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Today, I went to work with the children of migrant workers through a program ran by PAEC. There was about a quarter less children there day as many of their families began to move to other places in search of work.

I worked with Emilio; a spunky rising kindergartner sporting spiked hair, a Mario tee, and a mischievous smile.

At the instruction of Mrs. Larida, the teacher, we covered three pages of a language workbook. The first page contained rhymes (e.g. match lake/rake and hat/bat), the second page was matching starting sounds (fox with football and nest with net), and the last page covered chronological order (three pictures on how to bake a cake, number from one to three).

Emilio did well on all the pages with rhyming being the most difficult. Coloring the completed sections added incentive (graffiti for minors; what a great internal reward). To test comprehension of colors, when Emilio asked for the red crayon, I’d give him the yellow one. He’d grin, shake his head and say, “That’s not the red one!” I did that with a couple different colors until I was sure that he knew the basic color words. Exploring concepts through stories and motions worked well. For example, He didn’t know the word for a picture of a worm, so I acted out a worm and explained it’s what you use to go fishing and it lives underground).

The kids took a break and after that I read a few books to them. Before we started, I reviewed vocabulary that goes along with every book: spine, front cover, back cover, and (the most challenging one) introduction. It was a good reminder to me to not assume what students know: the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind that they wouldn’t know these words. The books I read were “David Goes To School” (A humorous read about one kid bumbling through Western classroom etiquette) and “Peter Pan”.

PAEC Volunteering: Week 1

On Thursday, 6/23/11, I volunteered with the PAEC (Panhandle Area Education Consortium) Program to work on teaching English to children of migrant farm workers. I worked with about 15 students in the Pre-K to 3^rd grade age group. I learned some interesting things about teaching from the experience. The one thing I wish I would have had was a better grasp of Spanish. I think I could have been more useful in helping them out. Many of the kids spoke only Spanish with broken English including basic phrases such as “Thank you”, “me”, “you”, and, of course, “snack”. I agree with D. Snow in that it is important to encourage students to be self-motivated in their studies especially since these children move around a lot during the year (See pp. 11-12).

The kids loved doing things with songs and games: Duck, Duck Goose and Tag were fairly easy. It wasn’t focused on language so much—maybe it’s one of those universal games?

We sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”—the kids liked that. Another song they liked was something classed the “Big Pig Song” that the teachers showed on YouTube. Here’s the link for your amusement (I’m telling you, the kids loved this one!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu-QkmInKc

They started to get restless with a few things. Color and shape bingo caused restlessness in that it took too long for anyone to get bingo. Is it possible that kids need more variety or work the best with an element of fun?

One kid had on a Batman shirt and we talked about superheroes for awhile: He knew Batman, Hulk, Luke Skywalker, Star Wars, lightsaber, and Spiderman in English. I was impressed. Again, D. Snow covers connecting student’s interests with speaking English (See “intrinsic rewards” pp. 14-15). It is evident that he learned the English name for something he cared about: superheroes.