Rainbows

Lunch break from my last Saturday class woot!   Haven't had much time to write lately. A few months ago I finished a journal and atatted writing in a new one - but I don't like the feel of it.  I tried to write in a new form, a stream of consciousness without punctuation or true English grammar... The words come out and the paper is too light and it doesn't translate to quality on paper.    

I'm reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance... And I like it, but at times it moves a little slow for me,  or becomes a little too convoluted.  The character has a wealth of information he draws from, but doesn't explain the points well enough, makes casual references... Is in great need of an editor,  but that plays into the personality of the character so it feels like author choice- not bad writing.  Still annoying nonetheless.  I like the ideas presented but I get more out of reading zen or Taoist or Hindu poems/mantras than some of the metaphors he is creating to analyze... I feel like I relate to the charters background in that, but recognize he is trying to offer a new perspective through a different lens to an audience that doesn't understand those sources.   Anyway. Yesterday as I was reading ( and falling asleep at the coffee shop), there was a line concerning what the narrator calls gumption - regarding the word "enthusiasmos" the root of enthusiasm - meaning the god within you... And I think I have heard that before but it was a lovely touch up... It was like a nice rainbow.    Sometimes a word or a picture or a color is just right and it fits with what came before like a puzzle piece you didn't know you were missing... And maybe it wasn't that perfect - but maybe it just adds to the picture...  That's what that word feels like to me.  And I will probably forget it again... But I would like to live my life with enthusiasm as the people who inspire me do.

The Mid-April Review

So I am sitting at a coffee shop, preparing to write a draft of my final lesson plan for the TEFL program.
This week was difficult at work, I have been losing all my prep time to do testing. Its not necessarily that I can't do some easy prep work while monitoring but I can't run around the school, I can't do anything that makes a lot of noise, I have to prepare before hand what I am doing... so its easier to just plan the classes at home or in-between other things and read a good book while I am monitoring. The book I chose to read is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  I am only about half way through, but I love it so far. I have a feeling the book is about to get a little uglier, but I really enjoy the ins and outs of the chautauqua. Another issue at work this week has been the preparation to leave. It seems like the majority of the staff is leaving (most likely), however people have different time frames. I am leaving first, which feels good to me, because I'm getting out of the daily pressure. The pressure builds and builds until everyone is crabby with secrets. On Thursday we dismissed the students early and talked about our game plan. It seems like a good plan, but like all things still has some kinks to be worked out. I am most worried about some of the students who have abandonment issues, or histories of self harm. Its not that we are their family, but we often operate as a surrogate, a safe place, and these kids are resilient, but we try to create a safe space where they can practice that healthily... this might be like pulling the rug out from underneath them.
I am not sure that I have felt all that successful at work lately.  I have 4 classes that are mine to create... the improv/theater class is going ok, but I am worried they won't have enough time for their projects. The world history class  has had good days and bad...but I have gotten into this terrible habit of just giving them a boring timeline of text and sharing important events from over thee years. No pictures, no videos, basic discussion...  US History is fine, we are headed into civil rights stuff next week. We have been covering WW II and the kids are sick of it. RYW (my advisory writing class) in some ways has gone the best. We have had a bunch of good writing topics, and its felt really positive and chill for the most part.
The school is packed right now, we have 50+ students if they all show up and the rooms are so full there isn't chairs for everyone. I don't mind standing for an hour, but that leads to me lecturing more than I want to.
 A couple of fun things we did this week (to celebrate the good?)
RYW:  "What is a chair?" discussion.  This is maybe one of my favorite critical thinking thought experiments ever, and as the trimester has gone on I realized I was missing some of these types of activities. It was Friday and I didn't have a plan, other than a free work day (they have essays due on the movie 42).  But the students voted for a thought experiment so... 
World History: Wednesday we looked at maps of the world with interesting topics, like which countries have McDonalds? Which countries has England invaded? etc... and the students also filled in their own maps.  Friday we played some geography games, geoguessr, sheppardsoftware, globetrotter xl. The students really enjoyed them.
World History: "Y2K"  I asked the students to visualize and write a hypothetical about what their day would be like if Y2K had happened. What would life be like?  Now we think of it as a joke, but a lot of people spent millions at the time to update computer systems. 
People class: this week we talked about LGBT timeline, homophobia and heterosexism, and the concept of marriage. Good discussions and a lot of minds blown.
US History: I am not sure to what extent students understood the comparisons we were making, and I don't want them to hate the US, but just to realize we aren't better or worse... just a global power desperate to keep it.   But we discussed internment, war crimes and the ways the US benefited from WWII and the Cold War. One of my students said we were fighting the bad guys, and I asked him what made them bad and us good?   Just calling the propaganda into question lead to a lot of insight in the class.
Another issue this week is that one of my coworkers had a grandparent pass away and was having a lot of difficulties with her family. We try to keep shit separate as we can, but since we give so much to the place it also tends to mean we cant keep our own chaos from affecting the other staff or the program. My coworker will be out for the next few days for the funeral, which means we will be covering all of her classes. Its these little things that get us further behind on all the little shit we aren't keeping up with. For example I can't monitor testing when I have to cover her class.

I sent my passport off in the mail. I have tickets. I have done my taxes. I am looking into insurance and other financial matters. I am packing up my shit and cleaning my room. I am trying to organize things like addresses and passwords. I am excited and terrified and anxious and totally overwhelmed with waiting.

I really want my TEFL program to hurry up and get done... I like working with the students and get the most from the hands on experience, but we don't get enough time in the classroom -teaching. Much of it is observing our classmates, which is fine, but I observe my coworkers daily, so I have seen a lot of teaching techniques.

Mike listening to You and the Sound

Notice my short hair (natural blond highlights starting to kick in), notice my shaved face.
Victoria said I looked really young this week, to which I replied "I am so old" a statement that felt true a the time. I reflected on it on the way to observation, how I am quite young -as in, I don't know how to properly quit a job, don't know professional skills like writing emails, or scheduling meetings with people in other buildings, feel nervous about such things. I am young as in, I am hopeful, I am optimistic and have faith that things will work out. I don't know hardship, not really, I am innocent. I am old, as in worn out, overwhelmed with too much worry, so much burden holding on to others bullshit, their emotions, their drama, their expectations fears and paranoia. I am too involved and not involved enough because I am too old to be involved. I am rational and meticulous about too many things, and not the right things, but the things of habit. I am comfortable screwing up, and don't care "too much" because why do I need to impress?   I am too young, because I am easily influenced, I am easily won over, I have a hard time saying NO, I have a hard time standing for myself legitimately, I have a desire to impress, I have a desire to be seen, recognized, praised. I am too old because I have lived lifetimes of this, took on the burden of ghosts and spirits, of thought experiments and dreams, I am weighed down with the mass of stars, I am picky to a fault because I have experienced.


That's what I was initially thinking.  Then I thought about how I was a germaphobe because in so many of my past lives I died of disease. So anti-violence, because I died a bystander casualty of combat, seek justice and recognition for the underdog because I died a misunderstood death. 
All these things also happened in my short time here, but its just as easy to point to human history and claim it... and really isn't it true. What is a human?


A dream:

msmhsjsbwt circle entities

Tonight rather than do any of my homework (2 page reflection due tomorrow, final lesson plan due friday), I talked to some friends and watched stupid videos, and reread old poetry from high school and played around recording some of it.  I was thinking the quieter lonelier part of my night will be what my life is like if I stay abroad.  For some reason, I imagine I won't have a roommate... I see myself sitting on a mattress in a poorly decorated small apartment,  the only decorations will be stuff I have collected, charcoal and water color pictures I have done. I will sit there, playing a ukelele or a guitar I purchase. I will be strumming tunes poorly and singing or rapping old poems and songs. I will be desperately trying to stay busy, while purposely seeking to not be busy.  I will mess around in my own head and scribble increasingly insane notes, some of which I will scrawl on facebook and this here blog so as to document the deterioration. I will show up to work, whatever that looks like, determined and smiling to not let the mask slip, because it will be the only part of my day where human connection is demanded, and not a favor I do myself. Each night I will slip back into my craze, reading religious texts and science fiction. Planning futures and pasts.  I will be intruded upon by memories and feelings, and thoughts that I did not invite, that smack me around and call me back, anchors imbedded in my skull that once felt like hugs and now blunt trauma, and some days hugs, and some days I will allow them to pound me to sleep, fetal position, stained pillow.  I will wake up feeling drained and use this robot body to propel me through the day, I'll make some comment and someone will question in just the right way,  I'll spoon feed them my heart at first, a taste to see their reaction, and then when they seem satisfied I'll pour. Deluge, like the damned child I am.  As they disappear, I'll reconsider, buy a new suit and get into a new routine. I'll force feed myself nutrition. Shave my brazen face. Collect the soaked fragments, piece them back together, and change my salty pillow! The treasures will be stored somewhere, but nearby, a drawer, a cabinet, a dented box over expanded, easily accessible but no one will access them. I'll rededicate myself to the other, and people will wonder at my wisdom, call me an old soul, call me caring, call me.  And I'll answer, having taken the time to find who resides in my body.

Today

In my 15 minute extra snooze this morning I dreamt I was hanging with a friend and her husband,  they were annoyed with me and I was annoyed with them, but we were hanging last minute before they left for Paris and I left for my future... When my friend suddenly freaked out that she didn't have her birth control,  I woke up soon after and thought that seemed an off thing to dream. 

There is a nice you lady in my program who looks me in the eye and makes reasons to sit around and talk,  she asks me what I'm doing tonight even though  she has plans as if to say but I'd like it if you asked me to make plans... Or maybe I'm reading into it too much.   I'm leaving in two months.   She's gonna live in Japan some day.  

I've spent almost 2 years now with one foot in and one foot out. I am eager and ready to go. 
I dislike all the little things in my way. Immunizations and passports and bank accounts and certificates, tickets and storage, insurance and backup plans.

I have whittled away my relationships and responsibilities to people. 
I have strived to change aspects of myself, round edges and smooth the jagged bits. 
I have pushed myself to grow courage, patience and act the part even when I am not confident. 
I have given up a lot of stuff, disentangled myself from attachments.
And it has left me with a sort of feeling, that I am less, until I do more.
It feels perilous, I am off kilter, and if I suddenly needed to stay, I'd need a new anchor to hold me, give me purpose. 

Some of it is intentional, some has been done for me, and some has been subconscious, but my assessment of myself is that I do not feel called here anymore. 
Half my heart is gone already. 

Mike’s Trip (possible places to visit)

Columbia (3 weeks)

                Bogota

                Zipaquira

                Guatavita

                Tunja

                Villa De Leyva

                Santa Marta

                Taganga

                Cartagena

                Mompos

                Palenque

                Medellin

Santa Fe De Antioquia

                Salento

                Cali

                Popayan

                San Agustin

Ecuador (3 weeks)

                Quito

                Banos

                Rumicucho

                Pululahua

                Otavalo

                Ibarra

                Guayaquil

                Cuenca

                Ingapirca

                Bahia de Caraquez

                Manta

                Puerto Lopez

Peru (3-4 weeks)

                Lima

                Trujillo

                Chan Chan

                Cajamarca

                Kuelap

                Arequipa

                Nazca

                Ayacucho

                Huancayo

                Puno

                Sillustani

                Cutimbo

                Cuzco

                Machu Pichu & Sacred Valley

Bolivia (3 weeks)

                La Paz

                Tiwanaku

                Copacabana

                Isla Del Sol

                Puno **Peru

                Oruro

                Cochabamba

                Sucre

                Potosi

                Uyani   & Salar de Uyani

Tarija

Santa Cruz          

Paraguay (1-1.5 weeks)

                Asuncion

                Encarnacion & Trinidad y Jesus

                Chaco *Filadelfia?

                Ciudad Del Este

Brazil (3-3.5 weeks)

                Foz de Iguacu

                Rio de Janeiro

                Sao Paulo

                Ouro Preto

                Buzios

                Paraty

                Curitiba

                Ilha do mel

                Porto Alegre

                Belo Horizonte

Uruguay(1-2 weeks)

                Montevideo

                Colonia del Sacramento

                Chuy

                Maldonado

                Punta del Este

                La Paloma

                Punta Del Diablo

                Parque Nacional Santa Teresa

Argentina( 2-3 weeks)

                Buenos Aires

                Rosario

                Santa Fe

                Mendoza

                Cordoba

                Bahia Blanca

                Patagonia Region?

                Lake District region?

Chile (1 week)

                Santiago

                Valparaiso

Guianas (1.5 weeks)

Georgetown, Guyana

Paramaribo, Suriname

Cayenne, FR Guiana

Kouro, FR Guiana

 

the kind of shit I do for school now...

I am going to copy and paste some reflections I wrote on a co-teaching lesson I did the other night...
the basics of the lesson is that it went really well, but we only had 5 students and they were all kick ass.  the lesson was on sharing opinions on social media *in english.

I will try to take people's names out... CT = co-teacher, S = student

Mike Reflection on teaching 3/20/14

I feel like Thursday night’s lesson went really well. Overall the learners met the objectives, had fun and walked away looking forward to the next lesson.    For this reflection I’d like to reflect on the questions, and then offer my own critique of the lesson because despite walking away feeling accomplished I think there were valuable lessons I learned that I did not get feedback on after the lesson (an addendum critique).

The short version of the learning objectives were:  to define opinion, to discuss the effects of social media and digital communications, to ask for opinions, and to agree or challenge opinions. I think from  Ct1's first few questions it seemed likely we were going to meet the objectives. S1 spoke easily about the difference between opinion and facts, and during the first set of lead in questions I heard him asking and challenging S2 and S3 on their opinions of social media and digital communications.  I also heard S5 say very early on that she did not have Facebook and didn’t want to have her children using it either.  So from this recognition that students were already cruising through the plan, it became evident that success in meeting the objectives would be based on the degree to which the learners felt comfortable using the language in a meaningful setting. 

The students struggled to use the target language that CT1, CT2 and I had agreed to use for our lesson, however they were very apt to use alternatives that expressed the same sentiments. This meant that throughout the lesson, all of us made attempts to steer them back to target language phrases, even when they were fully communicating their ideas.  The most repetitive phrasing on our part was the phrase “yes, but on the other hand…” which the students asked about during CT1’s highlight of the language.  Another time I heard them using the target language was before transitioning to CT2, S2 used the phrase “I’m not sure what you mean?” during the check for learning, and S3 asked “How do you feel about… cell phones?” if I remember correctly they did so in context, not when prompted, which shows genuine learning taking place.

During my fluency exercise I got to watch them really demonstrate the function of the lesson in a meaningful context.  The exercise was designed to have them share their opinions openly, fully and to push them to challenge or ask for more information when their opinions were different. What developed was a meaningful discussion on Facebook and phone privacy, which helped the learners share their personal experiences, define words and ideas, and share their opinions in a healthy and respectful manner.  A few of the successful parts of the activity in my opinion were when the group helped collectively define the word “privacy” to S5 after she asked what it meant (almost using the target language), when S4 eloquently shared some of the reasons she doesn’t use Facebook, and when S2 was able to relate why using Facebook was important for him to connect to his social network outside of the US.  In all of these cases there was meaningful dialogue happening that encouraged the learners to use a variety of language which is the purpose of a fluency activity. It also allowed them to meet the learning objectives of sharing and challenging opinions in English, but in a way in which they all seemed to grow in their reflection of the given subject.  This seems like the best kind of learning experience because it naturally grows their understanding in multiple meaningful ways. 

My peers gave me just a few suggestions: one suggested stating the objective of including everyone in the discussion when giving instructions on the activity. She also noted that she thought the learners perked up when I seemed more high energy.  Another noted that the target language could be modeled more in the lesson and that it might be good to keep the phrases available for them during the fluency activity. I thought that these suggestions were very appropriate to this lesson, but may or may not be appropriate for all lessons, in that inclusion of all students might make some feel too pressured, but it’s definitely something to consider.  Phrases on the board/overhead was something I neglected in the moment, but had written in my lesson plan.  I don’t actually know that it was a mistake to leave them off, I thought the dialogue that occurred seemed much more natural than some of the phrases, but as it took place I encouraged them to use full sentences like “Can you share an example?”  rather than just saying “example?”  or “for example?” which is common enough in English, but could be over relied on.

I found the Observing Teacher's feedback to be the most helpful as to what could improve that portion of the lesson and my overall teaching ability.  There were three main points I heard to reconsider, the first was giving students a moment to think, which I think I ignored in the moment because I was excited. I remember time to think being exceedingly important when I learned foreign languages, and I definitely need to incorporate more into my teaching.  Secondly she suggested not jumping out of the moment to teach about the lesson, when the students are doing the lesson (if at all).  The example I believe was when I broke the discussion for a second to explain why I chose the example of the police spying, which in this case I did to ease student concerns considering the beginning of the class. I think however that this side-barring  is a tendency of mine that may be really distracting to students when teaching ESL, and along with “tour-guiding” as (another observing teacher) calls it, will be something I need to concentrate on toning down.  Lastly, the choice of words was mentioned specifically when I asked the students “Did you hear good reasons why you shouldn’t use facebook?” This is one of those sensitivities that will likely take me a while to recognize. I am sometimes quite unaware of my word choice and the possibility of double or confusing meanings. I am glad to have someone who is attuned to hearing these discrepancies to help point them out, but fear I will make many mistakes before really fine-tuning that portion of my teaching.

I am not sure I met the “specific phrases” portion of my last goal, so I will likely continue with the same personal teaching goal of promoting student confidence and use of specific English phrases.

 

Critique of the lesson

I am writing this critique for personal reflection on the development and execution of lesson planning, it is not meant to criticize the observers or my co-teachers.  I am also going to write this in my normal personal reflection writing style (which includes a lot of ellipses… and parentheses*wink).

One of the areas that I am increasingly motivated to explore is what makes a cohesive and successful ESL lesson. The practicum thus far has allowed me to take all the different portions of several types of lessons, but overall I feel like the objectives are met most successfully when the lesson is cohesive and builds upon itself.  Despite the encouragement from observers, I think this lesson might have seemed successful because it wasn’t challenging enough. 

To begin with, the learning objectives were not specific enough to assess accurately to what degree learning was happening. This might be the key point (despite my annoyance with the idea of lesson objectives), because it left our lesson with no specific target to hit. This meant CT1 and CT2’s activities were in my opinion mis-ordered, and too simple.  In many regards the “lead in/context” questions met the learning objectives, ordinarily that would mean the teacher must adapt the lesson to be more challenging (which is tricky when co-teaching in this style).  CT1 proceeded with the target phrases, many of which he had chosen (with our editing and approval) because they would be easily in reach of the learners (perhaps too easy, or not appropriately taught in a meaningful context).  There were only a few that the students struggled with, but there was very little instruction focused on modeling or explaining the phrases, this oversight is something that I see a lot in my own preparation in teaching, I know I need to work more explicitly on modeling new language as well as instructions.

 I think the larger piece in this though is, when sharing phrases and questions that are meant to provoke abstract language like opinions, how do we help the learners recognize that adding these phrases to their repertoire is helpful or important?  Not to mention, with no prior assessment (likely an informal assessment), how do you choose which phrases would be helpful?  It seemed that only S3was having real difficulty sharing his opinions in a meaningful way. All of the other students were all able to effectively share their ideas with any sympathetic listener. If the goal is effective communication then they were there… the goal needed to be something more specific, like emphasizing formality or accuracy, or exploring specific tenses. 

CT1’s first accuracy activity (which was in the check learning category) was helpful for drawing out and practicing the phrases. It worked really well especially when the students got hung up on the word “cyberbullying” –that might have been a good place to have a short reading or video or something.  That could have been a place to seek answers if they could not figure them out by talking to each other -a place to build on the social media content of the lesson and some reading or listening skills. Questions 2 and 3 have these straightforward answers (given the phrases), but seemed inappropriate when the students have already demonstrated abilities to address these situations. This gets back to the idea of accuracy when sharing abstract ideas. Fill in the blank and short answer questions have to be really carefully worded or they can be ineffective.  Not to say these ones didn’t help practice the language, they did, but only because the students knew they were supposed to practice, not because they needed to.

CT2’s scripted dialogue activity seemed way too basic given their ability level but I am really interested in how to use these effectively so I was glad to see it in action. I think if the students had been struggling with the phrases this might have been effective, but I am not sure the words he intentionally had them fill in were the words they needed to focus on. I am working on being conscientious about modeling and giving instructions for activities, and I am really impressed with how well CT2 does at that.   I think it is his willingness to be direct in instructions, but I’ve also noticed when he is modeling he explicitly goes over each part- and that seems quite helpful for the learners. Yet even recognizing how helpful that can be in my head there is this very stern warning not to be condescending, and I am still questioning where that line is. The second part of the activity “organizing language functions into categories” seemed really helpful as far as categorizing when to use the phrases… but because it was paired with the simple scripted dialogues I wasn’t sure if it was getting the point across the best way possible… I think this type of exercise helps me when I am trying to learn new information, but I think you have to be careful with when you use it, it seems like you could easily confuse students as much as help them if they start making inaccurate categories.   In this particular lesson though, I remember S4 and S5 started sharing opinions and making arguments for why one category works even though it wasn’t designed that way… I personally love when students share insights that prove they’re learning (or at least sharing their prior knowledge) beyond the lesson’s intended scope. I was really glad CT2 validated them rather than “correcting” them.

CT2 started the transition to the fluency exercise in the most natural way and the students leapt at the opportunity to really engage.  I don’t remember which student it was but she started asking about whether children should have tablets/smart phones, and everyone had an opinion. This was a little scary for me because the exact idea they began to discuss was the one I was about to use, so I was instantly aware that I didn’t have enough prompts for my discussion without going over some familiar ground from CT2 and CT1’s lessons… I decided on my way up that the students seemed to be able to share openly, but had a hard time challenging each other. It was this whim that made me share about the idea of a “devil’s advocate” a term that probably isn’t culturally appropriate and that I certainly wasn’t well prepared to teach about, but still seemed relevant to share.  I think my activity went really well, but the observers gave some helpful suggestions about putting phrases on the board or within reach, asking that everyone be included, and to keep a relative distance so as not to distract the discussion. I especially liked and forgot to mention the observing teacher's suggestion to take notes and potentially keep my head down so that learners don’t look to me for feedback (I forgot to mention this in the other reflection).  I have used these techniques in teaching other content and the whole thing seemed really familiar and really natural to me. I love discussions like this and it was really encouraging to me to hear how fluently the participants shared opinions, experiences, asked questions, defined terms etc.  It felt like a real discussion (not one just for the sake of practice), and I liked that I could relate that to real situations that I hope the students will not shy away from (public forums).  I realized through this lesson just how important contextualizing and empowering students is to me as an overall goal and hopefully as a lingering presence in my lesson plans.  –this is a really tricky thing for me when teaching ESL, which is the last thing I would like to comment on.

I need to be really aware in this field that I need to work on English as the primary objective and tool of empowerment rather than focusing on some other learning objectives that I am quite used to.  What I mean is… I walked away thinking “holy shit, I am such a social studies teacher…”  because even when the lesson went well, I wanted to keep prepping for the next stage of social studies style critical thinking development (namely rather than focusing on accuracy of language, or effectively communicating, or pronunciation or any of the other things we have recognized as a focus area of English… my thoughts were about how to challenge them to have conversation about social gray areas… complexity of ideas, etc)   In Social studies that is fine, in English teaching that is tolerable, if the other objectives are being met.  I really need to work at re-training my brain to focus on looking for successes and areas to improve on in English!   That being said, the enthusiasm with which the students responded on Thursday made me aware that my social studies background could be an asset if applied appropriately.  

In conclusion… what a great learning experience.