Again, I’m writing this several days after the fact so my memory is weak. But this class seemed to go less well than the first. I sensed less interest o the part of the students. There was some nice laughter and cheerful moments, and I had a lot of things planned. I think in retrospect that the class lacks a direction or focus that the students need. We talk about each other’s weeks. My assignment for them was for each to bring an object of importance to them, and everyone completed the assignment. I thought that was an interesting thing. I asked a few follow up questions and also invited the students to ask each other questions. Two students brought alebrijes, one brought photos of her son at various ages, one brought chocolate that you can get only in her hometown a few hours from here, another brought a photo of his daughters when they’d won reconocimientos at school, one brought a photo of her new dog that she displayed on her cellphone, and another showed pictures on my computer of his cat. Students may have been a little bored, but I think it was a good “get to know each other” and conversation exercise. We were joined by a new student, a young woman who is shy and was worried about her competency, but she’s solid and I told her so afterwards.

I began the class again with a Mad Lib: this one a full one. I’d written key words on the board first. (It was about dinosaurs.) Then I had one student ask for the words and the others supply them. I thought the result was hysterical. The others, maybe a little less so. I told them, “I’m doing these because *I* like them.” I don’t know if honesty is the best policy.

I collected everyone’s ideas (part of the homework) for topics they’d like to discuss in class. To my horror, they have vanished before I’ve even had a chance to read them. I hope I can find them in the office. I’ll be mortified if I have to ask again. I’d made a special little suggestion box and everything. One girl asked that we do “modals.” I was surprised, since that’s beyond the level of the class. But upon further questioning I learned (I think) that she means idioms. Good suggestion. She also asked that we learn about new things in the class. I take that as a sign that the class lacks direction and focus. She’d like to go in depth to learn about stuff she doesn’t know. Of course, content-based instruction is something I’m very interested in (or topic-based) but that adds a whole new level of complexity to preparation and research. Based on that, however, I think I may seize the opportunity to do something with John Henry and the industrial revolution. And if they seem to like the deep (rather than broad, as I’ve been doing) topical approach, perhaps they can research something and present it themselves.

I’m not sure but I think I did a good job with the ending of the class. I’d prepared part of the lesson plan specifically to model the homework, building on a lesson plan I did at SIT. I brought with me a laminated picture of the woods in West Virginia, passed it around and solicited and wrote on the board descriptive words, and then told a story that including setting, characters and sequence of actions. (When the spider jumped on me when Dad & I took a walk). Afterwards I asked them to tell me what happened first, second… last. And I had prepared a handout with the homework on it: for them to write about a place with a memory. I’d included specific prompts. I’ll be interested to see what people come up with, but that felt like a solid and tangible part of the class. I want to try to give handouts for homework from now on. At their level of English, I’m guessing it might give them more security — and I might get more what I’m looking for. I had no written assignment for my first teenager class, but rather explained it in detail. And what I got was pretty thin — due I believe to the weakness of the directions rather than the students’ capabilities.

In the first week when I recorded everyone for the blog, I transcribed their words, including “ums” and other fillers. I did an exercise in which I played Nayeon, who uses lots of them. I asked them to listen for them once, and then listen again and raise their hand when they hear them. Then I asked if that’s a bad or good thing to do in spoken language. They went silent. Again, I get didactic. So I picked up the deflated ball and said that those kinds of things are useful both for listeners (I equated it with music, which needs rises and falls and pauses) and for speakers (who need time to think).

We were gonna do Forrest Gump because several people had volunteered to bring speakers, but no one did because the connection didn’t match my computer.

I see that my students have some trouble with to be in the present and past (she were, he are…) and with gender pronouns (she/he/him/her) so I brought my stuffed chipmunk and threw it at the students with questions. Q: “The man went to the store. Who went to the story?” A: “HE went to the store.” I did only about half a dozen or so. The class time was over and I don’t know how much it worked.

I like the freedom I have with this class, but infer that the students still need more of a sense of direction, rather than a sequence of disconnected conversation practice activities. I could string them together with grammar forms, or by topic. I have a few days to decide. I do like the idea of getting to idioms.

Gotta run to Spanish class now. It’s colder than hell out.