Sandbox

My evening Adult ESL classes are where I tryout the things I'd like to use in my classroom with my students. The classes are very small and I can test out my tools. For the past few weeks we have been working on using FLICKR and photostory to creat videos relating to the part of speech or skill the students are working on.



here is an example of a video:

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Today I found some really cool tools on one of the links from the K12 Online that gives 50 tools for presentations conference that I want to try out in the next few weeks. The problem I face however, is that the videos and such don't show up through the district filters and firewalls. Rockyou.com ...well...rocks, but the video it creates won't show up in-district. I hope to try out the tools on this site to create some rockin' stuff with them in the next few weeks. Hopefully, I'll pilot them with my adults and have my students use them next semester. (My History classes are still baneed from laptops since two have come up missing!

Adult ESL ROCKS

I learned so much today. It was my first day teaching ESL at the ILC for "adults." Its interesting that I don't have to worry so much about engagement as I do meaningful!

They are intrinsically motivated and are hanging on my every-word. I didn't have to do anything to capture their attention, learning is already doing that!

However, I was careful to make what I taught them meaningful. They want to learn NOW and need things that will be useful for them.

I'm exhausted and can't possible comment on everything that happened, I was there for 4 hours.

However, I was surprised in the middle of my second class with 2 brand-new students. The second class is designed for intermediate students and I was working with "G" on comparatives. I quickly had to engage them into a quick phonics lesson. I did not have any resources or books, so I had to make it up as I went along. It was fantastic!

They were two 17 year old young men who work construction and, from what I gather, didn't have much high school because they were always in trouble. But they were so anxious to learn. I'm not kidding when I say that they were literally on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word. I felt like a real teacher.

I'm glad I had to walk home (Josh had a class tonight) I needed to expend the energy I felt after teaching the past four hours. Can you imagine teaching for four hours strait, and needed to "walk it off" and not go strait to bed?

I'm sure in a few weeks that trek will be long, but man its a great feeling when you've known that what you've done while "teaching" is to actually teach!