The second week (03/01 Monday - 03/05 Friday)

Week 2 was a big week. I started to actually teach....

I was given the chapter 3 (my community) for Spanish 2 classes. Therefore I teach on 5th mod with 29 SP2 students, and 6th mod with 16 SP2 students while SP3 students are taught by Ms. Ross concurrently. I teach the same content class twice.

What surprised me the most a week ago when I was making lesson plans for Chapter 3 was that the textbook has too much information. It is impossible to teach from edge of the chapter to edge of the chapter within 10-15 days. Moreover, in this textbook (Realidades 2), the vocabulary which the students never learned in the past sometimes appears, and they are supposed to guess from the context. If they are unfamiliar nouns, I think it is OK, but some of them are irregular conjugation of verbs that require difficult grammar explanation.

No wonder the students are overwhelmed, lost, and easy to shut down even before they open the textbook.

(The Japanese textbook I use here in USA and the textbooks that the Japanese students use in Japan are more compacted with "core information" as thick as a half inch for each subject. Therefore the teachers can teach from edge to edge, and have freedom to expand more depending upon the students' ability and comprehension levels. Because it is filled with "core information, " the students tend to pay more attention to the textbooks, while some treat it like a Bible of that subject.

Thus textbooks have more meaning to them, not as a reference book, and I felt that there is an urge to revise the textbooks completely in the USA.)

Connection with Marzano

This week I want to talk about the summarizing strategies in Marzano (Chapter 3). First of all, because the textbook has too much information, it is the teacher's job to dig the core information that is buried in the chapter. I had to know the subject (Spanish) really well to identify the key point(s) as much as I had to have a skill to summarize the important points, so that I can introduce to the students as clear as possible.

What challenged me this week was since I did not know the students' level of Spanish (and their learning styles), even though I was able to choose the "core information, " it was challenging to decide how much I can expand from the core information and how much I should use the textbook during the class. Ms. Ross doesn't like this textbook, so her advice was to use it nothing but a reference. She also added that it was up to me to use the textbook or not at all.

WOW what a choice! I asked my Spanish professor here at MU, and Dr. Huhn advised me that the goal for the teacher is to not use the textbook, but still teaching the content of the textbook.

This comment was almost culture shock to me where all the textbook matters.

Therefore I now know it is really important for teachers to be able to summarize that requires deleting, substituting, and keeping some information.

I asked Ms. Ross about students' knowledge of Spanish being the second year of learning, her answer was "none." On Monday (03/01), for my own reference (not reflecting to their grade) I gave them a pretest which was very basic introduction (Spanish 1, chapter 1-3), introducing myself in Spanish. Either they really did not know, or they forgot how to say self introduction in Spanish because they learned a long time ago, it was a disaster, proving Ms. Ross's word.

How am I going to teach them who don't know the basic of the basic?

Ms. Ross's answer was that we have to keep going. :-(

Well then, again it is my opportunity to summarize the important point as clear as possible. Chapter 3 deals with the past tense (preterite) with irregular verbs (ir/ser/poner/poder/estar/tener/hacer). After reviewing the past tense constructions of regular verbs, I on-purposely had them practice orally to conjugate. Many students were not used to my style of oral-instruction, so they asked me to write on the board. I was expecting this would happen, and assured them to give them a chance to write after repeating after me orally. I am so glad to find out that some students want to take notes. Now how to take notes is getting important when there are too much information.

Fortunately the workbook has a compliant exercise, and well organized vocabulary section with graphic organizer. After the oral practice, I went over one more time orally as I allowed them to copy and write on the workbook. Now it makes the connection of the Spanish sound and spelling. Thus they are exposed to new irregular verbs in auditory and visually.

Next week on March 10th (Wednesday), my professor, Dr. Huhn is coming to observe me.

I hope I can do as normal as possible.

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The behaviors of students with me were so disrespectful, listening ipod and doing games on cell phone because I jumped into teaching in the days when Ms. Ross was allowing them to do.

On Wednesday (03/03), I gave each class 10 minutes lecture for how rude to me, and made it clear with my expectation of classroom behavior. Since then they understood me, and giving attentions. :-) I should have done that on the first day ( not the third day).

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Lastly (I am sorry it is not related to this class). It is an assignment of Dr. Watson (CIEC 660) to create students' performance on Video. This is my students (Japanese 3/4) oral performance in Japanese, talking about self introduction, their favorite things to do, eat, etc. These students will come and compete in the SCORES that will be held at Marshall on April 17. I would like to do similar things for Spanish students in the future.