Larry TP 2

This evening, I met with Rosa and Miyra from 4:00 pm to 5:25 pm. I went through simple polite greetings in English. I provided them with a two handouts and gave each of them an English to Spanish dictionary. I tried to explain carefully what we would do for this class. One handout was the day's lesson and the other was a simple overview of the next four classes. The third lesson was to be a writing exercise, but it ain't gonna happen! I doubt if they will be ready. Additionally, I had prepared for the class by buying a 3' by 2' dry erasure board, which I used extensively. In the spirit of Snow's Appendix A, the dictionaries appeared to motivate them. Unfortunately, I gave them too many vocabulary words (40). This, coupled with their eagerness to look up every word, took about 60% of the time alloted for the lesson. I tried to adhere to the "Virtuous Cycle of Lesson Planning". I attempted this by trying to provide some vocabulary related to emotions and feelings as well as a few nouns and verbs they could relate to around their houses/homes. I planned this first lesson to be as simple and basic as possible emphasizing they should use the dictionaries to increase their vocabularies on their own. I didn't want it to be too difficult and got a bit worried when I noticed a few yawns. I asked if everything was ok and they confirmed "si" then "yes" with enthusiasm. My feedback was in the form of correct pronounciations and showing them how to look up each word in each of their dictionaries.

The second 40% of the lesson consisted of the old "to-be" verb listed in Past, Present, and Future tenses. After repeatedly going over these verb tenses, I demonstrated how to form a simple sentence using the above listed vocabulary words. I initially designed this thinking I could get some simple writing from them for lesson #3. There were a few sparks of progress, when they actually spoke complete sentences in English! I felt good. I then revewed everything quickly and went over the sheet outling future class subjects. They comprehended dimly. I also emphasized we would review the present class's vocabulary as well as offer a new but shorter list of vocabulary words for the next lesson.

We set a day and time for the next class using English numbers and days. They genuinely seemed eager for the next class. We exchanged phone numbers, and I went my merry little way.