I observed Kim’s class today. Aside from her level of energy being dauntingly high and her voice loud without variation, she was incredibly inspiring to watch. I love seeing the products of a good brain. So many clever ideas.

She had a clever thing for Valentine’s Day. She’d made a copy for everyone of a poem and had folded it and given it to them. One of the first key words was “crease,” and by presented them folded she had an easy way to define it. She repeats a LOT. “He folded it up. And then he unfolded it. And then he folded it up again. And then unfolded it…” Great idea. She paired people and asked them to consider where the poet was when he wrote the poem, and what might be his relationship with its recipient. What was so clever was that she, without explicity stating it, used the poem as a metaphor for how we understand language. When people had finished postulating, she pointed out, “He didn’t say that, but we are able to imagine it.”

Here are some bullet points of what I saw:

• Explanation of playing hookey. “Instead of going to school they decided to play hookey.” She defined it by what it wasn’t. They guessed “skipped class” and she reinforced it by Ferris Bueller’s DAY OFF.
• She’s a ham. She has the kids chuckling.
• What we’re going to do is x because of y. Other times she pointed out that she was doing something in response to their stated needs.
• Directions. Who can explain what’s going to happen.
• She did tons of idioms and cultural references.
• Make matching sentences for kids. Dinosaurs died out———–x years ago.
• Go ahead. Find your partner. She’s very loud. She put on music in bg while they looked.
• Request for action, request for permission, ability, expectation (modals) ought, should, may, would it be possible, could, would you mind, will you please,
• She uses different parts of the room for peripherals.
• She has people write sentences (after they matched sentence halves) on board and read them. Then identify their grammatical role (or other purpose). It’s a good way to get people to speak in proper english.
• She points to the agenda as she goes along. Erases them when they’re done. Where are we at on our agenda? What’s next?
• Context for music. She played something funny (Let’s call the whole thing off), which they liked. Ain’t no bugs on me. She wrote idioms on the board as they were sung. She explored the song a little: essentials of its meaning, and a phrasal verb in it, and that she played it to show them differences in pronunciation.
• She uses excerpts of other people’s writings as grammar-repair exercises. But she has an overhead projector to look at them. But I could write a few sentences up on the board and get feedback. First without identifying location of errors.
• “It’s hard work but you’re doing it.”
• She is better than I at allowing silences after questions! It’s effective.
• For writing assignment, ask people: Do you want me to do nothing, check grammar but not correct, or correct.