ESL/ESL class summaries and lesson plans: Difference between revisions

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== Wed Mar 19 ==

We had 8 students tonight and 3 new students!

* We worked through a listening exercise about voicemail messages and had the students practice creating different kinds of voicemail recordings.

* Students worked through some exercises where we asked questions about different pictures of families and answered in English ("How many adults are there in this family?", "How many children are there?")

** Shane caught that one of the new students was pronouncing the "es" sound instead of "s", so we did some examples of pronunciation for words like "strategies", and "students". We've seen this come up with "estudiante" vs "student" in the past, so using that example was helpful.

* Read a paragraph about family sizes in the US that had a pie chart to go along with it. Had the students read individually and then as a class to repeat after me. Students answered questions about the paragraph and practiced asking each other about their families.

== Sundays Mar 2 & 16 ==

Note: no class March 9

Opened with Hail Mary prayer

On Mar 2 we had two students, one of whom is taking the Arlington Adult Ed intensive ESL class. That student is working on Prepositions, so we spent these two past sessions reviewing how/why/what of prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Key ideas:

* prepositions connect a noun to another sentence part (a noun or verb) in order to add information to it

* prepositions are some of very common, constituting 8 of the top 20 most often used words in English

* prepositional phrases are modifiers - they add information

** prepositional phrases act as adjectives or adverbs

* the preposition is selected according to the type of modification needed

** location, distance, time, purpose, ownership. ,etc.

On March 16

* Prepositions definitions worksheet

* practice problems for Arlington ESL class student's test the coming week

* such as

<blockquote>He wants to make a trip ____ the world.

Tom prefers to study ____ the morning

I'll be away ____ ten minutes

I'll be back ____ ten minutes</blockquote>

* Answers to these questions are NOT intuitive

* but they are also not idiomatic - there is a rule:

<blockquote>He wants to make a trip __around__ the world. << location & duration in terms of circling, from place to place ("around")

Tom prefers to study _in___ the morning << time & duration in terms of when an event happened ("in")

I'll be away __for__ ten minutes << duration in terms of how long ("for")

I'll be back_in__ ten minutes << time in terms of when the event will happen ("in")</blockquote>

== Wed Jan 15 ==

We had five students tonight.

Overview:

* Spent the majority of class reviewing the Christmas vocabulary sheet. Sat with the students and went around the group and had each student pronounce the next word then practice together.

** Pulled up images on the projector for words that students may be less familiar with . like "wreath", "holly", "shepherds", and "poinsettia". It was fun to hear the students give the different names for things like how poinsettias are nochebuenas in Mexico, but called flor de pascua in Guatemala.

** Reviewed some of the trickier words on the board (holy vs holly) and (Mr., Mrs., and Ms.)

* Had students review family member vocab with an exercise on the board. I pulled up a family tree from the Step Forward books and had the students answer questions individually and then write the answers on the board.

* While the students were working on the exercise I worked with a new student who is very new to English. He came in with a completed packet of worksheets he got from last Sunday.

** We started going over the first two pages. He was getting the idea of two or more people using "they", for a man "he", a woman "she". With the conjugation of "to be" he had a little more trouble. I gave him some examples in English and Spanish but ran out of time.

* We ended class with the Hail Mary. I handed out the last of your prayer cards (sorry Michael!)

Thoughts for next time:

* Would like to get to possessive pronouns next week. Would allow us to build off of past vocab and lessons. (my brother, your aunt, my arm hurts, etc).

* Was speaking with Michael after class about how to best help newer students, and especially students with little or no classroom experience. There is a bit of an added learning curve to just pick up how to fill out worksheets or practice things in class. With time our students will pick these things up, but may be worth circling back and making sure we cover class room relevant phrases. During class today after I said "let's repeat together" and waved my hands around, Julio looked to one of the students and asked "junto" and they quickly explained which was a great help.

** Phrases around "I do not understand", "repeat", "say", "listen", "write" may be a good starting point.

* On the other side of the coin, it may be helpful just to start with phrases that would be used frequently and help students day to day life. A friend of mine in school studied to be a Spanish teacher, and at the time (over ten years ago!) the trend was to start with teaching phrases to get the students speaking and immersed in the language, then layer in grammar. At the time I thought that was odd because I always appreciated the structure and rules around why each word is chosen, but not everyone learns the same way. Now I have come to appreciate that idea more because it can get you more engaged faster. This could all be out of date, and I'm not a professional, but could be an interesting way to introduce new material.

** This is a very long winded way of saying that it may help to come up with common phrases for students to practice out in the world. Asking about bus stops can help introduce letters and numbers, and the metro gives us a chance to learn and practice colors.

** Michael's worksheets on dialogue practice is a great jumping off point here.

== Sun, Jan 12 ==

[[File:2025-01-12 ESL class whiteboard.pdf|border|thumb|500x500px|<small>2025-01-12 ESL class whiteboard</small>]]

We forgot to start with prayer, as students were late to arrive

* but we eventually got in a Hail Mary and then we closed with another, using the Rosary card handout

* We had a new student who knows almost no English, so it became a good opportunity to ask our other student who also started from near zero to help

** she explained the "do" question/ answer lessons that we worked on last week

* so the class was essentially reinforcing that last

* a few big "do" breakthroughs that the students found helpful:

** to see how the word "do" goes from question to answer (statement) by its placement:

*** i.e. Do you have a pen >> I do have a pen Subject | Verb Subject | Verb

**** in a question: "do" support auxiliary verb goes before subject

**** in a statement: "do" support auxiliary verb goes after subject

** how "do" can add emphasis:

*** ''I do like that dress!''

** how "do" can be "naked", i.e. present but not stated

*** ''I [do] like pizza''

* our new student struggled with commands or instructions

** so we read Matthew 8:5 about the centurion in Spanish (Mateo 8:5)

*** I say "go" and he "goes" (''y digo a este: “Ve”, y va'')

** and worked on "Say 'hello', "Repeat after me..." etc.

* we then split into two and worked with students individually on

** higher level:

*** abbreviations

*** contractions

** lower level:

*** numbers and money

== Sun Jan 5 ==

[[File:ESL Lesson-06 week of Jan 5.pdf|thumb|248x248px|Lesson Plan 6, Jan 4, 2025]]

* [[File:Christmas-New Years vocabulary.pdf|thumb|248x248px|Handout: Christmas & New Years vocabulary]]Started with "do" "did" questions and responses

** we modeled conversations, such as

*** "Did you have a nice Christmas?"

*** "Do you go to the movies"

*** "Take this handout"

** which led to the question: "What did I forget to do"

*** (excellent opportunity for identifying infinitives as objects!)

** which led to prayer because Michael forget to start with prayer

** note that these forms of "do" are either

*** imperatives (questions)

*** "do-support" forms of "do" as an auxiliary verb in a declarative sentence

*** btw, students are familiar from Spanish with the terms "imperative" and "declarative", which we don't use much in

* we did the Hail Mary, Glory Be, and Oh My Jesus prayers from the Rosary

** students are getting more comfortable with reciting these in English

** repetition is super helpful

* the larger skill set is to recognize the question and answer it using the information in the question

** ex.

*** Question: ''Why is the sky blue?''

**** = interrogatory

*** Sta1ement: ''T1he sky is blue''

**** = declaratory

** so when asked

*** ''Do you know what is Advent?''

** drop the question words "Do you" and turn it into a declaratory statement

*** ''I do know what Advent is''

** [[File:Christmas-New Years conversation.pdf|thumb|251x251px|Christmas and New Year's conversation practice]]this led to an interesting and difficult exercise as to:

*** Turn the following question into a statement:

**** ''Why do we use candles for Christmas?''

*** students wanted to answer the question, so we had to walk them back to turning an interrogatory into a declarative sentence, which would be:

**** ''We use candles for Christmas.''

** from there they were better able to see how an answer to a question uses information in the question itself, such as

*** ''Did you know that Christmas Eve is the last day of Advent?''

*** ''I did not know that Christmas Eve is the last day of Advent.''

* a complication we encountered in interrogatories came up as regards to definite and indefinite articles and determiners

** ex.

*** ''Did you get any presents?''

**** "any" is indefinite (general)

*** the answer would be

**** ''I did get some presents''

***** where "any" is indefinite "some" is definite

** this is something to continue to work on

* from there we reviewed the Christmas Vocabulary worksheet and discussed various terms and ideas from it

** a productive exercise was to read the day's Gospel from [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/2?1 Matthew 2:1] about the Magi

*** we compared the English to the Spanish (using [https://www.biblegateway.com/ BibleGateway.com])

*** we discussed the meaning of the passage in both English and Spanish, both for language and Scripture)

** Michael learned that "pastor" in Spanish means "shepherd" !

== Wed Dec 11 ==

* Started and ended class with the Hail Mary

** discussed how words like "thy" and "thou" are not common in modern English

* The rest of class focused on the Thanksgiving Day vocabulary.

** We went over the family section as a class to review last week's lesson.

** Then broke into small groups to review the new words and pronunciation.

** Words like "mashed" were difficult for most students

** It helped to pull up pictures to show examples of certain items like "cornucopia"

** or to show the difference between a place mat, a table cloth, and a table runner.

* We used the tip to emphasize the last consonant in a word.

== Sun Dec 8 ==

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 <small>[[ESL|back to ESL main page]]</small>
+== Wed Mar 19 ==
+We had 8 students tonight and 3 new students!
+* We worked through a listening exercise about voicemail messages and had the students practice creating     different kinds of voicemail recordings.
+* Students worked through some exercises where we asked questions about different pictures of families and answered in English ("How many adults are there in this family?", "How many children are there?")
+** Shane caught that one of the new students was pronouncing the "es" sound instead of "s", so we did some examples of pronunciation for words like "strategies", and "students". We've seen this come up with "estudiante" vs "student" in the past, so using that example was helpful.
+* Read a paragraph about family sizes in the US that had a pie chart to go along with it. Had the students read individually and then as a class to repeat after me. Students answered questions about the paragraph and practiced asking each other about their families.
+== Sundays Mar 2 & 16 ==
+Note: no class March 9
+Opened with Hail Mary prayer
+On Mar 2 we had two students, one of whom is taking the Arlington Adult Ed intensive ESL class. That student is working on Prepositions, so we spent these two past sessions reviewing how/why/what of prepositions and prepositional phrases.
+Key ideas:
+* prepositions connect a noun to another sentence part (a noun or verb) in order to add information to it
+* prepositions are some of very common, constituting 8 of the top 20 most often used words in English
+* prepositional phrases are modifiers - they add information
+** prepositional phrases act as adjectives or adverbs
+* the preposition is selected according to the type of modification needed
+** location, distance, time, purpose, ownership. ,etc.
+On March 16
+* Prepositions definitions worksheet
+* practice problems for Arlington ESL class student's test the coming week
+* such as
+<blockquote>He wants to make a trip ____ the world.
+Tom prefers to study  ____ the morning
+I'll be away ____ ten minutes
+I'll be back ____ ten minutes</blockquote>
+* Answers to these questions are NOT intuitive
+* but they are also not idiomatic - there is a rule:
+<blockquote>He wants to make a trip __around__ the world.  << location & duration in terms of circling, from place to place ("around")
+Tom prefers to study  _in___ the morning   << time & duration in terms of when an event happened ("in")
+I'll be away __for__ ten minutes  << duration in terms of how long ("for")
+I'll be back_in__ ten minutes  << time in terms of when the event will happen ("in")</blockquote>
+== Wed Jan 15 ==
+We had five students tonight.
+Overview:
+* Spent the majority of class reviewing the Christmas vocabulary sheet. Sat with the students and went around the group and had each student pronounce the next word then practice together.
+** Pulled up images on the projector for words that students may be less familiar with . like "wreath", "holly", "shepherds", and "poinsettia". It was fun to hear the students give the different names for things like how poinsettias are nochebuenas in Mexico, but called flor de pascua in Guatemala.
+** Reviewed some of the trickier words on the board (holy vs holly) and (Mr., Mrs., and Ms.)
+* Had students review family member vocab with an exercise on the board. I pulled up a family tree from the Step Forward books and had the students answer questions individually and then write the answers on the board.
+* While the students were working on the exercise I worked with a new student who is very new to English. He came in with a completed packet of worksheets he got from last Sunday.
+** We started going over the first two pages. He was getting the idea of two or more people using "they", for a man "he", a woman "she". With the conjugation of "to be" he had a little more trouble. I gave him some examples in English and Spanish but ran out of time.
+* We ended class with the Hail Mary. I handed out the last of your prayer cards (sorry Michael!)
+Thoughts for next time:
+* Would like to get to possessive pronouns next week. Would allow us to build off of past vocab and lessons. (my brother, your aunt, my arm hurts, etc).
+* Was speaking with Michael after class about how to best help newer students, and especially students with little or no classroom experience. There is a bit of an added learning curve to just pick up how to fill out worksheets or practice things in class. With time our students will pick these things up, but may be worth circling back and making sure we cover class room relevant phrases. During class today after I said "let's repeat together" and waved my hands around, Julio looked to one of the students and asked "junto" and they quickly explained which was a great help.
+** Phrases around "I do not understand", "repeat", "say", "listen", "write" may be a good starting point.
+* On the other side of the coin, it may be helpful just to start with phrases that would be used frequently and help students day to day life. A friend of mine in school studied to be a Spanish teacher, and at the time (over ten years ago!) the trend was to start with teaching phrases to get the students speaking and immersed in the language, then layer in grammar. At the time I thought that was odd because I always appreciated the structure and rules around why each word is chosen, but not everyone learns the same way. Now I have come to appreciate that idea more because it can get you more engaged faster. This could all be out of date, and I'm not a professional, but could be an interesting way to introduce new material.
+** This is a very long winded way of saying that it may help to come up with common phrases for students to practice out in the world. Asking about bus stops can help introduce letters and numbers, and the metro gives us a chance to learn and practice colors.
+** Michael's worksheets on dialogue practice is a great jumping off point here.
+== Sun, Jan 12 ==
+[[File:2025-01-12 ESL class whiteboard.pdf|border|thumb|500x500px|<small>2025-01-12 ESL class whiteboard</small>]]
+We forgot to start with prayer, as students were late to arrive
+* but we eventually got in a Hail Mary and then we closed with another, using the Rosary card handout
+* We had a new student who knows almost no English, so it became a good opportunity to ask our other student who also started from near zero to help
+** she explained the "do" question/ answer lessons that we worked on last week
+* so the class was essentially reinforcing that last
+* a few big "do" breakthroughs that the students found helpful:
+** to see how the word "do" goes from question to answer (statement) by its placement:
+*** i.e.  Do you have a pen >> I do have a pen   Subject |   Verb      Subject | Verb
+**** in a question: "do" support auxiliary verb goes before subject
+**** in a statement: "do" support auxiliary verb goes after subject
+** how "do" can add emphasis:
+*** ''I do like that dress!''
+** how "do" can be "naked", i.e. present but not stated
+*** ''I [do] like pizza''
+* our new student struggled with commands or instructions
+** so we read Matthew 8:5 about the centurion in Spanish (Mateo 8:5)
+*** I say "go" and he "goes" (''y digo a este: “Ve”, y va'')
+** and worked on "Say 'hello', "Repeat after me..." etc.
+* we then split into two and worked with students individually on
+** higher level:
+*** abbreviations
+*** contractions
+** lower level:
+*** numbers and money
+== Sun Jan 5 ==
+[[File:ESL Lesson-06 week of Jan 5.pdf|thumb|248x248px|Lesson Plan 6, Jan 4, 2025]]
+* [[File:Christmas-New Years vocabulary.pdf|thumb|248x248px|Handout: Christmas & New Years vocabulary]]Started with "do" "did" questions and responses
+** we modeled conversations, such as
+*** "Did you have a nice Christmas?"
+*** "Do you go to the movies"
+*** "Take this handout"
+** which led to the question: "What did I forget to do"
+*** (excellent opportunity for identifying infinitives as objects!)
+** which led to prayer because Michael forget to start with prayer
+** note that these forms of "do" are either
+*** imperatives (questions)
+*** "do-support" forms of "do" as an auxiliary verb in a declarative sentence
+*** btw, students are familiar from Spanish with the terms "imperative" and "declarative", which we don't use much in
+* we did the Hail Mary, Glory Be, and Oh My Jesus prayers from the Rosary
+** students are getting more comfortable with reciting these in English
+** repetition is super helpful
+* the larger skill set is to recognize the question and answer it using the information in the question
+** ex.
+*** Question: ''Why is the sky blue?''
+**** = interrogatory
+*** Sta1ement: ''T1he sky is blue''
+**** = declaratory
+** so when asked
+*** ''Do you know what is Advent?''
+** drop the question words "Do you" and turn it into a declaratory statement
+*** ''I do know what Advent is''
+** [[File:Christmas-New Years conversation.pdf|thumb|251x251px|Christmas and New Year's conversation practice]]this led to an interesting and difficult exercise as to:
+*** Turn the following question into a statement:
+**** ''Why do we use candles for Christmas?''
+*** students wanted to answer the question, so we had to walk them back to turning an interrogatory into a declarative sentence, which would be:
+**** ''We use candles for Christmas.''
+** from there they were better able to see how an answer to a question uses information in the question itself, such as
+*** ''Did you know that Christmas Eve is the last day of Advent?''
+*** ''I did not know that Christmas Eve is the last day of Advent.''
+* a complication we encountered in interrogatories came up as regards to definite and indefinite articles and determiners
+** ex.
+*** ''Did you get any presents?''
+**** "any" is indefinite (general)
+*** the answer would be
+**** ''I did get some presents''
+***** where "any" is indefinite "some" is definite
+** this is something to continue to work on
+* from there we reviewed the Christmas Vocabulary worksheet and discussed various terms and ideas from it
+** a productive exercise was to read the day's Gospel from [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/2?1 Matthew 2:1] about the Magi
+*** we compared the English to the Spanish (using [https://www.biblegateway.com/ BibleGateway.com])
+*** we discussed the meaning of the passage in both English and Spanish, both for language and Scripture)
+** Michael learned that "pastor" in Spanish means "shepherd" !
+== Wed Dec 11 ==
+* Started and ended class with the Hail Mary
+** discussed how words like "thy" and "thou" are not common in modern English
+* The rest of class focused on the Thanksgiving Day vocabulary.
+** We went over the family section as a class to review last week's lesson.
+** Then broke into small groups to review the new words and pronunciation.
+** Words like "mashed" were difficult for most students
+** It helped to pull up pictures to show examples of certain items like "cornucopia"
+** or to show the difference between a place mat, a table cloth, and a table runner.
+* We used the tip to emphasize the last consonant in a word.
 == Sun Dec 8 ==