Breaks

One of the big challenges with a group of kids, no matter how small, is maintaining their attention. Two hours is a long class for adults and it must seem interminable for kids.

Knowing that, I have tried to build in some physical, artistic and other exercises to break the monotony of the workbook and the intensity of the cognitive processing. In our unit on health, I used movement songs related to the body and naming body parts. The kids’ faces illuminated during these sessions. However, after the class Elka talked about the “twenty minute rule,” which calls for a variation of pace — stretching, movement or other change of gears — at these regular intervals. I’m having a hard time thinking of such activities that don’t break the flow of the class and seem arbitrary, and also those that carry through a language objective from one phase to the next. But I was excited to hear about the “rule” because it was plain to me that my students needed a break. I’d thought I had to keep plunging through without one, punctuation only with a variety of exercise types when I could.

For my next lesson plan I consciously put these “gear-shifts” at regular intervals, and marked them in the document table with a different color background to be able at a glance to see if they were spread across the lesson plan somewhat evenly. Sometimes these are transitional moments and at other times breaks in continuous action. Even after a few sessions since then, I still find it difficult to make them smooth: as part of the lesson plan rather than something artificially overlaid. I’m working on it, and have built in these “cognitive load rests” in all my classes.

Maximizing

Another area that I’ve been rethinking since Elka’s visit is the idea of “maximizing” learning opportunities, and “recycling” whenever I see an opportunity. Because I am driven by a very fast (too fast, for these learners) curriculum, I’m always feeling under pressure to get through the material. I always have developed a variety of supplementary activities that I think reinforce the lesson in a more engaging and effective way than in the book, and I’m eager to include those too. So I always feels I’m at the helm of a speeding bus, with no time to brake and downshift.

But after her observation Elka pointed out numerous instances where, in very little time, I could have maximized material in the lesson: sometimes based on the response from a student, and sometimes where I  just didn’t take full advantage of material at hand. She pointed out one such missed opportunity, when a girl began to tell a story and I just said something like “good” when I could have seized the moment to engage her and the others in deeper discussion. Upon reflection, I feel I missed many opportunities like that — what Elka calls “teachable moments” — often not because I didn’t recognize them, but because I felt I had so much ground to cover that I couldn’t stop. Elka has pointed out that these expansions take only a minute and that it’s important to grab them when they’re in front of us, because they’re ideal built-in lessons.

Peripherals & White Board

Another missed learning opportunity that Elka noticed was the absence of peripherals and other enrichment materials on the white board. While I use the WB a lot for various writings, I don’t have any constant visual or content reinforcement always. For example, I was working with the kids on “should” and “shouldn’t” and “I/myself” pairings. I had those up on the board while we were working on them, but once they were taken down they never again were part of the classroom environment. It is a challenge when one has to set up and take down before and after each class, and the next class begins 1:00 later. I can get the kids to help with that, but it is difficult. Still, I think there’s room to include some visual and language interest to the environment.

T Tendency Toward Predictable Patterns

Because my brain in a classroom setting needs certain patterns so I don’t get lost, I always call on kids in the same order. While that method helps me, it bores the students with its predictability. They know instinctively when they do and don’t have to pay attention (except for Sharon and Luz, who never pay attention, and I think that’s because this class is beyond their level).

Elka suggested that I vary the ways I engage the kids: call on them in different orders, for example. Since, I’ve also brought in an object to toss randomly to engage their attention as I ask the recipient a question. I’m more attentive to breaking up the predictable and trying to surprise them a little, hopefully as one tool to help hold their interest better.

Content vs. Pronunciation and Grammar

I’m always so proud of them when they’re able to communicate with me — to find the right vocabulary — that I praise them for that, overlooking the fundamental language structure that underlies it. As a result, as Elka pointed out, I’m blind to pronunciation and structural errors: ones that are repetitive among all the students. I find it particularly hard with the children to capture and explore these errors, because they struggle so much with the basics.

However, I agree that the more I let pass an incorrect structure or a recurring pronunciation problem, the more I’m reinforcing its erroneous usage. So I am now attentive to these language matters and willing to intervene, as they occur, so that students don’t learn the wrong form from one another.

Transitions

I still have a hard time with them. In concert with my attention to the need for breaks, I hope to work more on them. This will be one of my questions for Elka during our last supervision next week: to make suggestions on my transitions.

Functioning as a Group

I generally have stood in front of the students as the teacher, calling on one student at a time. Not only do I need to randomize who and how I choose, I need to develop more group activities that make the “I,” “Thou,” “It” triangle more symmetrical. More task-based work is in order. It is difficult to give these children tasks and to keep them ON task, because two of them giggle and get distracted and go off-topic rather than stick to the task. I can break those two up, but they tend to inspire all the others to “riot.” The topic, of course, has to engage them. But even then they are challenging and, as mentioned above, I think it’s because they’re in a class so far above their level of competence.

That brings up the whole issue of “the institution” and why they drive these kids so far past their abilities — yet it’s not borne of a belief that the children can succeed, but only that they need to move on. That’s a topic for my journal.