Journal #10
March 30th, 2011
8:30-10:30 (2 hours)
When I arrived to the high school today I met with Oscar’s teacher. She explained to me that Oscar has been having a lot of trouble in math this week. She said that she knew I would have a few other things planned but she requested that I work with him on math and help him through some difficulties he may be facing. I agreed, explaining that we had worked on some math before. She told me that Oscar seems to be doing better in his ESL classroom and is more talkative in English than she remembers. This was nice to hear. When Oscar showed up he was speaking easy and fun English. Normally, Oscar will not speak until we are in the library and he has trouble answering my initial questions like “how are you today,” “what did you do this weekend” and so forth. The last time I saw him he was even more flustered with this initial conversation than normal. However, today I could tell Oscar was on top of his English and was reveling in the fact that he was speaking well. He answered my questions with great ease and for the first time asked me questions in return such as “how was your weekend?” and “why didn’t you come on Tuesday this week?” These were great questions. I told him I didn’t come on Tuesday because I received an email from his teacher telling me she needed him to do some other work on those days. Oscar said he didn’t know I talked to his teacher so often. When we made it to the library, we talked a few more minutes and then Oscar pulled out his homework. He said very clearly “I’ve already done this side but will you check my answers?” In the past I told Oscar he had to ask me in English to check his answers or I would not do it. I was impressed that he did it so easily today. Normally he mumbles through this sentence as if he is afraid to get my help. So, I looked through and we went over some of the problems he had gotten wrong. They were generally simple math mistakes or placing a number in the wrong place. Once we got through these we moved on to the other side of the work sheet. The homework was working on slope – how to find slope, how to find y-intercept, and which equations to use to represent these lines. Each problem on Oscar’s worksheet was a word problem. So, I had Oscar read each question aloud. Then, in order to get Oscar to make less minor math mistakes I told him he had to write out the equation he needs (or draw a picture of a graph) and show where each number fits in and how he solved the problem. Normally, Oscar does a lot of work on his calculator and just puts the answer down. Today, our math work took even longer than normal because Oscar was doing everything visually. However, he did start to make fewer and fewer math mistakes on this side of the worksheet. He seemed shocked that he was getting more right. However, at one point he asked me if there was a faster way to do some of the problems we were working on. Unfortunately, I had to tell him no. I explained that sometimes you need to spend time on math, otherwise you will get the wrong answer. He accepted this and told me he really wanted to get good grades. He then asked what would happen if he took too long when test time came. I told him to ask his teacher if he could spend more time on the test. When I was student I was generally given extra time because I work through math slower than most of my other classmates, and my teachers generally allowed me the time I needed. Oscar said he would speak to his teacher. I even explained to him that if he practiced this stuff enough he would get faster at it. Then, the bell rang and Oscar needed to head off to his next class. He thanked me for helping him with his math and said that he would try to move slower and write down his equations on his next few worksheets – just to see if it really does work. Overall, I enjoyed today’s lesson, despite the fact that I hate math. I have been struggling with so many math lessons because part of me believes I am here to teach Oscar English, not math. But I realize that math does give us an opportunity to practice English. First, Oscar needs to read all of his word problems aloud and needs to try to make sense of this information. Then, he needs to work with numbers and critical thinking in English. Finally, when he does not understand a concept he needs to comprehend what I am saying to him and then apply it to the problem on which he is working. So while we are not working on specific English concepts, I know that we are working on some important aspects to English language learning such as pronunciation, reading, and listening. This makes me feel less frustrated to not be doing some of the lessons I plan, but the good news is that I now have a good collection of English Language lesson plans – some of which I know work and some of which I will get to try at a later date.
No comments:
Post a Comment