Teacher Experience
Last Updated: 4-13-04
Clase 1: Introducción
*Tuesday, April 13th, 6:30 pm
Jessica Henry
Jessica: "I had the first Tuesday class tonight, and five students showed up. There were two women from Ecuador and three men from Mexico City. They all knew a little bit of English, but wanted to start from the beginning of the classes. I had a great time teaching everyone! They were all very nice and funny and helped me out with my Spanish too, and even corrected some things on the Intro page that no one had pointed out to me yet. For the first time, the pronunciation page seemed to help a ton. We must be using the right symbols this time, because everyone seemed to be using it perfectly (I had to check ahead of time that people from Ecuador pronounce y like our 'j' first. Every one of the students are hoping to get matched up with a Conversation Partner this quarter too to work more individually on their English.
This quarter I tried to be a lot more open about what we're going to cover in class. I asked the students how they want the class to go, when they want to start speaking English in class if they do, if they want to follow the exact schedule. We spent the last whole hour of class just teaching each other things we had questions about. They wanted to know some key phrases like 'How old are you.' and 'I like you.' They also helped me with how to ask for someone on the phone in Spanish."
*Sunday, October 12th, 1:00 pm
Sarah White, Susan Harrison
Sarah: "Well I believe out first class went very well even though we only had
one student. She was very sweet and eager to learn. She seemed
primarily interested in learning vocabulary and key phrases. The
first thing she asked me after she came in to class was how to
say 'Donde est?' in english (She had a little trouble finding the
room). I didnt feel that the pronounciation. worksheet was very
useful for her. She didn't seem to understand that the symbols were
a guide for pronouncing. She just asked me what each of the words
meant. The biggest problems regaurding pronounciation were the
sounds that a 'V' in English makes and the sound 'TH' makes."
*Monday, October 13th, 7:30 pm
Emily Robinson, Nuj Ashar
Nuj: "Emily and I just got done with Monday 7:30pm class and it went fairly smoothly after the 3 people came. I had a lot of fun and learned a little bit more Spanish too :-) One of the students, Jose, is really good at speaking, but he has never learned to write English....so he was asking me if we could teach that and I said of course, but couldn't think of any way to explain/teach it on the spot that made any sense. I think I take it for granted that I can already read, and I don't even remember learning how!"
Emily: "the monday class went pretty well, we had three people, two women and a man. One of the women had already been to at least one of the previous classes this week and had brought all of the papers with her.
the man in our class was fron Ecuador ( i think) and was more interested in higher level english like verb tenses, unfortunately we didnt really know a good way of begninng to explain that.
"With the women just going over the linguistic symbols seemed a little confusing to them, but they did well with the pronunciation guides for the numbers, colors... we also talked a little bit about words for foods and things at the grocery store."
*Tuesday, November 4th, 6:30 pm
Amy White, Nuj Ashar
Amy: "Hey everyone.. just wanted to let you know how my tuesday class went. It was awesome! Nuj was kind enough to offer her help and came to teach the class with me. 6 of my boyfriend's friends and family showed up to the class and it went really smoothly. They felt really comfortable asking questions and were altogether a very interactive class. They also really liked that it was an 'exchange of knowledge' and had no problem correcting me ;) So yes, Jess, I think that some of them will be contacting you because a lot of them don't have dictionaries."
Clase 2: Preparar la Comida
*Thursday, October 16th, 6:00 pm
Heather Gerhart, Megan DePasquale
Heather: "Megan and I just had our second class in which we had 5 students this time. One of the girls already had the second week's sheets but was eager to review all the vocab. The two boys that attended are able to understand and speak english very well but would like more help with their writing... Also at the end of class some of the girls wanted to know how to say specific things in english...perhaps that would be a good end to each class, ask if they have encountered any time during the week where they wished they knew how to say...etc The one guy mentioned that the work vocab was a good idea bc it was applicable to what they would need."
*Sunday, October 12th, 5:00 pm
Sara Wiseman, Jessica Henry
Sara: "Just wanted to let people know how class went (mine's w/ Jessie).
It went well though we only had one woman (who actually I think was
the only one in the earlier class that day). She's quiet commited
and interesting in learning so that's good. I think we're going
ahead and teaching class 3 at the same time next week and seeing if
we can get anyone else in the class. So let people know if your
classes that if they want extra practice they can come on Sunday's
at 5pm in the board room.
"To practice the greetings and any other conversation
type thing (even w/ a small group) you can do a round robin type
deal. First do it w/ your teaching partner in Spanish and then
start in English. For example:
Teacher 1: Hi, what's your name?
Teacher 2: It's Sara.
Teacher 1: Can you spell that?
Teacher 2: Sure it's S-A-R-A... etc...
And the students go w/ Teacher 2 asking student 1 and so on such
that the last student asks Teacher 1... that way people practice
both asking and answering."
Jessica: "I definitely loved Sara's idea about doing the round robin thing (starting with the two teachers doing it in Spanish and then in English so the class gets the idea). I think it would be a good idea to do all activities this way if possible because it gets everyone involved (unless the group is too large).
"Guadalupe (the woman we had in class) said that she didn't understand the pronunciation symbols sheet very well, but the pronunciation on the vocab. sheet still seemed to help her a lot, especially when I said, 'Try to say it like you're reading it in Spanish.'
"One other thing was that on the Semana II vocab sheet, there is a part with a conversion from temperatures in Celsius to temperatures in Farhenheit. Turns out that Guadalupe had never used numbers to measure temperatures before, so that was absolutely meaningless for her. I think the class activities next week will still help though, because they are with pictures and Farhenheit numbers only.
Clase 3: Tomar Órdenes
*Thursday, October 23rd, 6:00 pm
Heather Gerhart, Megan DePasquale
Heather: "Megan and I had a crew this past thursday, seven people showed up. However, we did not have the room reserved so we had to try and make do. We ended up splitting up and working in two groups because it was the first class for some people. I worked with girls that go to another class on sunday and we ended up reviewing the hw that was supposed to be given out that class. I might try bring both weeks four and five next time so it won´t be all the same thing..."
Clase 4: Solicitar un Trabajo
*Sunday, October 26th, 5:00 pm
Sara Wiseman, Jessica Henry
Sara: "Last Sunday, Jess and I had 6 students, which was so
nice. This Sunday (today) we had the 2 women that we usually have
and the class went well. Jess did an awesome job with the Wendy's
props and I have now learned how to correctly be a server for
Wendy's :)"
*Monday, November 17th, 7:30 pm
Nuj Ashar, Emily Robinson
Nuj: "Emily and I had class yesterday at 7:30 and it went pretty well. We had our one regular student, David, and we did clase #4. I think that filling out the practice employment application helped a lot, it seemed like he kind of knew what a lot of the stuff was but wasn't sure what to write down as his responses."
Clase 5: Nombrar las Cosas
*Sunday, November 2nd, 5:00 pm
Sara Wiseman, Jessica Henry
Sara: "Nov 2nd's class at 5pm had 4 people. We had a good class and even
spent the first hour outside on the front steps because it was such
a beautiful day.
"In terms of ideas for the activities- I added questions to the
family guessing game ('the father of your father' kind of questions)
like (1) How many brothers do you have? (to practice their numbers)
and (2) What's your mother's name (to practice the question
phrases)... Just an idea :)
"Also when you introduce week 5 vocab you may want to do what Jess
did: put up the words 'this, that, those, these' on the board and
show how one refers to close and the other to further away. Also
asking them to question each other 'What is this (and point to
something)?' and then 'That is...' but our students had trouble
knowing the vocab in English so I suggest putting up a list on the
board of English-Spanish translation of some common items (pen,
pencil, notebook, chair, board etc).
"Jess also had a great idea of giving out our names and telephone
numbers and addresses for them to use as job references if they need-
so if you feel comfortable you could write that out.
"I think that's about it- other than maybe having a map of Mexico
along with the one of the states for them to say where they're
from. I'm going to print one out for my next Sunday class so I can
put it in the group stuff when we're done if anyone wants it. We
also asked them not only the where are you from but also 'What
states are next to.... (state)?'"
Clase 6: Orientarse
Friday, November 7th, 5:30 pm
Jackie Hartzler, Angela George
Jackie: "Angela and I had the two same students, Guadalupe and Cynthia... Class was good, and we talked about how tall people are, and what they are like (tall, short) for an activity, as well as a short introduction of contractions: I'm, you're, she's, etc."
Clase 7: Limpiar
Sunday, November 16th, 5:00 pm
Sara Wiseman, Jessica Henry
Jessica: "We did a little bit of review work on week 6's verbs. We had them make sentences out of the verbs using their verb homework page. We also added the verb 'querer = to want' and told them that 'busco' could mean 'I look' or 'I'm looking.' I had Cinthia make sentences for me by adding the 'places' vocab too. I had her use 'I'm looking for...' and then 'the library' or 'an apartment' etc. We also made a few setences with the directions vocab."
"On the walk to Sullivant library, we pointed out buildings and had them tell us about them like, 'The parking lot is to the left of the library' or 'Which way do we need to go?' 'To the left.'"
"In the library Sara worked with Guadalupe and I worked with Cinthia. We gave them an introduction to the computer (i.e. how it works, how to use it) and the Internet and helped them go through the steps to set up their own accounts. Afterwards I had Cinthia go to wordreference and type in a word she wanted to know (it's an online Spanish-English dictionary). Then I had her go to google and said, 'Think of anything in the world your interested in like music, recipes, news, places, anything, and we'll find something about it on the Internet.' Cinthia asked about the Temerarios (a musical group). We found their website and she was very excited to write them a message on their site wishing them much 'éxito.'"
"Guadalupe went to a noticias website and read about 'finanzas' and then about an actor. I don't remember who it was. Cinthia also looked up some images on Google of Oaxaca, Mexico. They both seemed really excited about the library. I wrote down for them the library schedules and locations on OSU and how to ask 'Where are the public computers?' They're planning on going back to the EHS library tomorrow to search more on the Internet!"
Clase 8: Conclusión
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