Organization Do you begin and end classes on time? I virtually always begin class on time. I ask my students to show up a few minutes early, so we can begin exactly on the minute. Rationale: We have limited time in class and I don’t want to waste any; and punctuality is an important academic skill.…
It is the end of the first week of a new semester. The longer I teach, the grumpier I get. I am still very warm to my students, encouraging and supportive, but I have diminishing patience for students with attitude. If a student is engaged and trying to understand, my fuse is fairly long. But…
I’ve just finished another semester at Ohlone, and my first of being half-time teaching and half-time administration. (I taught Level 4 Grammar this past summer.) Here are some things I’d like to consider before I begin another semester. Some come from what I’ve learned the past few months, and some from what I’ve read. This…
I don’t think that makes sense, that title. I’ve been making less sense lately. I hope to start making more sense soon. In the meantime, bear with me. Tomorrow is the first day of a new semester. I have never maintained the practice I should have, to register my thoughts and experiences about teaching: to…
I wish there’d been time for more writing of reflections. The things I reflected upon in real-time tended not to be the predictable byproducts of the curriculum, but rather tangential and sometimes in opposition to what was happening in the classroom. Documented reflected practice is impossible without sacrificing something else important. I decided to pour…
During college, I was talking with two classmates about what we’d learned in various classes: what had (and hadn’t) been tangibly valuable. “You know the class that I thought was great?” I asked. I told them. One started nodding her head in enthusiastic agreement, and the other looked at me as though I were from…
“I sweat when I teach.” — Maggie Smith, instructor Best way to learn is thru workshops, not books. FL Teach is a listserv for foreign language teachers. It’s where she learned about TPRs: Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. It’s not related to TPR (at least not any longer) Helps with problem of how to…
I had an interesting experience in Spanish class tonight. It was the first time I’d been in over two weeks, since the PIMs had been on vacation for a week and I’d missed a week’s worth (i.e. two) classes after that. The last class I went to, the students divided into cliques, and I felt…
Here are some things that have helped ADHD students: Walk to a different area — different room or even different corner of room to teach a new concept. Give test in same area as they learned about that subject, or where they studied, or HOW they studied (same music, etc.) so memory of place helps…
While singing to each other after class today, Curtis and I made a discovery about Mr. Rogers: he’s the modal man. It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood, A neighborly day for a…
The deadline to hand in my site report was only a little over a week after I returned from Mexico. I was exhausted and overwhelmed, upset in the aftermath of my experience there, aspects of which (homestay, aspects of teaching) had been negative. After talking to colleagues and considering the situation from an ethical perspective,…
My supervisor said I needed to intervene in correction both earlier and more often, especially with high-frequency or often repeated errors. It’s true. Yet I need to figure out how to do that without it seeming like interrupting all the time, because I believe that raises the affective filter. What I’ve been doing is to…
Whenever I talk to Magdalena about a school-related matter, she tells me things I think she should have told me sooner. Her theory, I imagine, is “let her find it out for herself.” I’d prefer more… scaffolding. If she knows that a particular child has a particular problem with a particular thing, withholding it doesn’t…
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…
A lot to catch up on. I need to post my lesson plans in here. As I think I mentioned, I’ve been taking a two-hour a day, five day a week Spanish intensive course. It’s, in theory, a great thing to do when you’re teaching, just as a therapist sees her own therapist. I learn…
Sarah and I went on a tour of two villages near San Cristobal de las Casas. The tour was in Spanish but the guide also spoke English and said to ask him if I had any questions. His Spanish was extremely fast so even Sarah had to work to get it. At our first stop…
I’m glad to see a textbook author with a great sense of subtle humor. Yet I still can’t make myself study. Dorothy Devney Richmond, writing in the Practice Makes Perfect series, is quite entertaining. In Spanish Verb Tenses (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1996) she has lots of fun hiding “Easter eggs” in the practice exercises. On…
Another anxiety dream. No purpose in putting it here but why not? I was with Jess (Cert colleague) trying to cross a long bridge over probably the San Francisco Bay, first by car and then on foot. Accidents and construction areas abounded, as we (and a million other cars), going way too fast, swerved at…
I’m in Delaware, sitting at the little round breakfast table in the kitchen, watching cardinals hop through the snow and reading my e-mail. I got a Facebook-y from Cesar Coy in Guatemala and was trying to translate it with Molly’s help. “How on earth will you teach English in Mexico when you can’t speak Spanish?”…
Always model things before expecting students to do it. Classes should be: interactive, participatory, communicative. Reflect: If you do it well, what was good; if something went awry, why? You want each student to leave each class with at least one success. Tardiness & Homework in Mexico Tardiness is epidemic. Some ideas to deal with…
I’m supposed to be packing now. Molly’s here, downstairs reading. I should be down with her. I should be paying bills. I should do some serious thinking in order to get this journaling kicked in the proverbial pants. In 36 hours I’ll be leaving Vermont, hoping that I have everything essential with me: the proper…
Yesterday I called Magda in Mexico and succeeded in reaching her. I’m worrying about everything: what will she be like (she sounds a bit brusque and bossy)? How will it be to live AND work with her, and perhaps do recreational things as well? So there’s that. And then there are the logistics: how and…
“Sometimes I’ll call upon an attitude of some of my old teachers. If there’s a character of, say, a rather pompous man who lays down the law but is actually very amiable, I will think of a man called John Brantston. And say, ‘May I have a word with you?’ “Or a rather more steely…
From Regina’s paper: one motivation for students is in involving them in curriculum planning. Sometimes when students don’t participate it’s because that material isn’t meaningful to them, or their self-confidence is low. Structured activities give everyone a role and responsibility and thus more accountability and sense of expectation. Build accountability into exercises. Clear expectations. Tatiana…
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…
Little by little I’m starting to see some patterns of my interests in the field, and where they intersect with what I already know and care about. I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do when I leave here. I may not want to teach ESL at all. But there is overlap…
David Sedaris has written a lot of funny stuff about second-language-learning. Here’s this about avoidance: Living in France, he avoids natives whenever he can, since his linguistic inadequacies come into full bloom during live conversation. But if he were in prison, he postulates, then he’d have nowhere to hide. He imagines asking a fellow prisoner…
In Panama, they don’t want to learn English; they want to learn American (accent). They want jobs at a call center. High motivation. Namibian: no standards on African vs. American vs. English English That’s the end of the notes I took. I am very interested in this subject, having written a paper on it. Yet…
I just had a long talk with Nita from Nepal. She’s taking advanced English and is very unhappy with the teacher. The teacher, she says, is knowledgeable but doesn’t know how to transmit the knowledge so she isn’t learning anything. The class started out with twenty people and now has four or five. But it’s…
