As part of my teaching portfolio, I need a video sample of my teaching. So this weekend, my father-in-law came in at the break to set up a video camera, which means that soon you will be subjected to footage of me explaining constitutional law. Life does take us to strange places sometimes, doesn't it?

This week I started with a promise to talk slower. :) Then we discussed possible interview questions, and the pragmatic differences between questions like "what is your address?" vs."where do you live?" or "When's your birthday?" vs. "What's your date of birth?" I had each person draw a card with a question, and we went around the circle, each asking the next person their question.

After that, we moved to the tables and looked at the reading about the Declaration of Independence. I used the Schoolhouse Rock video "Gonna Be Fireworks," making sure to call out "gonna" as a shortened oral form of "going to." After some comprehension questions, we looked at the colonial and modern flags, comparing them with each other and to the Burmese flag--interestingly, all of the students were *here* when the last governmental change went down in Burma, so they couldn't actually tell me much about the new flag. Apparently the old one had 14 stars to represent their states, while the new one only has one star to represent unity.

After the break, I gave them a strategy to help with dictation practice: instead of trying to write all at once, write abbreviations of the words first, then go back and fill them in later. Since I do multiple readings of the dictation sentences, there's time to write, eg, "T J wrote the Dec of Ind," and then go back and write out the full words. This gives them time to assimilate the entire sentence, without stressing about getting each word as it comes out.

Then it was on to cover the constitution; I tried to show the SHR video about the Preamble, but the version I had was too quiet to be heard on my puny laptop speakers, so we axed that and moved on to the Bill of Rights. (The Preamble isn't on the test, except to know what it is, so that would have been an extra--something we really don't have time for anyway. So I may not bother trying to show it with speakers next week.) By this time we were down to the last 20 minutes, and I could tell brains were pretty fried (you try listening to someone ramble about an obscure topic in a foreign language for three hours--the cognitive load is immense), so we really only covered the fact that the Constitution can be amended, and that the first 10 Amendments are in the Bill of Rights. So that's where we'll start next week, because, unlike the Preamble, they do need to be able to name at least three things covered in the Bill of Rights.

One thing I've noticed, is that there is a huge amount of completely impractical vocabulary to be memorized for this subject. I mean, it's great to know the phrase "taxation without representation," but it's not exactly going to come in handy at the grocery store. The other thing is, my students really, really, *really* need more speaking practice. Even the three or four most fluent people have really sketchy pronunciation (though they are all admirably game, even with such tongue-twisters as "constitutional convention"). But because only those three or four are really fluent enough to speak extemporaneously, it's hard to do open-ended exercises, bc the rest really just lack the grammar or vocabulary to say what they need to say. Further, because this class is in a short time span, and must be so narrowly focused, it's hard to do open-ended exercises--anything personal enough to spark conversation is unlikely to be pertinent to the topic at hand.

So once we finish with the Bill of Rights next week, rather than move right on to a new topic, I'm going to spend about 45 minutes on vocabulary practice exercises. I've got some timeline cards, where I'll ask people to line up in order and read the event description off their card; and another matching exercise where people will have to decide if the word or phrase they drew pertains to the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, or both, and group themselves accordingly, and then read the description off their card. It's not open-ended conversation practice, but it will get them some practice pronouncing all of this ridiculous vocabulary. We've also got Early American History bingo, and a crossword puzzle, time permitting.

Then it will be on to the Founding Fathers, and next week we can jump right into the Westward Expansion. Whee!

Well, it didn't go as badly as my nightmare suggested, nor did it go perfectly, but I give myself about a 7 out of 10. It was my first time really getting a feel for the group's English proficiency level going in, and it turns out only about three or four of them are really fluent enough to hold a conversation with. The others have a ways to go, and I've got my work cut out for me and no mistake. So some of the activities I had planned didn't work out so well. In fact, at the class break, two of the women approached me and said, "You a-speak-a so fas'. We can have a inte-pe-ter?" Oh, dear. No, I explained, you can't have an interpreter, bc unless you're over 65 you have to take the citizenship test in English, so part of the point of the class is to learn English. But I began the second half with an apology and a promise to slow down, and that went a bit better. I think after a couple of weeks we will have enough trust built up that they will feel more comfortable asking me to slow down and explain things more.

We started with a discussion about why people come to America, and talked about how the first colonists had come here for religious freedom. There was a workbook reading and some comprehension questions about the Pilgrims, Plymouth, Jamestown, etc, and then I broke out the Schoolhouse Rock video, "No More Kings." I handed out a worksheet and asked them to circle key words as they heard them in the song. I was hoping to get a few laughs out of it, but they were all quite serious. This was in the first half, where I think people were more frustrated, so the ensuing activity to explain what the key words meant did not go over so well. A lot of crickets chirping. :(

After the break we talked about Native Americans, briefly touched on slavery, and looked at a map of the original 13 colonies. The best activity by far was the 13-colonies rap: in groups, they had to pick four colonies and chant their names, clapping on the stressed syllables. I preceded this with a short explanation of what word stress means, and we marked the stressed syllables in each state name. Then I modeled an example rap, and turned them loose to create their own. Each group had to chant them together, out loud, while clapping. This was a wild success, and much hilarity ensued.

There are 100 questions on the civics exam; each applicant is asked 10 of them, and must answer 6 correctly. So at the end of each section of the class, I wrapped up with "here are the questions you can answer now."

Saturday's class covered:

58. What is one reason colonists came to America?
59. Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?
60. What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves?
61. Why did the colonists fight the British?
64. There were 13 original states. Name three.

I've never had to plan a three-hour class before, and the work involved, added to the start of daily Maymester classes at GSU, is starting to take its toll. Last night I dreamed that I showed up for the first day of class and

• the location had changed
• the new location was under construction
• the new classroom had no tables, chairs, projector, whiteboard, *anything*
• I'd forgotten all of my own resources--some of which I couldn't remember planning to need in the first place
• people brought their kids
• people kept wandering in and out--at one point an entire class of teenagers arrived, walked around, and left
• my laptop got a virus and I couldn't get to my lesson plan
• there were several native English speakers in the room criticizing my every move
• about halfway through, we discovered the old location was now available again, so we all had to drive back there and start over

I've never been so grateful to be woken up by a wiggly toddler.<p>

The LEAF has a nifty blue tooth feature that lets me listen to anything on my phone through the car speakers. While this is pretty cool and science-fiction-y when it comes to making phone calls, what I mostly use it for is listening to my music collection, most of which lives on my phone. Truly, we live in the future.

Recently I just had evidence that Z is paying attention more than I think he is: he just randomly came out with "you're still free. Can't take the sky from me!" Guess it's time to get the Avenue
Q soundtrack off that playlist...

So the gas company had to change our water meter. To do this, they had to shut the gas off. After replacing the meter, they needed to turn the gas on, and then come in the house and check the gas appliances to make sure all was well. Of course, they can't do this when no one is home to let them in, so naturally they did the logical thing and called to make an appointment, right?

Wrong.

I came home today to discover that we had no hot water. After attempting to relight the pilot light in the water heater, I checked the stove and lo! No happy blue flame. I called the gas company and discovered that, yes indeed, a technician had been here to change the gas meter. After turning off the gas. But since no one was home to let him in to check the appliances afterwards, he...left. With our gas still off. And a note on the door saying, hey, by the way, we turned off your gas today.

Lucky for me, customer care is open til 10. They sent an technician out, he turned on the gas, checked our stove and water heater, and all is now well.

We pay for this service, don't we?

Aaron: "Z, You're getting bigger every day!"

Z: "Yes, and when I'm 16 I can learn to fix pipes, and I can touch the gear shift in the electric car, boogie woogie woogie, and I can be an astronaut plumber!"

It's only one day a week, but it's teaching citizenship classes for a refugee aid organization, which--bing!--is exactly the work I want to be doing. And it's not volunteer work, either--there's actual money involved. Not enough to buy my own Mediterranean island or anything, but after four years of living on savings (thank you, honey, for all those mortgage payments!), it'll be nice to have an actual income again, even if it's just an hourly rate for a few hours a week. It's also a foot in the door with said organization, and much-needed experience. I've had two other interviews where employers have looked askance at my variegated resume. "So you have no actual adult classroom ESL experience." Uh, no. Sorry. Working on it. And now I really will be! Whee!

I can't say enough good things about the Hop Shop.  It's a fantastic and unique dance weekend, with small group instruction and lots of individual attention from world-class dance instructors.  I always come out of it with interesting things to think about and try out.  Sadly, I wasn't dancing particularly well at the evening dances (too tired from the workshops, I guess!), but I totally got my money's worth out of the weekend as a whole.  Feeling pleasantly stiff and sore this morning.  :D

Bean Work Play Cafe turned one year old this month. Yesterday Z and I went to their birthday party.

Click for full photo set.