Day 1
I found out that the students already know the letters of the alphabet. I also realized that even though they are all literacy learners, they have various levels (Foundations, CLB 1L, CLB 2L)*. I am glad they could help each other as some of them are from the same country.
I told them I am from Brazil and a student mentioned "Football!", of course. :-) I replied with "Soccer?" and he told me the names of two soccer players. Oh, well, I can't change that... :-) At least we connected right away.
I showed them the website Quizlet and we practiced the alphabet with it on our Smartboard. I also showed them the Quizlet app in my cell phone and I told them they could download the app for free if they wanted. As most students have smartphones, they all wanted to have the app and installed it.
The very few students without smartphones used the alphabet flashcards to practice and another student used the Learning Chocolate website on the Smartboard to match the letters.
After that, I used some plastic fruits and suddenly my Foundations student started saying the names of some fruits and the word "garden". I felt so happy we could connect! :-) I taught her how to say "I like _______." She repeated after me and touched some fruits.
I displayed the Learning Chocolate website again with some fruits and asked my students to match the fruits with the audio of their names. They enjoyed doing that.
I am glad I could connect with my students. They seem to be happy in class and so am I. I am also happy I could use some digital tools as well. I believe digital literacy should be taught since day 1. :-)
Day 2
I received new students and they were welcomed into the class by the other students. It is great to see their sense of community!
It is important to mention that I always start my classes with the attendance call asking a different question every day and I am the first one to answer to model it for my students. This way everybody has a chance to practice speaking and we can all listen to each other.
As I wanted to know what my students already know, I thought about starting with favourite colors. I showed colored markers and told them my favourite color. I called each student and they mentioned their favourite colors too.
As a warm up, I asked them to stand up and touch something of a certain color. They had fun and I also asked them to tell the colors for us to touch. It was a great kinesthetic activity to review the colors.
We reviewed the alphabet using the Learning Chocolate website. I asked the students to stand up, listen and match the sounds and the corresponding letters. I also asked them to listen and type the letter they heard. They helped each other.
After that, I asked them to write their names on a sheet of paper so we could learn everybody's names.
As I wanted to check how much they knew about reading and writing, I showed them some grocery store flyers using the Genre Based Approach (in fact, I always use it - if you want to learn more about it, you can read this article - Genre Based Approach: Theories, Lesson plan and Teaching simulation )
I showed them 5 things I wanted to buy from the flyer and I asked them to choose 5 things too and show them to their classmates saying "I want to buy _____, _____, ____, _____, and ______."
I asked them to copy the date on their notebooks and write one thing from the flyer starting with the letters I wrote on the board. I wanted to check if they were able to read and write something from the flyer.
They reviewed the alphabet using Quizlet. The advanced students wanted to add other sets to their folders on Quizlet. I helped them with that.
I asked the students to take pictures of some things they wanted to learn in English.
I have been using various activities to check what they are able to do so I can plan my lessons accordingly.
Day 3
The students completed the needs assessment and most of them choose the theme "Health".
This includes parts of the body, illnesses and how to talk to a doctor. Before I teach something, I always elicit from the students to check what they already know. We practiced the song "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" to learn and review some parts of the body. We also used the website Learning Chocolate to practice. I could see the students really enjoy touching the Smartboard.
They had opportunities to listen, read and type the parts of the body. After that, I wrote the date on the board and I asked them to copy the date on their notebooks and write 3 words they didn't know. I also asked them to draw each part so it would be easier for them to remember these words as it is important to make them aware of some language learning strategies.
After the break, I took them to the computer laboratory for the first time. I showed them my story and read it for them.
I asked them to fill in the blanks with their information (their information was on the board). I shared a template in our intranet so they all could open the file in their computers and type their information.
While they were typing, I took pictures of them so they could insert their photos in their stories. Then I asked them to save their stories, I thought it could be a good idea to keep those stories in the computers and help them to write a book instead of printing the stories right away. So every week they would write a new page of their books. I believe they will feel proud of themselves when they have a printed copy of their books in the future! I was inspired by the books I saw in the Bow Valley website Bow Valley College - ESL literacy readers .
Reflection: This week was very nice to get to know my students and learn about them. I also realized that when something does not happen the way I expect with the morning group, I can change it and make it better with the afternoon group. I am very happy with my students and I am learning a lot from this experience. I hope my students enjoy our classes and learn a lot.
Peace!
*Canadian Language Benchmarks - L means Literacy. For more information you can check the website: ESL Literacy
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