People may be getting tired of me speaking about Habla Roosevelt. Whether it is me advertising the program to get volunteers, or speaking about how much fun I had, my closest friends, especially, might be close to sowing my mouth shut. Hopefully, any of you reading this are not, because again, I find the need to share the exciting weekend I had this Saturday once again.
The first class of Habla Roosevelt was an introduction to the program, getting to know our names and our interests, and having some activities that were purposeful but seemed quite impersonal for me. However, last week it was different (from what I heard because I was, sadly, at home studying for mocks). And this week, I got to experience a REAL day in Habla Roosevelt and understood why we had had such positive feedback last week.
The first class of Habla Roosevelt was an introduction to the program, getting to know our names and our interests, and having some activities that were purposeful but seemed quite impersonal for me. However, last week it was different (from what I heard because I was, sadly, at home studying for mocks). And this week, I got to experience a REAL day in Habla Roosevelt and understood why we had had such positive feedback last week.
Away from the impersonality of the first day, this third session was a complete different deal. The groups were divided in two, with kids from similar ages, so we had a group with the younger kids and another with the older ones together. I worked with the younger kids, which I truly enjoy, and once Cynthia was done with her mini lesson, we worked in small groups of 2:1. Again, that impersonality that I felt the first day was completely gone. I had the |
chance to work with different kids so I could learn about their personalities and how they liked to learn.
After break time, I had the opportunity to work with Esteban. Esteban is an 11-year old boy who seems to be the naughty kid in class and distracted at times. He was working with Pedro at first, along with another kid, David. I didn’t have a group at the time so I joined them and realized that Esteban needed some attention. The exercise they had to complete was a family tree so it could guide them when saying the name of someone in their family in the form of “My_________ name is _________”. Esteban had trouble remembering the pronunciation of the words father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother. I said it once so he had to repeat it after me, but it didn’t work. He was getting frustrated and said it was “too complicated”. |
I took this as a challenge. I knew he knew it but was not as motivated as the other kids to learn it right away. I asked him, “Do you want to learn?” he answered, “Yes”, because if he didn’t, then I could give him something else to do. After several repetitions, he was half way there. He still seemed distracted and not on my same page. Time was over and the kids were going to present their family trees to the entire class. No one volunteered so I called Esteban to come up front and present it. He is definitely an extroverted kid, so I knew that, possibly, he didn’t mind. And he didn’t. He stood up in front of everyone and began speaking. He wasn’t 100% but he did it, and he did it ten times better than he did with me.
He kept me thinking about what it was that really stopped him from performing with me, the way he did in front of the class. Was he shy in a small group of people? Or was it the way we were teaching him that wasn’t helping him at all? Through this experience I knew that if we want to make these classes personal, then we need to have a better understanding of each kids' most efficient way of learning in order to help them reach their highest academic potential in learning English. |
And yes, you'll be hearing more about this!
:)
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