Today was fine.  It was a good foundation for the rest of the week.  That being said, I feel kind of “meh” about it, like the pieces were all there but it never quite gelled.

Students: 6

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

What surprised me:

• They were very chatty (in Spanish) today.  Side conversations abounded.  It was kind of like being back in St. Paul.

Today’s Objectives:

1. SWBAT understand and use 10 activities vocabulary phrases related to getting in shape
2. SWBAT construct the Simple Present (SiPr) with supports and examples
3. SWBAT understand and use a few adverbs of frequency: always, usually, sometimes, hardly ever, and never.

What went well:

Overall it was a fine lesson.  We succeeded at all the objectives, and none of the activities were baffling messes.

I noticed that they were confused about he/she/it needing an -s at the end.  It’s because it wasn’t initially clear that “Emily” for example counts as “she.”  They weren’t already familiar with noun, pronoun, and third-person singular, but I did manage to convey the concept.  I also checked for understanding in a way that showed me they got it.

What I’d like to improve upon:

It was just “meh.”  I let Vote With Your Feet go for too long.  I knew I needed to step back out of the morning’s discussion and I didn’t do so early enough.

I felt that I was on a grammar tightrope because all of our vocabulary phrases are verb + gerund (i.e. go fishing, go running) and that was going to get Very confusing Very quickly if I started with SiPr with an “-ing” word in it.  I seemed to have walked the tightrope well for Day 1.

Thoughts for Tomorrow:

More comparisons between Simple Present and Present Continuous.  I need to review the listening tonight to see if it would be more appropriate for tomorrow or Wednesday.  I also need to think very seriously about what I want them to be able to do with these vocabulary phrases – just understand them, or be able to write grammatically correct sentences with them?