Job Discussion Forums

[sunrader]

I've been asked to do a demo class, 30 min - hour, for a middle school. I want to impress them and make them feel comfortable by learning a little at the same time. I do not want to confuse them with instructions in only decent Spanish. I'm imagining these middle schoolers probalby know a little bit of basic English, like colors, greetings, counting to 10. i've done a very popular demo quite a few times on intonation using kazoos, but I don't have them and we're in swine flu country anyway. I was considering a mapping activity with simple directions but afraid the map will confuse them initially because it's unlikely they've used one. Also, considering something with cognates to show how much vocabulary they already know without realizing it, but it's a small rural school, and I'm not sure how high the Spanish reading level will be. Suggestions?

[ronge]

I was very interested in what you were doing there, where ever you are in Mexico, partly because I would be interested in volunteering to do the same sometime. I know this is probably too late to offer any suggestions, but if it's not, I have some. Otherwise I would like to know how things turned out.

I haven't done many posts on this forum, but I have read many over the past year or so and usually just stay quiet. I've done some presentations for ESL teachers in the past. So I was just fascinated enough with your experience with the teachers and being invited to do a demo lesson to want to let you know that some other folks who may not have joined the conversation early enough to be helpful support what you have been doing. Let me repeat, if you already did this lesson, let us know how it turned out!

[sunrader]

The lesson went very well. The students were about 13 years old and, yes, there were 50 of them. They were a bit rowdy but I expected that, so I spent a lot of energy walking among them, clowning with them, grabbing their attention as individuals, etc. and this alone impressed the teachers. I decided to do the lesson on listening for numbers, starting with the difference between forty/fourteen, etc. Remember I had no idea what facilities I would have so I knew listening/speaking was my best bet. The choice of numbers listening satisfied all the requirements, especially being easily scalable and easy to explain, since I had no idea going in what their level would be. I know from experience that even my advanced college students who have had English for a while, still struggle with listening for numbers, so I knew I would be able to adjust quickly to the students' level. I introduced a few cognates like tacos, melons, radios, and the phrases, I have and I want, so that we could make sentences that I knew they'd understand really quickly with those and numbers. And we went from there, about 45-50 minutes. They were engaged and interested and I'm pretty sure they learned a few things and felt good about their ability to understand. I know it was a good lesson cuz I was kinda exhausted afterwards.
We never ended up scheduling the teacher demo but that's just the way these things go, it's a really slow paced environment, and stuff doesn't always get done.

I'd be interested to know what topic you would have covered under similar circumstances, not knowing what you'd have to work with, I mean.