Week Seven: Eager to Learn

November 29th-December 3rd 2010

Every week the students review how to identify the main idea of a passage. This is a skill that they will need to use on their Common Entrance Exam. We usually do one together as a class and then students are instructed to do one on their own. After correcting them, it seems that most students are able to identify the topic and main idea of a passage. I think it is good that the teachers consistently review this with them because I have noticed that many have continued to improve over the past few weeks.

The students also have to read a weekly passage and answer the corresponding comprehensive questions. We read the passage together as a class and discussed any unfamiliar words or sections talked about. Students then must answer the multiple choice questions that follow on their own. This activity makes students think at a higher level because most of the questions cannot be directly answered by using the text. Students are forced to read, comprehend and apply their knowledge to the passage in order to answer the questions correctly.

Another main focus this week was introducing the formal letter of complaint. Students were familiar with writing a friendly letter from prior lessons, but had not yet dealt with the letter of complaint. It was nice that they at least had a frame of reference which they could compare this new knowledge to. I had to explain the components necessary to form a letter of complaint and then we constructed one on the board together as a class.

The remainder of the week had a large focus on grammar and punctuation. We discussed various topics: words with "ie" and "ei," homophones, internal punctuation (commas,apostrophes,quotations), and subject/verb agreement.I was a little nervous about teaching grammar and punctuation because I have never had to do so yet. I tried to make it as interesting as possible by allowing the students to get out of their seats and participate in partner and/or group work. Students came up to the chalkboard to write answers, which was something they seemed to really enjoy. They learned how to encourage and guide one another. Peer to peer correction seemed to really help the students understand the material.

Students at Monchy mainly use recitation and repetition to learn the curriculum, so they were very interested in any active approaches I tried to integrate into the lessons. For example, I gave each student a card with a word on it and they were asked to pair up with another student based on some type of similarity (compound words,homophones,etc.). The students really enjoyed the active participation and responded well to the activity. They also had to share a brief explanation of why they paired up with the person they did. It was a great way to start a lesson and get students interested. Not to mention, students felt that they had a sense of familiarity with the topic as a result of the opening activity.