Breaking Out

I didn't know what to expect on the last day before spring break. How many students would show up? Four students showed up for class. I had invited a musician to come in as part of an Artist in the School program. We had drafted a song for this week for the class to rehearse before recording it in April. How would four Applied grade nine French students react to rehearsing without their classmates? Monica exclaimed: "I really don't want to be here!" and Mark shouted "Can we just leave?". Jim, the artist, matter of factly handed out rhythm instruments to each of them and began strumming the chorus on his guitar. Before long, they were banging their instruments and chanting the chorus and keeping time! Monica later let us know that she could play a number of band instruments...I've learned that young adolescents often complain until you bring them along and persist in something worthwhile. They can be won over.....

Stick with it

Three weeks ago when I first used Bitstrips comic builder in the classroom, I hit a few snags. Things weren't working right, the program wouldn't save some of the students' work, we couldn't print, the images froze....Today, after two or three weeks of persisting, the process was much smoother. I had the projector hooked up to the classroom computer. The students clicked on their own work and presented their comic strips audio-visually. It was gratifying to see them using their language skills using this comical,  interactive medium. I witnessed some artistic skills I would otherwise have not seen. Some students intuitively organized space, objects and colour in ways that added significantly to the communicative impact of the language. Also, some students were very successful in bringing out humour -a challenge for second language learners!  

Tempting to be Sarcastic

Situation: I'm working through a booklet with my grade nines. I ask the group to turn to page X and hold up the page, describing what to look for on the page. Sam has not looked for the page after everyone else has begun working on it. He is distracted, not slow or incapable. I help him find the page. Later, same thing. We're on to another page in the same booklet. Sam has not begun the work. He asks what the page number is, after the instructions have been repeated three times. I say to him: "Sam, you're two steps behind everyone else. Find that page now!" That announcement seems to be on the edge of depreciative, but my tone is still upbeat and positive. I really don't want to single him out in any derogatory way. In terms of what to change in order to help Sam focus, what am I missing? He sits at the front, I can see what he's doing and I've seen him get down to the task when he wants to...

Teaching with Tech

I'm still not sure about using technology in the classroom. I see benefits in terms of the quality of presentation. For example, I'm using Bitstrips for Schools, a comic strip bulider -great for language expression and development. But....the time spent moving to a computer location, loggin on, fixing problems like deficient save functions, print problems, manipulatives freezing within the program, etc. means other language learning opportunities are delayed or lost.

I will assess this whole experience with the help of the students in a week or two....