Today I was in yet another bilingual first grade. First graders are always tiring, but when they are trying to communicate with you in a foreign language that you only have a minimal grasp of - it's utterly exhausting!
Today's first graders seemed to have a better understanding of English than the earlier groups of the week. It actually did help for the beginning part of the day, which is surprising since I had to lead reading groups (all books in Spanish) and supervise writing time (which again, was all done in Spanish). The afternoon got a little dicey though. First off, right after lunch was ELD (English Language Development) - all the schools with high populations of non-native English speakers have this subject built into the day, and all use the same curriculum. However, the teacher had not left me any plans for ELD. The schedule she left simply said "ELD" on it. There were no flashcards, books, worksheets or anything set out for this time. I quickly found the curriculum book, but there was no indication in it as to what lesson they were on. I ended up reading them a book, and then giving them a coloring page for the rest of the time. They liked this.
After ELD we were supposed to watch a movie. Now, when I first saw this in the plans, I was happy that I'd have an easy end to the day...that was until I saw what movie was planned. She had left the Disney cartoon version of Cinderella for us to watch. Now I love Cinderella, but this class was nearly 2/3 boys! So of course they all turned their noses up at that saying "it's a girly movie". So instead of it being a nice relaxing end of the day it ended up being a highly stressful and frustrating end to the day where I spent the entire time trying to get them to not talk. Sure, I could have just stopped the movie and done something else, but there were no other activities left by the teacher, and some activities I might normally do with a class I couldn't do with this group because it would involve reading something in English that would be too complex for them, or trying to explain something complicated to them in English knowing only half would understand. So I muddled through the movie and prayed that time would somehow speed up. I survived. Barely.
Why oh why couldn't we have watched Toy Story?!
2 comments:
Lol thats odd that the teacher would have them watch cinderella if the class was made up of mostly boys... sounds like you had a very interesting class :) And I PROMISE: I won't speak to you in spanish! lol
Again, I admire your survival skills. That teacher really was not thinking or she is clueless to leave that movie for a bunch of boys to watch. Let's hope for more English speaking kids next week!
Love you!!! MOM
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