applications from kids to join the club

I just wanted to let you know that I went to the school yesterday to collect the completed application forms from the students. It's taken longer than anticipated for a whole range of reasons, but I am going to select the students over the weekend, and go into school to notify them on Monday (they have a holiday till then). What I thought you would want to know is that of 210 potential students from that year group, ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE kids applied to be in your club! How on earth I'm going to select just 14 I don't know, but it is a wonderful endorsement of the project!

Greetings,

I had a fine time on Friday. Thanks for your hard work. Below is the revised schedule we discussed. I hope I have it right. I will make the the badges and buy school supplies on Wednesday. Maxine and Lisa: should I bring them to you or should I meet you before class on Tuesday? I'll also find a box which we can leave the room. If you store folders/notebooks there students won't lose them and teachers won't have to lug them around.

ROTA

Tuesday 6 May Introductions and alphabet Lisa* Maxine
Thursday 8 May Weather and time Maxine* Shelley
Tuesday 13 May Home/community Shelley* Cindy
Thursday 15 May Family Shelley + Substitute
Tuesday 20 Body/ health Shelley Lisa
Thursday 22 May Food Shelley Cindy
Tuesday 27 May Colours and animals Cindy Lisa
Thursday 29 May Sports Cindy Maxine
Tuesday 3 June Feelings Maxine Lisa
Thursday 5 June Finishing up - spillover, review Lisa Maxine

Nice work yesterday, ladies. I have a lot of confidence in your teaching abilities. Here are some activities for your teacher's toolbox:

Name game tag (name + gesture)...L/S, kinesthetic...recall

Actions/Total physcial response (TPR)...speaking, kinesthetic...beginning/end of lesson

Match number to words (Spanish)...L/S...possibly kinesthetic

flashcard introduction...R/L/S...warm-up, I remember, we have finished

ball toss...S/L, kinesthetic...my turn, I listen/I read

total immersion (talking)...L

Vocabulary knock (knock when you hear a vocabulary word)...L...kinesthetic

Put vocabulary in order as you hear it...L/R, kinesthetic

Fill in the gap (cloze exercise) as student listen or read...L/R

Word count...L

Picture pairs...R

body parts...matching word to body...L/S/R

Erase dialogue with sucessive readings...L/S/R

Simon says...L, kinesthetic

After our tour on Friday, we'll discuss your 45 minute lesson.

- Michelle

Another great session

It was a great inspiration to be with you all again yesterday afternoon - you're such thoughtful people, taking such care to make a success of this idea: I think you're great.

Thank you, too, for welcoming my mother into the group - I was really proud for her to meet you all.

I can't see the best place to post the rota as a link so I thought I'd type it into this message - hope that's OK for you. The asterisk next to someone's name shows that they are the person doing the first draft of the plan for that session.

And see you at De Rada at 1.50 tomorrow (Friday).

- Elizabeth

ROTA

Tuesday 6 May Introductions and alphabet Lisa* Maxine
Thursday 8 May Weather and time Maxine* Shelley
Tuesday 13 May Family Shelley* Cindy
Thursday 15 May My home Cindy* Shelley
Tuesday 20 May Body/ health Shelley Lisa
Thursday 22 May Food Shelley Cindy
Tuesday 27 May Colours and animals Cindy Lisa
Thursday 29 May Sports Cindy Maxine
Tuesday 3 June Feelings Maxine Lisa
Thursday 5 June Finishing up - spillover, review Lisa Maxine

I also had a fine time at our meeting yesterday. You are/will be wonderful teachers and it's such a pleasure to work with you.

To recap, here are your homework assignments:

* prepare a 5-minute language lesson (preferably in a language other than English)
* read the article about Multiple Intelligences. What are your strongest intelligences? How do you know?
* come up with a theme song (old song, new lyrics)

I thought it might useful to post the teaching units and SWBATs that you brainstormed. Although it's not necessary, you might like to use one of these units for your five-minute teaching demonstration :

introductions (SWBAT perform an introduction of themselves and each other).
time/seasons
colors/shapes
prepositions
feelings (SWBAT draw picture of feelings, explain how they feel, identify facial expressions)
adjectives
jobs
countries
body parts (SWBAT identify body parts, point to body part after spoken cues, write the body parts, sing, "Head, shoulder, knees, and toes"
food (SWBAT state favorite/non-favorite foods, categorize food, state food habits)

Take care,
Michelle

Links to Gardner's 7 Intelligences

Hello there, ladies!!!

I can't tell you how much fun I had yesterday afternoon with you all. Three hours flew by and were full of good laughs with good people. A bit of a tease for me be able to enjoy the first session with you and not the rest. I feel quite attached to all of this, though, and know that I will find a way to meet you at lease once before graduation at the end of your classroom stint this year.

The first link above is the reading that we didn't go into fully yesterday. It's mostly theory, but it's short and interesting. The second link is simply fun. Disregard all of the appeals to get you to join the dating network, and there is no need to even give them your name. It just asks some questions that are fairly easy and quick to answer and will give you results on your level of "intelligence" for each of the seven.

Okay, so I will be checking the blog to keep up with what you're all doing. I could also be available to come to the school to see you all in action, but I won't do that unless you feel you need the support, which I am NOT anticipating! Your energy, creative minds and willingness to let the ego go will make you all excellent. These 14 kids are lucky to have you enter their lives!!

All the best!!

The first 24 hours

We sent out an email about ASK yesterday evening to Pristina native-English-speaking friends. It's not even been 24 hours and already we've had 7 people responding, saying either that they'd like to take part in the pilot project, or that they can't do so this term but want to be involved next term. It feels very exciting!