Raging River

It’s cooperative learning. I just learned that the teachers watched us carefully and learned a whole lot about us then, as a group and as individuals.

Analysis of the experiential learning cycle

• Feelings: “How did you feel?”
• Description of process: “What happened in sequence objectively?”
• Analysis: “What were the key events?” A level deeper; interpretation (more subjective). There may be disagreement in this phase
• Consensus: “What did you learn?” Recommendations for future action.

A common goal is more important than the plan; also the fluidity of the group.

Notes from The World in Clare’s Classroom

• When teacher was warm and huggy, the kids responded positively in their work.
• Doing a community meeting at the start of a class gives interest in each other’s lives
• Discussion about fairness.
• Having students line up by height leads to group awareness of themselves relative to others.
• Self-portrait is a way to recognize themselves relative to others, a way to be part of a group while honoring the individual.
• She gave them freedom to choose where to sit: democracy.
• Inclusive and respectful w/ kids
• Encouraging
• First she established the identity of the group
• Community and parent interaction
• Motivated them
• Her role: coordinating and then slowly backing away and letting Ss teach each other; she showed them possibilities.
• She did certain subjects (reading and math) one on one because she didn’t want them to compare selves to each other
• Group review

My Experience in Learning Languages: Helps & Hindrances

1 .Good: when someone from other language group understands my L2, e.g. Cesar having me translate for people who spoke even worse Spanish than I did.

2. High school: visual materials for vocabulary helped. I so enjoyed memorizing words that I volunteered to help the teacher draw new ones (La Playa) for the overhead. Hey, maybe that’ll be a good way for me to learn new vocab items in MX: draw them.

3. HS: I hated language lab: isolating, embarrassing to be talking to yourself, dull tops.

4. HS: Attitude of teacher: made me feel bad as I fell behind. And when I lost interest she said, “You’ll never live past 30.” I gave up and hated the language (Spanish). In French, my teacher also hated me and I barely scraped by. Yet I had another French teacher whom I adored and I think I did better. I had a third who thought he was hip and I didn’t like him, but he did some pretty interesting (for the era) interactive exercises like having us do a research project and present it in French. (This was third year French.) So I went downtown and bought dozens of orders of McDonalds and Gino’s fries and lectured about them, concluding with a taste test for all Ss.

5. Good: Studying in Guatemala where you hear the real language all around you and have the need to use it.

6. Neutral to bad: Various classes and workshops I’ve taken. a) I felt the subject matter was irrelevant to my interests b) I felt stupider than everyone else and thus afraid to talk c) I didn’t have an immediate need for the language but only an abstract desire d) my friend was dying and life at home was hard e) I didn’t like nighttime classes.