Saturday May 21, 2010

So it was an up and down week. First the up part.

I had the students (Nivalacion) evaluate me and in that evaluation I asked them to write something they would like to learn in English. Many of them (including some of the girls) wrote that they wanted to learn vocabulary related to soccer. I decided to do this and gave them some basic soccer vocabulary at the end of last week. On Monday I assigned them a project in which they had to construct their own soccer stadium out of anything they wanted and then label the parts (positions and parts of the field). The projects were due yesterday and I was amazed at some of my students work. The students really liked it as well—many of them commented that it was a really cool way to learn the vocabulary. That always makes you feel good as a teacher. You can see all of the stadiums in my Picasa albums.

On the other hand there were a few downers. My seventh grade class has been a little rough the last couple of weeks. It is not only my class, but it is with all of the teachers and their classes as well. There are 28 of them and it is a relatively small classroom, therefore they are all sitting really close to each other, which allows them to get distracted rather easily. Add this with their age and it is almost a perfect storm for chaos on a regular basis. A few weeks back I caught two girls cheating (see May 9 post) and I have had problems with students copying homework, and making it obvious, as in doing it in class or in front of another teacher during her class. Well, I had another new one this week. Two actually.
Take One:
Thursday I was checking their homework and came across one of my student’s assignments. It was a boy student’s assignment and the handwriting was definitely not a boy’s. I looked closer and he had written his name in the left hand corner but in the right hand corner there was a whiteout spot and clearly through the whiteout you could read the girl student’s name whose work it actually was. This may be partly my fault, but sometimes my students do their homework in their history notebook and they don’t want to rip it out—they want to keep it with their notes to study. This particular girl student whose name was “hidden” behind the whiteout had asked if I could just check her homework in her notebook the day the homework was due so she didn’t have to rip it out. I did this and didn’t think anything of it because I had done it before. On Thursday while I was checking the homework I realized what was going on and I went and talked to this girl student (the boy student was absent that day). I was clever and first asked her to go get her history homework that I had checked for her. She said she had left her history notebook at home because we don’t have history on Thursday. I said fair enough, and then I took out her homework with the boys name and asked her if it was hers. She said yes. I then asked why the boy’s name was on it with her name “hidden” by whiteout. She said she didn’t know why, but said admitted that she had given her homework to this particular boy student so that he could copy it. At least she was honest. The boy though was the one that blew my mind. Instead of re-writing in his own handwriting, which would have been harder to pick up, he just whiteouted her name and put his…
Take Two:
Yesterday I was hanging out with Mrs. Lopez and my Nivalcion class after lunch—it was my off period and the kids were watching The Pursuit of Happiness. My principal, Mr. Calderon, came and asked for me and went on to tell me that he had talked to the girl student about the above situation and she had given him more information about some cheating going on in seventh grade. Evidently there was another boy student who had done the same thing. This boy student had just turned in his homework late and I hadn’t checked it yet. So I went to go look at it and sure enough, a boy definitely did not do the work, the handwriting was too neat. So we pulled the boy student and the accused girl student out of class and asked both of them about it. The girl said it wasn’t her handwriting, but the boy insisted it was. After comparing the girl’s handwriting in her notebook to the homework in question we (Mr. Calderon and I) determined it wasn’t hers, but she was still very hesitant and was holding something back. My principal and I sent the boy student back to class and kept the girl student. Within a few seconds after this she broke down crying and started to talk very fast in Spanish to my principal. As she did this the principal made a sign that told me that she liked this particular boy student (crossed his fingers). I stopped her and asked her to explain what she was saying in English. Evidently, because she liked this boy student, she had had a friend of hers (who doesn’t even go to our school) do his homework for him and then he turned in that homework. The irony of this is that this girl student hadn’t even turned in HER homework, but had had a friend do the homework for a boy she liked. Seventh graders…

Anyway, today has been an extremely successful day. I got up early and have planned the rest of the year for both 7th and 8th Grade and am about to start on my TEFL class. I might post again tomorrow, but for now, adios.