I was supposed to start doing morning classes on Mondays at CORE as well as Tuesday night classes this week because the regular ESL morning teacher found a different job.  However, there weren’t actually any students Monday morning, which was kind of disappointing because I wanted to meet them.  Fabiola had the idea that I do some sort of project with them, like a cookbook.  I wanted to get their feedback on what project (if any) they would like to do.  Marilyn was unsure if a cookbook would be well received by the men in the class, and I am kind of unsure about it simply because Mary Beth (the woman I teach with on Tuesday nights) did the exact same project with an ESL class last semester, so I don’t really want to steal her project.  I haven’t come up with a great alternative yet though. Guess I will just have to talk to the students and make a decision from there.

I went back on Tuesday night, and we had 4 students this week (double what we normally get).  The ENEA teacher didn’t come this week though, so Mary Beth had to quickly switch over and teach that class and left me to teach the ESL class.  It went sooo much better than the first time I taught alone, partly because I wasn’t as nervous, and partly because Mary Beth had a few things prepared.  We worked on simple past tense verbs for most of the night.  The four students are at all different levels, but they were really good about helping each other out and asking me questions if they didn’t understand something.  Overall, it was a really comfortable group and I had a really good time working with them. 

Obviously, they are being impacted because they are learning English, but when I work with the students, especially by myself, it’s a very mutual exchange.  I help them with English, they teach me some Spanish.  I help them understand American idioms and why some works or phrases are they way they are, and they right away want to teach me something similar in Spanish.  I think the mutual exchange of language acquisition and culture is unique, and something I really look forward to each week.  I sometimes get disheartened about the fact that there is no set curriculum and I worry about how much/how fast they are learning English, but then I just remind myself that it doesn’t have to be the same way we learn in classrooms in college, and there are other valuable lessons being learned.  I think what impresses me the most is how much they help each other.  For the most part, the students don’t interact with each other except in class, and yet they are very willing to help each other out any time it is needed, without hesitation.  I don’t see that in the classes I am currently in.  I think it’s great they do that, and it really does help the learning process for all.  

Things at CORE have been a lot different the past few weeks from the first few.  Last time I wrote a blog, I hadn’t had any students for a few weeks, which was really discouraging.  But after that, we started to get a few to show up again again.  We have been getting two students consistently, but who those two are changes a bit.  That’s fine with me though, as long as people are coming!

However, I do feel bad that WE are being inconsistent now.  Lesson plans are very different each week.  Teacher are different each week.  Nothing flows.  For example, a few weeks ago the woman I was originally assisting was out of town, so another ESL teacher took over the class.  Then last week, she was gone again, so it was only me teaching!  I wasn’t expecting that at all… I felt horrible being so unprepared.  I pulled a notebook out of the back with some ESL packets because one of my students asked to learn shopping words.  It was a bit of a disaster.  I kept promising more consistency the next week, but I unfortunately came down with the flu so I couldn’t even make it. I am not sure who taught the class this week.  If we aren’t being consistent, it’s not fair that we ask the students to be.  At the moment, I feel really discouraged, not only for me, but for the students.  They come to CORE, actually, I believe they are paying for these classes, because they want to learn English, but there is no curriculum to speak of.  I am the first to acknowledge that it is hard to come up with a uniform lesson plan when multiple people teach the classes, different students come each week, and each student is at a different ability level, but at the same time, I feel some sort of fluidity between lessons would be very beneficial.

There have been a multitude of things that are bothering me with the CORE program, but at the moment I am going to reserve those comments for several reasons.  First, I have no training on how to teach ESL classes, or teach at all for that matter, so I can’t pass judgment on others until I myself have been in that situation (though I got a taste of it the other night).  I am hopefully going to be taking over the Monday morning classes, and hopefully I will be able to establish some of the things I see lacking in the evening classes.

On to another matter: Tobi asked us to respond to an essay we read last week in our blogs.  The essay was about sponsorship in literacy.  According to the article, sponsors can be anyone who provides resources and knowledge to those they are “sponsoring.”  This is especially relevant when discussing literacy.  Anyone attempting to learn how to read needs someone to sponsor them, to help them, guide them, and be there for them when they have questions. This is no less true for adults than it is children, but I feel adult learners are more often overlooked.  This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the lack of consistency at CORE.  These adult learners need reliable teachers and lessons to truly grasp the language.  Random lessons each week with different, unrelated vocab and the occasional grammar is not doing much good.  I think we all, myself included, need to step it up and be better sponsors to those who trust in us at CORE.

I was lucky enough to start my project site almost as soon as I started my Americorps internship.  I was assigned to help out at CORE with the ESL classes and eventually to help the grad students work on their Oral History project.  My first day at CORE was September 15th, and I was told that I would be going to mostly observe, but help out where needed in the ESL classes.  I was also told that I was going to be assisting Mary Beth Johnson. The name sounded vaguely familiar. . . turns out, she was one of my Spanish instructors over the summer!  When I arrived, Mary Beth had two students in her class.  About ten people showed up for the ESL classes that night, but some were much more advanced than others.  We had two teenage boys who spoke no English, so we worked with them on the alphabet, spelling everyone's names, and then moved on to simple questions like "Do you have any brothers? How many? How old are they?" (We also reviewed numbers).  We ended by working on the verb "to be" by constructing sentences like "I am tall," and "he is skinny."  It was a bit disorganized because this was the first week students had come, and we had no idea what to expect so there was no real lesson plan.  Also, two hours seemed to be a bit long for them. . . they were definitely waning by the end.  Overall though I thought it went pretty well, and was excited to go back the next week.  However, the next week not one ESL student came.  Marilyn (the director of CORE), thought it might have something to do with the cold weather.  Mary Beth said she would try calling our students the night before class this week to try and get them to come again.

As for the Oral History Project, it hasn't really been up and running yet, but I did a little behind the scenes work on it, applying for  grant from CSU to fund the project.  Unfortunately, we did not receive any grant money.  I will begin to explore other grant options because the grad students could definitely use some funding help on their project.  As an anthropology student, I am really excited to be working on this project, and hope it is able to start up soon!