3/8/11

Rain, rain go away! I guess contrary to students not coming in sunny, warm weather is the lack of students on rainy days. Again, only THREE students attended English class today. I worked with the same girl as last week upon her eager request. She changed from never accepting any help to straight forwardly asking for it. She and I sat together at the end of the rows and began her myth/epic session in literature. Today her big challenge was the Odyssey. I can personally remember having to read the Odyssey in high school and loving it. However, my tutee did not share the same passion. I have noticed that when she reads aloud she is carelessly misspeaking. She will change simply everyday words to completely different words. When completing quizzes, this became a problem because she would misread the directions and be looking for a negative instead of a positive for example. She would also offer a very little attempt at phonics for words she did not understand. Instead of struggling through them, she would give an off the wall guess and move on without hesitation. This worried me because of the potential problems it will cause throughout her entire schooling. It disrupts her understanding and comprehension of what she is reading and I wonder if it is only when she is reading aloud or if it happens all the time. Instead of actually reading the Odyssey, she looked up answers and summaries of the story online. I have noticed this for a while now in each student. With available internet access, they can easily avoid actually having to do most of the work to get by. The teacher does not seem to mind either, which I found strange. She did not actually read any of the passages but found all the necessary information on Google. This seems like she is missing the entire point of the course. Also, I have found the questions to be way too repetitive on E2020. It gives the same question word for word on the pre-test, quiz, and topic test. My student ended up just memorizing the answer choices she had previously chosen without taking into regard what she was answering or why.
I learned today personal information about, "Sarah". Although she is literature grade 9, she has a son over at the day care center offered by the PLC. I was astonished. She did not strike me as someone with such a major responsibility at hand. She focused on her school work without seeming to worry about her child or problems at home. It left me wondering her situation and her reasoning behind placement at the PLC. There is such a variety of students at the school that stereotyping and guessing about personal facts is useless. Each story is drastically different, as I have seen being able to work with numerous different English students. There is no set criteria for acceptance in the PLC, which I admire.
When leaving for the day, Sarah called to her friends in the hallway in fluent Spanish. This also just me as being very curious. Does she speak Spanish at home? Is this part of the reason why her English is far behind? Does she read Spanish? Does this also attribute to the fact that her pronunciation is extremely faulty at times? I wonder if bringing more English language into the home would help her in school, not only in English but in all classrooms. It might even help her interact with others better and prepare her for the outside world. Hopefully after Spring Break, the class will be back to its original size and numbers!