tense.  We covered how to introduce yourself, and how to introduce others.  We also covered how to ask who someone is.

After an hour or so, we moved onto a truncated lesson of “This and That”.  I wanted to introduce more vocabulary, but we ran out of time.  The students caught on quickly to the difference between “this” and “that”.  We even moved into asking questions, “Is this____? Is that _____? Are you ______? Is he___? Is she_____?” and how to answer these questions.

I am very glad to speak at least basic Spanish.  When the students were helping each other, I was able to either confirm or deny their explanations.  This motivates me to further my Spanish studies.

Tomorrow, we will have a two hour class.  I will teach more vocabulary as well as expand into “these” and “those”.

First Class

5/29/2012

I taught my first class today.  The students are so eager to learn!  There were 15 (!) students in attendance.  I have asked for smaller classes tomorrow.  It is difficult to hear when there are so many. Some people have an easier time with pronunciation than others.  I found myself leaving out many students in order to work with those who were struggling. Class was held for 2 hours.

Most of the students in attendance have never spoken English.  Some have never heard English before.  Even the students that have studied English have accents so thick, I struggle to understand them.

Today, we covered how to introduce yourself and another person.  I spoke almost completely in English.  There were some times that Spanish could not be avoided, though. 

I used sheet protectors with cardstock inside as my whiteboards.  I had mirrors to help with pronunciation.  The students learned the differences between this is, that is, these are, those are, and how to ask what objects are in English.  Students also learned the basics in possessive pronouns.  We finished the class by every student saying one phrase that they learned. This gave me the opportunity for further error correction.

Tomorrow, Officer Carado (the head of the entire INGUAT police) will break the class into smaller groups.  He understands that I would prefer only 6 or 7 in a class.  I will teach in the morning and in the afternoons.  The officers here work for 7 days, then have 4 days off.  This presents a little bit of a scheduling problem that is still being worked out.

I will have the evenings free to prepare materials and explore the city.  I have been informed that this Friday is a day of vacation for me, as is the weekend.  If I need anything, I just need to ask.  I feel as if I’ve been offered the moon! Everyone here is so kind!

May 17th

Today's preparation project consisted of creating a phonetic chart of all the sounds in the English language.  I used Educational Insight's LipSync (Copyright 2003) for the majority of the cards.  I supplemented the rest of the phonemes by creating cards (in Microsoft Word) based on the words and sounds found in Sing, Spell, Read, and Write (Sue Dickson, Copyright Pearson, Inc.).

My hope is to teach students most of the phonetic spellings that result in certain sounds.  The way the sounds are arranged has a pattern to it.

If you start with the "E for Eagle" card in the top left and move to the right, ending with "oo for balloon", your jaw does not move to make the sounds.  You only lose your smile; you don't pull your lips back.

Starting with the same sound, moving down, your jaw drops.  This pattern continues only for the top quadrant.

Along the top left quadrant, all the sounds are diphthongs, which require a blend of two vowel sounds to be produced correctly.

The bottom section contains the consonant sounds.  Related sounds are placed next to each other.  For example, /p/ is formed in the same way as /b/.  The only difference is that one requires the use of vocal chords (/b/) and the other does not (voiced and non-voiced, respectively).

The layout of this chart allows me to easily teach the discrimination of sounds, as well as phonics.  For many years, I have struggled to combine these two skills for English language learners.  This solution is far from perfect (or inclusive), but it is better than anything I have used in the past.  I will use a different chart to teach alphabetical order.