As I had last time, I again sat with the group from before. This seems to have become an unspoken arrangement. Similar to many college classes when students sit somewhere random the first day of class...and it ends up being their unspoken self-assigned setting for the rest of the semester. This was my unspoken self-assigned group for now. Today, the lead teacher first went over the agenda, as she did last week, for the day which consisted of: 1) announcements, 2) introductions, 3) review, 4) lesson, 5) practice, 6) small talk. The agenda was the same as before, but different components within each category changed. Unlike the first ESL class, the teacher made a decision to stop implementing students writing their name on the board as attendance. Although I'm not sure why, as this was an observation not a discussion, possibly it was because students showed uncomfortable manners with standing at the front of the classroom and writing in front of everyone.
Three new students joined the ESL class today, and they were given placement exams throughout the time. Before having the placement exam finished though, the teachers placed the students in a room (lower ESL and higher ESL) with what seemed to be purely based off if they sounded somewhat fluent or not. I thought this was a questionable way of initially separating clients as they may not come across as "knowing" English but due to shyness or another factor unrelated to their actual language skills.
After the new students were settled in and introductions were made "Hello, my name is..." around the room, the lead teacher in my ESL higher level classroom went over announcements of upcoming events and then began the review session. She covered the day, month, date, of today, yesterday, and tomorrow. She also reviewed in order, all of the days of the week, months of the year, and four seasons.
Today's new lesson was over verbs. We discussed that a verb was an "action" word and clients were able to throw out words they thought were verbs to a teacher written list. Once ideas were compiled, she went through power point slides of pictures, where clients were asked to guess which verb might be use to represent the different pictures she was showing. The second activity related to verbs involved pictures and sentences, where students were asked to think of a word that would fit in the sentence as a verb (ex: __the laundry - "Do", and ___the dishes - "Dry", etc. - see document below). These sentences/pictures contained more rare or confusing verbs that may not make as much sense in the context of actions, and the teacher completed this as a class allowing clients to shout out words when they had an idea. The third activity related to verbs was a fill in the blank. Multiple sentences were written on the power point with blanks, and students were meant to work with a tutor or in a group to write the sentences in their note books and fill in the blank with a word that could fit in. After a while, the lead teacher brought the class back together and allowed people to give their ideas of what word could fit. The 5th activity involved selecting the verb in a per-written sentence. Sentences were typed on the power point and the teacher asked which word is a verb in each sentence, allowing anyone who knows to shout it out (ex: Mary walks to class - verb=walks). After some more instruction on regular and irregular verbs (Past tense-regular --> verb+ed, Past tense-irregular --> word changes, voiced-vibrate throat, not voiced-no vibrations), the class was let loose. The final activity involved flash cards and lasted the second half of class (an hour). Groups were given a stack of flash cards which had verbs on them, some were green which signified they were irregular and some written in black signifying regular verbs, and were asked to create a sentence for each verb in present tense and then in past tense, with the help of tutors.
In reflection, I thought that verbs was an important aspect of English to cover. I was surprised at the speed the class covered verbs in though, especially after we were placed in the last activity and my students needed me to help define half of the flash card words before they could make sentences. I really enjoyed the small group work though. Some flash card words included: walk, talk, open, call, like, drink, get, have, give, eat, put, cut, etc. Some words seemed more difficult to clients to understand, and some words were difficult for students to explain. Words without obvious actions, such as have and give, were more difficult as showing the gesture of having or giving something may be thought of as another word. The other tutor working in my group knew some Spanish, which is the native language of the group I worked with, and she was able to say yes or no to the translated word the clients were trying to match the English word with. I thought this was somewhat helpful. Overall, I feel the lessons were very productive and students covered a lot; but I worry maybe there were too many words to cover in one day that may be difficult for the clients to remember. One verb that tutors tried to explain to our clients was "sail" and I'm not sure that we conveyed the proper meaning well enough for understanding even by the end of class. If I could do one thing differently, I tried to find out what the lesson was going to be over in advance and would have prepared myself to explain the difference between short vowels and long vowels better. Although I know what they mean in my head, I wasn't prepared to explain this outwardly and I think my wording confused clients a little.
Three new students joined the ESL class today, and they were given placement exams throughout the time. Before having the placement exam finished though, the teachers placed the students in a room (lower ESL and higher ESL) with what seemed to be purely based off if they sounded somewhat fluent or not. I thought this was a questionable way of initially separating clients as they may not come across as "knowing" English but due to shyness or another factor unrelated to their actual language skills.
After the new students were settled in and introductions were made "Hello, my name is..." around the room, the lead teacher in my ESL higher level classroom went over announcements of upcoming events and then began the review session. She covered the day, month, date, of today, yesterday, and tomorrow. She also reviewed in order, all of the days of the week, months of the year, and four seasons.
Today's new lesson was over verbs. We discussed that a verb was an "action" word and clients were able to throw out words they thought were verbs to a teacher written list. Once ideas were compiled, she went through power point slides of pictures, where clients were asked to guess which verb might be use to represent the different pictures she was showing. The second activity related to verbs involved pictures and sentences, where students were asked to think of a word that would fit in the sentence as a verb (ex: __the laundry - "Do", and ___the dishes - "Dry", etc. - see document below). These sentences/pictures contained more rare or confusing verbs that may not make as much sense in the context of actions, and the teacher completed this as a class allowing clients to shout out words when they had an idea. The third activity related to verbs was a fill in the blank. Multiple sentences were written on the power point with blanks, and students were meant to work with a tutor or in a group to write the sentences in their note books and fill in the blank with a word that could fit in. After a while, the lead teacher brought the class back together and allowed people to give their ideas of what word could fit. The 5th activity involved selecting the verb in a per-written sentence. Sentences were typed on the power point and the teacher asked which word is a verb in each sentence, allowing anyone who knows to shout it out (ex: Mary walks to class - verb=walks). After some more instruction on regular and irregular verbs (Past tense-regular --> verb+ed, Past tense-irregular --> word changes, voiced-vibrate throat, not voiced-no vibrations), the class was let loose. The final activity involved flash cards and lasted the second half of class (an hour). Groups were given a stack of flash cards which had verbs on them, some were green which signified they were irregular and some written in black signifying regular verbs, and were asked to create a sentence for each verb in present tense and then in past tense, with the help of tutors.
In reflection, I thought that verbs was an important aspect of English to cover. I was surprised at the speed the class covered verbs in though, especially after we were placed in the last activity and my students needed me to help define half of the flash card words before they could make sentences. I really enjoyed the small group work though. Some flash card words included: walk, talk, open, call, like, drink, get, have, give, eat, put, cut, etc. Some words seemed more difficult to clients to understand, and some words were difficult for students to explain. Words without obvious actions, such as have and give, were more difficult as showing the gesture of having or giving something may be thought of as another word. The other tutor working in my group knew some Spanish, which is the native language of the group I worked with, and she was able to say yes or no to the translated word the clients were trying to match the English word with. I thought this was somewhat helpful. Overall, I feel the lessons were very productive and students covered a lot; but I worry maybe there were too many words to cover in one day that may be difficult for the clients to remember. One verb that tutors tried to explain to our clients was "sail" and I'm not sure that we conveyed the proper meaning well enough for understanding even by the end of class. If I could do one thing differently, I tried to find out what the lesson was going to be over in advance and would have prepared myself to explain the difference between short vowels and long vowels better. Although I know what they mean in my head, I wasn't prepared to explain this outwardly and I think my wording confused clients a little.
More Verb Practice |