I have been enjoying observing, helping, and talking with Mrs. Smith, the part-time ESL teacher at the middle school. She has three students in the class I have been observing. Although, I learned this Monday that two male students from Puerto Rico will be joining the class Wednesday. When Mrs. Smith told the class this, Kirium's eyes lit up with interest. Kirium is a seventh-grade student in Mrs. Smith's class from Puerto Rico. She is fairly shy and doesn't like speaking up in class. Her English level could be considered beginner. With the addition of two very beginner-level students coming, Mrs. Smith shared with me her concern of how to accommodate for the needs of every student. We discussed the importance of making sure every student is challenged, but not overwhelmed.
One class period, I worked with Kirium one-on-one to go over her notes from her science class. Her notes were on the classification of nature. She had a good mnemonic device for knowing the order of the classes from broad to narrow. (Pretty sure her teacher provided it). It was King Philip (Likes?/Eats?) Good Seafood... I know I'm missing something, but it stood for kingdom, phylum, and so on. Fortunately, Kirium's teachers adjust the test for ESL students to fit their needs. So for example, she wasn't expected to give an example for each class. I just stressed Kingdom was the broadest category and that Species was the most narrow category. I also worked with her on Living vs. Non-Living. I had her raise her right hand if what I said was living, and her left hand for non-living things. This was a fun activity for both of us. I'm glad that she was being responsive and smiling, despite her shyness. Being able to describe unfamiliar words in Spanish to her seemed to help as well. I hope to try and connect with her and encourage her to speak more.
John and Janet are the other two in the ESL class. They are both from Egypt. John is quite, but very friendly. He doesn't speak much, but he has gone to an English school in Egypt where he has developed a significant background for English. And then there's Janet... Janet.... she is such a character. She makes me laugh... I've never seen a girl so energetic and hyper. Janet is a chatterbox. She speaks with a loud voice and is always shouting out things... whether "Oo! Ooo! I know!!" or "You forgot announcements!" or "Nuh-uhhh! See! I told you so!" Janet really livens the classroom. I feel that her ability to speak so much helps her speaking skills and that her classmates open up more because of her bubbly personality. But on the other hand, her constant blurting has cost her a (perhaps more than one) lunch detention. Teachers on the team are all aware of this issue with Janet.
On Friday, I was able to do a short activity with the class on organizing a paper. I was sweating a bit at the thought of already getting up in front of the class. My co-op teacher, Mrs. Allen, gave me the freedom to do what I wanted but mentioned the idea of cutting up sections of short stories, putting them in envelopes, and then have students put the story in order. And so this is what I did. It was hard for me to determine what would be too hard or too easy for the students. Fast-forward. The lesson went fairly well. I was able to do it four times by doing the activity in the next-door English class with Mrs. Stine. With each lesson/activity, I felt more comfortable with the students and gained confidence. After my first lesson, Mrs. Allen kindly told me, "Just watch out for the "OK"'s. I chuckled a bit. I must have been so nervous that I wasn't listening to what I was saying and repeating "OK?" excessively.
Below are pictures of Mrs. Allen's classroom.
Reader/Writer Notebooks! Nice! Sometimes class starts with a freewrite.
Sets of books for literature circles.
Adult-themed books.
Wordle! A tool I learned about in my Tech class.
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