The English Class

English class went well this week. Last time I told them the name of the text book we would be using and that it would be okay if they wanted to share books to save money. One student came in with a stack of books and numbers in a box for the students to choose book sharing partners.  I was amazed that they were so organized!

After reviewing what we covered last time, we moved on to the Summer Olympics.  We talked about when they start and about some of the events. Each student chose an event he or she liked and I gave them stickers to decorate their name tents. They practiced telling what their partner’s favorite event was.

I taped pages with a two paragraph story on the back wall and had them do a “running dictation”, an exercise that incorporates reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Each pair of students had a designated Reader and one who acted as the Writer.  The reader ran to the back of the room and read the story, then ran back to the writer in the front of the room and told the partner what the story said so that person could write it down. The reader could run back and forth as many times as it took. When all of the pairs had what they thought the story said, I let them work in pairs of pairs to compare and make changes if they wanted. They took turns reading what they had written aloud and we talked about the words they didn't know, like "New Jersey".

We reviewed pronouns and present tense, then divided into two groups to play a question and answer card game, to say what people like to do on the weekend. I gave them some homework assignments and the class time was over.  It went by quickly for me and I was glad no one fell asleep.