Today was interesting. Last week I was unable to attend due to being sick and the week before I was unable to attend due to a class required event. This week, I'm finally back and it just so happens to be the day after the election results came out. Without regards to my own feelings about the election, I had many feelings as I drove to refugee development center adult ESL tutoring. Unsure what the lead teacher would say or how she would address the current events, I felt somewhat unconfident.
Once in our tutoring room, it wasn't long until another tutor had brought up the election into conversation topic. No opinions were stated yet, only summaries and information about what had happened the previous day; however, even without opinions the lead teacher stopped the conversation immediately and said to not discuss the presidential election in this room. She was abrupt, stern, and emotional. I was surprised at the manner in which she dealt with and approached this topic, as I was sure there would be some kind of summary, assurance, or at least a brief addressing to the election. Confused, but courteous, the tutors and I stopped our conversation and changed subject without questioning her.
Class continued on as it normally does. The lead teacher gave announcements (a future guest speaker from a bank coming next week 11/16), led introductions, reviewed material the class had been learning (days of the week/month/year, verbs, tenses of verbs, etc), gave a new lesson, allowed practice and worksheets to be completed, and then allowed small talk.
For the lesson, the lead teacher introduced a new pronoun chart (as shown below) which was taken from the following website: www.learnbritishenglish.co.uk/english-pronouns-visual-chart/
Students were given a blank chart and asked to fill the chart in by rewriting the picture posted on the screen of the pronoun chart.
After given time for clients to copy the chart, the lead teacher lead the class through some practice examples as well as gave everybody the opportunity to think of a verb. She explained the pronoun chart more in depth and also introduced Be verbs briefly. Additionally, she introduced the negation "no" and explained that for present progressive verbs (ending with -ing), you can add the word "not" in front to negate the sentence (ex: She is reading. --> She is not reading, and They are reading. --> They are not reading, as well as gave some examples of tenses --> She was not reading, She is not reading, She will not be reading).
In small groups, tutors helped clients with another worksheet the lead teacher passed out involving selecting the proper term from the word bank and inserting it into a given sentence's blank space. Some concepts that were confusing to clients that my co-tutors and I explained further involved plural woman vs women. A woman "is not" while women "are not". Along with this, mouse = 1, while mice = <1. I allowed the client I was working with one-on-one the option of completing the worksheet first herself, then later reviewing together, because from working with her before I know she has more confidence in her English skills and also is taking English classes at a community college. She completed the worksheet's answers all correctly except for one question.
After clients began finishing their worksheets, my group moved on to small talk. The lead teacher provided a new activity for this time given, and brought material to help small talk thrive. These were cards with topics or questions on them which had the purpose of starting conversations. Some questions included "What's your favorite type of weather?", "How many shoes do you own?", "What's the last TV show you watched?", etc. Some of these questions brought laughs to our group, such as the shoes question when one client admitted she had too many shoes to count. I really enjoyed this new addition to the "small talk" time.
Overall I felt that the tutoring session went well. Although, I do feel that copying the pronouns chart was a very uncommunicative and slightly redundant task, I also understand for some students it may have helped them process the chart as they rewrote it. I think that I made the right decision when it came to allowing my client to first try the worksheet on her own, as when I asked her if that seemed like a good idea she very strongly confirmed as if she was almost even relieved we wouldn't be going through step by step on a worksheet she could already fill out herself. For future worksheets with this client, I plan to allow her the opportunity to try herself first and then review with me as well.
Although this tutoring session went smoothly, I did feel curious about why this teacher specifically avoided discussion of the election and didn't address it at all during class even though many of the fears regarding the new president may have been within some of our clients. I wonder if she avoided the topic because she didn't want to worry those who didn't know already, or if there was some kind of mandate. Although I planned to stay after and ask her, students left slowly and she seemed very stressed so I decided to not ask. If I get an opportunity in the future, I may bring it up.
Once in our tutoring room, it wasn't long until another tutor had brought up the election into conversation topic. No opinions were stated yet, only summaries and information about what had happened the previous day; however, even without opinions the lead teacher stopped the conversation immediately and said to not discuss the presidential election in this room. She was abrupt, stern, and emotional. I was surprised at the manner in which she dealt with and approached this topic, as I was sure there would be some kind of summary, assurance, or at least a brief addressing to the election. Confused, but courteous, the tutors and I stopped our conversation and changed subject without questioning her.
Class continued on as it normally does. The lead teacher gave announcements (a future guest speaker from a bank coming next week 11/16), led introductions, reviewed material the class had been learning (days of the week/month/year, verbs, tenses of verbs, etc), gave a new lesson, allowed practice and worksheets to be completed, and then allowed small talk.
For the lesson, the lead teacher introduced a new pronoun chart (as shown below) which was taken from the following website: www.learnbritishenglish.co.uk/english-pronouns-visual-chart/
Students were given a blank chart and asked to fill the chart in by rewriting the picture posted on the screen of the pronoun chart.
After given time for clients to copy the chart, the lead teacher lead the class through some practice examples as well as gave everybody the opportunity to think of a verb. She explained the pronoun chart more in depth and also introduced Be verbs briefly. Additionally, she introduced the negation "no" and explained that for present progressive verbs (ending with -ing), you can add the word "not" in front to negate the sentence (ex: She is reading. --> She is not reading, and They are reading. --> They are not reading, as well as gave some examples of tenses --> She was not reading, She is not reading, She will not be reading).
In small groups, tutors helped clients with another worksheet the lead teacher passed out involving selecting the proper term from the word bank and inserting it into a given sentence's blank space. Some concepts that were confusing to clients that my co-tutors and I explained further involved plural woman vs women. A woman "is not" while women "are not". Along with this, mouse = 1, while mice = <1. I allowed the client I was working with one-on-one the option of completing the worksheet first herself, then later reviewing together, because from working with her before I know she has more confidence in her English skills and also is taking English classes at a community college. She completed the worksheet's answers all correctly except for one question.
After clients began finishing their worksheets, my group moved on to small talk. The lead teacher provided a new activity for this time given, and brought material to help small talk thrive. These were cards with topics or questions on them which had the purpose of starting conversations. Some questions included "What's your favorite type of weather?", "How many shoes do you own?", "What's the last TV show you watched?", etc. Some of these questions brought laughs to our group, such as the shoes question when one client admitted she had too many shoes to count. I really enjoyed this new addition to the "small talk" time.
Overall I felt that the tutoring session went well. Although, I do feel that copying the pronouns chart was a very uncommunicative and slightly redundant task, I also understand for some students it may have helped them process the chart as they rewrote it. I think that I made the right decision when it came to allowing my client to first try the worksheet on her own, as when I asked her if that seemed like a good idea she very strongly confirmed as if she was almost even relieved we wouldn't be going through step by step on a worksheet she could already fill out herself. For future worksheets with this client, I plan to allow her the opportunity to try herself first and then review with me as well.
Although this tutoring session went smoothly, I did feel curious about why this teacher specifically avoided discussion of the election and didn't address it at all during class even though many of the fears regarding the new president may have been within some of our clients. I wonder if she avoided the topic because she didn't want to worry those who didn't know already, or if there was some kind of mandate. Although I planned to stay after and ask her, students left slowly and she seemed very stressed so I decided to not ask. If I get an opportunity in the future, I may bring it up.