10/25
During my visit today, I assisted Danury and Jose with writing sentences in English. They often needed some assistance from me and from google translate when they did not understand how to put their own thoughts down in English. Danury often forgot to put periods at the end of her sentences so I would remind her when she would ask me to check her work. Jose often struggled to put his thoughts together to form coherent thoughts, so I would communicate with him via Google Translate. I notice that he often struggles to understand what I am saying, even if it seems to be a basic question or answer that most of the other students would understand. I empathize with his frustrations and struggle to understand a second language clearly.
11/1
During my visit today, I assisted the students in blogging their thoughts and feelings about their home country. Jasmine told me that she is from Guatemala and was showing me several images of art from her home country that she admired. Jose told me about how he loved going to Roatan in his home country Honduras, I told him that I have been there before and was amazed at the land’s beauty. Once we finished the class discussion about where the students came from and where the students considered to be home, the students broke out into stations. I assisted Martin, Jose and two students from the neighboring class in an online activity where a student explains to the teacher why they are late to school. Jose and one boy from the other class struggled much more than Martin and the girl from the other class, who were able to get much further along in the activity than the other two.
11/8
During my visit today, I assisted Mr. Swem by explaining the definitions to vocabulary terms to the students (mostly Jose) before they did Quizlet live together as a class. After this activity, the students split up into stations and I was helping a group of students learn prepositions. I first helped Christopher, Carlos and Martin write English sentences in their notebooks with prepositions in the sentences, while explaining what each one said. I then played a preposition game with them where they had cards with sentences and corresponding pictures on them. Carlos, Martin and Christopher worked on matching each sentence with the correct preposition. Christopher and Martin seem to have a greater understanding of English, while I had to explain several terms to Carlos using gestures.
11/10
During my visit today, I assisted the students in reading portions of their textbook about different cultures around the world. Many of the students struggled to keep focus and I often had to read the text to them since it was challenging, especially Jose and Danury. I also assisted the students in their vocabulary activity before they practiced as a class via Quizlet live. After the vocabulary activity, Mr. Swem asked me to work with a different group of students than Monday for the same preposition activity. I helped Secia, Monica, and Christopher (different student than Monday) write English sentences with prepositions embedded within them and explain what each preposition meant. Like I did on Monday, I assisted these three students in addition to a few additional students from a neighboring classroom in the preposition game. After they attempted to match the correct preposition with each sentence, I would check their work and ask them to try again for the sentences that they misplaced. I noticed that some caught on much quicker than others. It can be challenging at times to try to ensure all students understand since all of the students have completely different backgrounds and exposure to the English language.
11/15
During my visit today, I was able to help the students with a vocabulary activity that covered terms used in a short clip about preservation of land in Alaska. I helped explain these terms using gestures, pictures and google translate to help the students understand the meaning of these terms. After the quizlet live activity where students tested their knowledge of these terms, the students broke out into stations again. I helped a group of students with a similar preposition activity where I assisted Erick, Carlos, Jose and Danury in writing down sentences with prepositions in them. Once they finished, I split the group in half so that each pair could work through the preposition game where they matched each sentence with the correct preposition. I would walk by and check their work, trying to explain why some were incorrect and give them hints about what the prepositions mean using hand gestures. After the students finished their stations, they were rewarded with gym time and thus, we all walked down to the gym together. I chose to play soccer with both Christopher’s, Yenur, Jose, Jasmine and Danury. The skill level of these students impressed me considering how young they all were. Christopher told me that he played soccer often in his home country of Honduras and enjoys playing here in the United States. I thoroughly enjoyed playing with these students as well as the playful Spanish banter that they each engaged in while we were playing.