Notecards 2

Alberto walked in the library with a big smile on his face. I had missed last week and he was eager to show me what he had done with Katie. He had written a rough journal entry describing his day, read an article out of ESL newspaper, and learned his notecards. I noticed on his journal entry that he has problems with verb tenses so we are going to try and come up with a plan to help him with that. For the meantime, we are asking him to keep on writing journal entries for practice.  

As we were going over the article from the ESL newspaper I was shocked by how much he comprehended. The article was about how school districts are slashing bus routes to help with expenses. Alberto asked us what slashing meant and how to pronounce routes. He did not hesitate with asking questions. Majority of the time he could understand the meaning of the sentence even if he could not understand all the words. He reads with ease but lacks confidence when pronouncing some words. To keep him reading we have asked him to read another article out of the newspaper for next week.  

Next, we reviewed his previous notecards and made new ones. Alberto was extremely excited by this. One of the questions was why do American celebrate Thanksgiving? He understood the answer but said he has always been puzzled by the expression Thanksgiving. There is no spanish word for Thanksgiving so instead they translate it in a phrase that means the action of giving thanks. Alberto said he never understood how a phrase could be one word in English. After making ten notecards Alberto said that was enough for today that he needs to take baby steps with all this information. He excitedly reviewed what he had asked him to for next week and said he would spend a lot of time practicing. I suggested that he might even try doing homework with his children because it would help his English and by his children describing their homework it would probably help them learn it too. Alberto seemed to think that was a great idea. I continually blown away by how eager Alberto is to learn. I have enjoyed helping him become a more confident person. 

Notecards

Last Monday at 6 PM when Katie and I arrived at the library we immediately noticed how crowded it was with people studying for their numerous tests the week before fall break. We knew that maybe the library was not the best idea for working with Alberto this week. So, when Alberto walked through the doors of library smiling and waving at us we told him we were going to try something new today. Katie and I showed Alberto the way to Tucker Technology building and we decided to do our meeting at one of the studies areas there. Away from the chaos of the library. This week we focused on showing Alberto the concept of notecards. He had never even seen a notecard. We went over some of the information he needed to know for his citizenship test. We showed Alberto that we could write a question on one side of the card and an answer on the other side to use as a study tool. He loved the idea. He was so excited to have a way to go home and quiz himself or even have his children quiz him. We went over about thirteen questions and made notecards then I could tell he was reaching his limit of learning enough about our structure of government. So, we we moved onto the next thing on our agenda and showed him some basic grammar like adjectives. He had no idea what nouns, adjectives, or pronouns are. As we showed him examples and explained he seemed to catch on easily. In order to see where his writing skills are we have asked him to write a journal entry for homework. That way we can see if there is any particular area he needs extra help in. I look forward to seeing if Alberto has learned his notecards and I also look forward to reading his journal entry. 

Cancellation

I looked at my cell phone late afternoon on Monday and saw I had several missed phone calls from Alberto and two new voicemails. A little concerned, I immediately called him back. He told me he had to cancel our session that day and wanted to make sure I did not go and have him not show up. He was extremely apologetic and asked me if there was any additional work I would like him to do since he was missing the meeting. I told him not to worry about it and to keep working on his computer skills and the vocabulary words we learned. I am looking forward to seeing him next Monday.