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Bayview en francais

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by Gerri, Kendall, and Dee

Kendall, Dee, and I chose to teach a third and second grade class French at Bayview. We all had very mixed teaching experiences up to that point. Dee and I both participated in the TAPIF program: I worked in a high school and Dee worked with elementary school children. Kendall also taught French students in high school during her studies abroad. All of us taught English before, but not French.

Needless to say, while Kendall and I looked forward to the  opportunity to try new things, Dee was the most comfortable walking into this experience.

Our first class was with third graders. Overall it went smoothly: the children paid attention, stayed in their seats, and seemed enthusiastic about what we were teaching them. However, we forgot to hand out the worksheet we had made right off the bat, and out lesson would have gone more smoothly had we not neglected to do this. In particular, the children enjoyed looking at the books we brought in and the coloring activity at the end of our lesson.

The second grade class was completely different. While we learned from our previous mistake, and handed out the worksheet right away, they lacked the attention span to make use of it. The class’ teacher did not stay in the room with us, and the children outright refused to listen to the aid that remained in the room.

Kendall and I were particularly flustered by the second grade class. While we both love children, we came out of the experience  not  comprehending how anybody manages to teach children, and having great admiration for those that do. It was frustrating to see such a lack of classroom discipline and not knowing how to fix it. We were not told the quiet signal before the lesson, however it might not have made much of a difference, as the children ignored it when the aid used it. It also became very clear to us that the worksheet we made was too advanced for their grade level, which we’re sure did not help the disorderly classroom situation. Our lesson too, for this reason, took longer than before.

We understand that this class is not reflective of all classes, and take the experience with a grain of salt. The difference in each class really showed us just how varied teaching can be, and how important it is to be flexible in your lesson planning. Having a high tolerance for ambiguity and setting expectations for your classroom early on also seemed to be useful.

On a positive note, this experience reminded us all why we chose to become teachers in the first place: to see that moment of joy when students are engaged and understanding what they are learning. The children were incredibly insightful and creative while designing their planets, and it was so much fun talking to them about their creations. We even got a note from a third grader saying “you rock”.

Sana Hilwa Ya Gamil

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Last Friday our P+P class went to Bay View Academy, a local charter school, and taught language lessons in pairs to kids between 2nd and 8th grade.

It was a lot of fun. My teaching partner was Danna, and we taught two different classes, 4a and 5a. We had made name tags in Arabic for each kid in both classes. I think they really enjoyed seeing their names written in Arabic, and each card also had a list on the back of all the vocabulary we gave them.

Danna and I started off by demonstrating a short dialogue in Arabic using phrases such as “Hello”, “How are you?”, “Good, thanks”, “My name is…”, and “Goodbye”. After that, we taught the students how to say each phrase. We wrote each phrase on the board the way it sounds in English, and then had the students repeat after us. Finally we repeated the whole dialogue again, and then had the students turn to one another in pairs and practice the dialogue with each other.

Our second activity was to sing “Happy Birthday” in Arabic. We gave each student a sheet with the words to “Happy Birthday” written in Arabic, and transliterated into romanized script. We asked the kids who had a birthday in November, to which the students responded enthusiastically, waving their hands and telling us their birthdays and their family members’ birthdays. Then we sang “Happy Birthday” in Arabic to all the kids with November birthdays, and the whole class happily sang along. Happy birthday in Arabic is “sana hilwa ya gamil”, hence the name of this post.

Next we taught the kids the Arabic alphabet. We gave each kid a little card with one of the 28 letters of the alphabet written on it, and they each came up to the board, wrote their letter, and went back to their seats. I think each kid really enjoyed writing their letter on the board. The letters in Arabic are very beautiful and flowing, and each kid took special pride in forming their letter just the way it was on their card. As the kids wrote the letters, Danna and I explained the sound made by each letter. Some of the letters have sounds very different from English, and the students had a good time repeating the sounds after us. Some of their favorite ones were غ, which makes a kind of gargling sound, and the emphatic letters, such as ص (say an ‘s’ sound, like you really mean it).

After teaching the alphabet, Danna and I taught the kids some colors and animals in Arabic. We taught red, green, orange, yellow, and blue, along with a little song to remember them by, to the tune of “Frere Jacques”. The animals we taught were dog, cat, lion, bear, and elephant.

Our final activity was a game in which two students came to the front of the classroom and one of them impersonated one of the animals we had learned. The job of the other student was to guess in Arabic which animal was being impersonated, with the added challenge that they were unable to see the student who was impersonating the animal. After each guess, the class was supposed to call out “Yes!”, or “No!”, in Arabic.

The students had fun playing the game, but it presented some interesting challenges to classroom management, because only a few students could actively participate at a time. Another factor to take into consideration was that all the kids wanted a chance, and that there was not really enough time for this. Eventually, in 5a, in order to accommodate all the students who wanted a turn, we began to have them come first two at a time, and finally four at a time. Otherwise we would have run out of class-time without all the kids getting a chance. If we had a chance to do it again, I think we would need a different game, or we would have to change this one somehow to allow more of the kids to participate at once.

 

We enjoyed both 4a and 5a very much. However, there was a noticeable difference in class culture between the two classes. The students in 5a were far more inquisitive. They asked a lot of good questions, and would probably have done so happily for the whole class period had time allowed. They were also somewhat more bold and more engaged than the students in 4a. In 4a we had good participation, but no one asked us any questions. Some of this may be due to a year’s difference in age, but some of it is also probably due to the classroom culture established by their teachers and by the group of students themselves. This points to the importance of establishing a positive environment where students are encouraged to ask questions and feel comfortable doing so.

The three parts of the class which the students enjoyed most were singing happy birthday, writing the letters on the board, and receiving their name tags. It is interesting that each of these activities are also the same ones which most recognized their individuality and engaged their creative skills. One of the boys even colored his name-tag in the shape of a cat. It came out very well, and he was very proud to show it to us. Unbeknownst to him, caligraphy such as he engaged in an important part of Arabic culture.

This was an awesome experience, and I would love to do it again. Thanks, Peter.

Josiah