esl ::: emily's so luscious

Practicum, Day Ten

I had a new student tonight, but I refused to test him. I've tried it the other way, and it was horrid. It's just too much to yank a student out of class their first night and make them take a test. They don't get to participate in class, they don't meet the other students, and it makes them never want to come back. I filled out the registration form, and if the substitute (likely Genia) doesn't want to test him Thursday night, I will do so when I get back. I tried to prepare Pedro to take initiative with class content next week, since there will be a substitute then as well.
It looks like I'm going to have at least two groups, which I may be able to divide into three. Group size is largely based on the number of available computers, which I do not like. But for now, I'm using that to my advantage. I want to make sure the basics have been covered. Numbers, time, seasons, days of the week, money, etc. Tonight we started at the very bottom, with numbers. This is also a good way to introduce the new computer program, since the subject matter is pretty much review for most of them. The first group of students who came wanted to work on the computer, so I let them warm up with the old side-by-side program. Then when another group of students had arrived, I had them switch places. The early birds sat at the table with Pedro, who went over pronunciation and vocabulary for numbers. The later arrivals (students I know a bit better) went to the computers and I got them started on the picture dictionary cd. I made sure they knew how to click on each item and then the symbol to play the pronunciation, and showed them where to go for activities - I told them to do the word-search and the matching exercises. While the groups worked, I circulated, kind of overseeing everyone's progress (including Pedro). It is such a weird feeling to be the one in charge!
Two more students came in while Pedro was doing the book lesson, so they joined his group. When it was time to switch, I had a leftover student, but Ruth insisted she would rather work with me than on the computer, b/c she wants to "work on grammar". When we switched, I showed Pedro how to work the computer program, and let him be in charge of that group, while I took over the book lesson. That worked well, except Pedro isn't very skilled with computers. I'd noticed that he went too far into the book. He doesn't really know how to get the students involved with conversation about the vocabulary, which is perhaps the most important element of the lesson. I didn't go as far, but I learned that few of my students (even those I would place at low-intermediate) know how to tell their street address. So we worked on that. We worked on the difference in pronunciation between "third" and "turd", and when I told them that the latter was a "not very nice word", they worked so hard to make the "th" sound! I spoke to a couple of the more advanced students about how far backward we're going, but they said the review is very helpful to them. That's enough for me. For the next few weeks, I'm going to focus on getting all students started at the same place. If that means major review, so be it. Kay expressed "concerns" about lack of progress for three students in particular. One of the students she mentioned seems to be stuck at beginner level, but the other two are the most advanced. One of those is high-intermediate, and was being relegated to the computer as soon as she arrived in class, and was thus removed from all class conversation practice. I plan to change that. Unfortunately, she hasn't been to class in several weeks.
For the next few weeks, I plan to work through the "basic words" unit in the picture dictionary, with all levels, giving all students an opportunity to work on the computer (this might mean three shifts). During this time, I'll do some additional informal assessment so I can ascertain which students need to be given more challenging work. Until then, they can review, and continue to get communicative practice.

posted by E.M @ 10:04 PM