Today, when I arrived I sat with the same group I worked with last time who seemed smiley to see me. The lead teacher first went over the agenda for the day which consisted of: 1) announcements, 2) introductions, 3) review, 4) lesson, 5) practice, 6) small talk. During the agenda explaining, she explained some words such as "review" by breaking it down into "view" (drawing eyes on the white board and using hand gestures) and "re" (indicating it being a word that means "again"). The lead teacher uses a lot of humor in her teaching and some students laugh along because they think its funny, but I think some others just laugh out of conformity as this "high level Adult ESL" class actually has a very wide range of ELLs.
During introductions, the same structure as last week was used, "Hello, my name is..." and each person went around the room. Then during the review, the lead teacher projected her laptop screen's PowerPoint onto a white board which allowed her to add more to her PowerPoint by hand via dry erase. The review was from Monday's lesson, which I didn't attend - as I only tutor Wednesdays. Some of the review they covered involved questions such as "What day is today? What was yesterday? What day will tomorrow be?" which prompted the practice of days of the week, months of the year, and number dates. When reviewing the days of the week and the months of the year, Wednesday and February were pointed out as they are two more tricky words which have a letter that's silent. She explained that "Wednesday" is pronounced"Wen-sday" and February is pronounced "Feb-u-ary". Seasons were also briefly covered: winter, spring, summer, fall/autumn.
During the lesson, verbs was the topic. The PowerPoint began with "What is a verb?" which was answered as "action words". Then as a class, the lead teacher asked for students to give her a verb example. Students came up with verbs such as: walk, talk, run, dance, sleep, cooking, read, etc. Once verbs were explained, the class was directed to moving onto more individual/group worksheets.
Each student was told to letter their paper A-Z, then work with their tutor and group to think of at least one verb per alphabet letter (see document at bottom of blog post). This activity lasted for 30-40 minutes, and students seemed engaged the entire time as this task challenged their English and thinking skills.
Ex:
A: ask, attend
B: bother, buy
C: circle, celebrate
etc.
Once groups seemed like they were finishing up, the lead teacher brought the class back together and had a sharing time where she pulled up her own list of examples for A-Z verbs, but she didn't end up needing it to use her back up list much as the class was very active in contributing their ideas. The classroom discussion lasted almost another half an hour, and clients stayed engaged in this as well. Once the sharing time of worksheets was finished, the lead teacher let us go back to the group or pair we were working in for small talk and flash cards. We finished the flashcards but didn't' get to small talk. The flashcards she handed out contained verbs, which she wants clients to work on reading as well as coming up with sentences that you could use that verb in.
Overall, I feel this tutor session was much more productive then last week's as the lead teacher had more material to teach and lengthier worksheets to work on. Due to this, there also wasn't very much time for small talk which was a difficulty of last week when it came to thinking of topics to discuss. One thing I noticed was the client I worked for most of today allowed her friend to speak for her at times as her friend seemed more confident in speaking English. Next week, I'd like to work on keeping conversations more separate so both get an opportunity to practice speaking English as much as they can.
During introductions, the same structure as last week was used, "Hello, my name is..." and each person went around the room. Then during the review, the lead teacher projected her laptop screen's PowerPoint onto a white board which allowed her to add more to her PowerPoint by hand via dry erase. The review was from Monday's lesson, which I didn't attend - as I only tutor Wednesdays. Some of the review they covered involved questions such as "What day is today? What was yesterday? What day will tomorrow be?" which prompted the practice of days of the week, months of the year, and number dates. When reviewing the days of the week and the months of the year, Wednesday and February were pointed out as they are two more tricky words which have a letter that's silent. She explained that "Wednesday" is pronounced"Wen-sday" and February is pronounced "Feb-u-ary". Seasons were also briefly covered: winter, spring, summer, fall/autumn.
During the lesson, verbs was the topic. The PowerPoint began with "What is a verb?" which was answered as "action words". Then as a class, the lead teacher asked for students to give her a verb example. Students came up with verbs such as: walk, talk, run, dance, sleep, cooking, read, etc. Once verbs were explained, the class was directed to moving onto more individual/group worksheets.
Each student was told to letter their paper A-Z, then work with their tutor and group to think of at least one verb per alphabet letter (see document at bottom of blog post). This activity lasted for 30-40 minutes, and students seemed engaged the entire time as this task challenged their English and thinking skills.
Ex:
A: ask, attend
B: bother, buy
C: circle, celebrate
etc.
Once groups seemed like they were finishing up, the lead teacher brought the class back together and had a sharing time where she pulled up her own list of examples for A-Z verbs, but she didn't end up needing it to use her back up list much as the class was very active in contributing their ideas. The classroom discussion lasted almost another half an hour, and clients stayed engaged in this as well. Once the sharing time of worksheets was finished, the lead teacher let us go back to the group or pair we were working in for small talk and flash cards. We finished the flashcards but didn't' get to small talk. The flashcards she handed out contained verbs, which she wants clients to work on reading as well as coming up with sentences that you could use that verb in.
Overall, I feel this tutor session was much more productive then last week's as the lead teacher had more material to teach and lengthier worksheets to work on. Due to this, there also wasn't very much time for small talk which was a difficulty of last week when it came to thinking of topics to discuss. One thing I noticed was the client I worked for most of today allowed her friend to speak for her at times as her friend seemed more confident in speaking English. Next week, I'd like to work on keeping conversations more separate so both get an opportunity to practice speaking English as much as they can.
ABCs Verb Examples |