Blah.

Students: 7

Countries of Origin: El Salvador, South Korea, Dominican Republic

What surprised me:

• I misjudged what would be difficult about our fluency activity.  They got fluency practice in PrCo for sure, but amidst preventable confusion.
• How quickly 3 hours go by, even when I’m not happy with how I’ve done an activity.

Today’s Objectives:

1. SWBAT ID, construct, and correct PrCo sentences and questions.
2. SWBAT demonstrate understanding that certain phrases are not literal: “driving me crazy,” “not working,” “[that machine] is a lemon,” “making a funny sound.”
3. SWBAT listen for details.

What went well:

I’m in a good place in terms of respecting and enjoying all of my students for exactly who they are.  Their individual quirks were really standing out today, and it’s so cool to know them well enough to really notice.

Most of the objectives went fine.  Lackluster but clear.

What I’d like to improve upon:

I was blah today.  I’d give the overall lesson a rating of “just barely meets expectations.”

The fluency grid activity wasn’t a disaster.  But I know I can knock a lesson out of the park, so it’s kind of annoying when I end up racing just to get on base.

The grid activity was baffling because I didn’t model it carefully enough.  They can do the grammar.  My plan was to have them write their own two questions to ask to the other students in an activity extremely (to me) similar to what we always do with grids (I usually provide the questions).  I took for granted that they deeply understood what filling info into a grid meant.  I didn’t present it or model it in such a way that the parallel with the familiar activity was obvious, and I didn’t realize what the cause of the confusion was for too long a time, and so they practiced the grammar in a sea of wondering what the heck they were supposed to be doing.

Stated objective (PrCo fluency): met.

Unstated objective (make sure everyone’s with you): fail.

Thoughts for Tomorrow:

We have to finish the listening.  I should do another grid activity soon to clear up what the purpose of a grid is, but I don’t know if I quite have the heart to give it another go as soon as tomorrow.  I’ll finish planning later.