Week 8.

The last Class !

A lot of the students were really down as they knew that this was going to be the last class for us together. We started the class with a revision for some of the previous lessons, answered any doubts that they had before we gave them the exam, and gave them the survey to complete about the class. The exam was relatively easy, it was six pages long, and had questions in the same format as the examples we had been doing with them in class. We gave them one hour to complete the test. As some students finished early, we let them out for a break while we stayed in the class to watch the rest of the students and correct their papers at the same time. We were able to grade all the papers and give them back to the students by the end of the class. The students didn't do as well as I hoped they would, as they apparently didn't understand the questions. They were probably too shy to ask for help, even though we encourage them to ask questions in case they don't understand anything. 

In the second part of the class, after we had given the students a break, we gave back the papers, and rehearsed the song with them. Most of the students were excited and had actually learnt some of the lyrics of the song. Later we asked each student to let us take a short video of them saying something about the classes and what they had learnt. Although they were a bit shy at the beginning, they all came around to doing it after a couple had volunteered to do it for us. (No pictures from this class because my camera was going to run out of charge :(, and the videos take a very long time to upload! )

This last class came with a sense of sadness and accomplishment at the same time. This has been a wonderful experience for us and for the students, and we hope to see them all again sometime soon.

Sara, Amna, & Sakib.

WEEK 7 !!!!

The class was very fun, for us and for the students. We first helped them with the problems they were having with the homework we assigned last week. We think the workers are still a bit shy to tell us when they don't fully understand what we're saying! We went over the past material with them again, and helped them with forming questions, which I was surprised they were having trouble with since they've done this many times before!

After that, we taught them how to speak about things they are going to do in the future, and got them talking about things they did in the past and things they are going to do in the future. We also played the lying game with them, which they quite enjoyed too. After that, we told them about the song that they would have to learn for the ceremony on the 15th of April. We put the song on for them to hear, and filmed them while they all sang along to it!! 

Since we figured that we'd finish class early this week, me and Amna stopped by the supermarket to get them some snacks, and also picked up some other food on the way. The workers were excited to sit on the couches in the CMU Food court and eat while looking around at the place. We then took them on a small tour of the building, which they really liked. They took so many pictures (as you can see below), and some gave me their e-mails so I can send the pictures to them. 

Finally, we explained to them that the should try to complete the activities in all their booklets as practice for the exam that they are going to take next week.

I think overall this was a very fun and productive class, that both myself and the students enjoyed.

Week 7

This week's class went by really well. The learners were very excited to not only come to class, but they were also excited because this was the second last class and they were looking forward to receiving their certificates for completing the Language Bridges program. Though they were excited that they would get their certificates, they did not want the program to finish because they really enjoy the program and love learning English. Teaching the class was very interesting this week because Prince and Abhay showed up to teach the learners the song "Wavin' Flag", at first our class was really shy to sing, but by the time it came to the 4th repetition, they were warming up to the idea and more than half the class was really into the song. One thing that I really liked was that all of our learners had heard the song before which showed me how powerful the FIFA World Cup is, because that's where our learners had heard the song before. I was very impressed with the progress that our learners have made over the 7 weeks even with the interruptions. Comparing the learners from when they first started to now, there is a stark difference in not only their competence to speak English, but also their confidence levels have greatly increased. Overall, I feel that so far the program has managed to accomplish its goals by enabling the learners to practice and learn English to a point where they are comfortable speaking it.

Music and Emotions

Class went very well today! I was sad to see that two of the learners from last week didn't come, as they apparently had a commitment which overlapped with class time this week. But the other learners returned and were excited to review what we learned last week and start on some new material!

We started by reviewing the present, past, and future tenses of verbs by talking about what we did yesterday. It's great to see the learners applying this new information, as last week many of them were not able to use the past tense correctly. Today, they were helping each other to remember how to conjugate verbs in past, present, and future tenses. We also filled out a timeline with events from this week, today, and next week to practice this. The learners did very well at remembering these skills!

Also, I handed out phones to the learners so that they could play the current version of the Mobile Literacy Tools game. They struggled with the idea of answering quiz questions on the phones, more than I thought they would. In the end, they said they didn't like the game because it was hard to understand what they were supposed to do in the game. I think they caught on eventually, though, and I feel that it's worth trying next week for a last time! The question content I wrote was also a bit difficult for some of them, which shows the difficulty of encompassing all skill levels in a practice tool such as this.

Then we learned about emotion words, so that next week we can write about ourselves in letters to family! Many of my learners have expressed an interest in music, so we had a lot of fun with songs associated with emotions. I gave each learner a card with a song title on it, and I played their song as they walked up to the board in turn. The board had the words "happy," "sad," "angry," "scared," "calm," and "excited" written across the top, and the learners had to agree where to tape the song title according to which emotion the song expressed. I think they really enjoyed this, and I enjoyed playing some of my own music for them. One learner requested that I dance to an Irish rock song I played!

Abhay also came in to teach Waving Flag. This was (accidentally) nicely timed, as we were listening to music already when Abhay came in. The lyrics were a bit advanced for this basic group, so they struggled somewhat, but they were all interested in looking it up on the internet to learn it better this week!

It's too bad there is only one week left- we could learn so much more if we kept going!

Week 7

 We got back to teaching this week after an unfortunate break - last week Abaan and I couldn't teach due to it also being Professional Day. Our learners were excited to get back to learning English and seemed to enjoy class. This week we continued with verbs, except our focus was on dialogue and conversation, rather than just grammatical exercises. It was a special class for us, because we were following the lesson plan we had created for Community Service Learning. Although it was shorter than the plans we usually follow, it turned out to be successful, because the activities were both, enjoyable and educational for our learners.

 

Towards the end of class, Prince and Abhay stopped by to tell the learners about their performance on April 15th and teach them the song. We had some enthusiastic singers, but most of the class was too shy to sing.

 

~ Reham

Language Bridges Celebration

Thank you all so much for the wonderful work you did for Language Bridges, this program wouldn't have been a success if it weren't for you.

Remember, you must all attend the Celebration in order to hand out the certificates to your students.

When: Sunday April 15th 2012 6:00pm to 8:30pm

Where: CMU Lecture Hall 1202

See you all there!

Victorious Verbing!

This Saturday was my first second class, which is an event worth celebrating! This was the first time that I was teaching the same group as the previous week, which means I was able to learn names and begin relating to the learners in a more permanent manner.

Seven learners came on Saturday, and they were a wonderful group! We began the class by talking about what each of the learners does for their job, which showed me the great variety of work and skill represented by such a small class. The group has an electrician, a carpenter, two office boys, two cooks, and a housekeeper. This presented a challenge in some ways, as the learners are at slightly different language comprehension levels, according to how often they interact with English speakers at work. I also suspect that they have different vocabularies according to their vocations. This variety comes with its advantages as well; I hope that the learners will teach each other and contribute to the group language learning experience!

I decided to teach about verbs, because I noticed last week that the learners usually spoke with gerunds, and they showed a relatively small amount of familiarity with the past and future tenses of verbs. I passed out different objects, one to each person, in order to first distinguish nouns from verbs. Each learner came to the front to share the name of the item I gave them (such as a hat, or my headphones). We then brainstormed verbs for each object by answering the question, "What do you do with this item?" All of the students were keeping up well and filling in the verbs they learned on their worksheets.

After the break, we took the verbs they learned and discussed past, present, and future tense. This was more challenging material, especially since we dealt with verbs that change in different ways (or don't change at all), such as "buy" and "read." Playing a game with these tenses is what helped to truly solidify the different forms for the students. We split into two teams, and the teams raced to write the correct form of the verb I shouted out. Everyone participated in the game, and I think it really helped to practice these verbs with the students!

The true test of this will be if they do their homework assignment- check in next week!

Video: Teaching a song

Video: Abhay and Prince sing to the class and they love it....CLICK HERE!

Last TWO weeks

So it's down to the last two weeks of teaching now. Prince and I have really been learning a lot and hope to achieve a lot more in the next two classes. In fact, earlier on Thursday, I met Julie from Language Bridges and she said that she had come to discuss the plans for the graduation ceremony. These are really exciting times and I'm really looking forward to the day. Meanwhile, Prince and I have put together a lesson plan for Monday's class. This will mainly be based on 3 activities. Here's what they activities are about.

Activity # 1: Whiteboard Bingo
Key Objective: Vocabulary enhancement

In this activity, the students will be given a slip of paper each. We, the teachers, will write 15
words on the white-board before the class starts. The students will then select five random
words from within these 15 words and will write it into their little slips. After the group is done,
one of us will announce 5 words that we randomly choose on the spot. The student with the
maximum number of matches to these 5 words gets the prize. He will be declared the winner.
In this game, the main idea is to get across maximum number of words. After each word is
called out, we will explain the meaning of it briefly and also show a picture about the word in
order to give a better context of the word. This will be done after each word is called out. In this
manner, the students get to learn a lot of new words. We hope that the visuals will be of great
help and the students can remember these visuals and they relate to these words in future.

Activity # 2: Learning a new song and singing it later on.
Key Objective: Understanding musical lyrics and also improving listening skills

In this activity the students will learn the lyrics of the song titled, “We shall overcome” by Pete
Seeger, in class. The students have already got a trailer of this song as we already taught them
the first stanza. However, there are many other stanzas and so we hope that this can be a great
learning experience for the students. The main task for the students would be to complete a
worksheet that has the broken version of lines of the song. After one round of the song, the
students would simultaneously write down the missing words. We’ll be singing the song live in
class, which makes it more interesting and entertaining. If the students request, we’ll have
another go at it as well.
The key objective of this task is to get the students to test their own listening skills and
knowledge about words. This will be a good way to test the vocabulary skills as well. The words
are not really difficult and so after the song, we also would like to discuss a bit about the
message of the song and also what it really means.


Activity # 3: Teaching them to write a short story and having them construct one.
Key Objective: To learn the basic structure of a story and to learn different styles to present it

This activity will be the more work intensive activity out of the three. At first, we will tell the
students two short stories about our lives. The stories will be followed by a small questionnaire
that will need to be completed by the students. This questionnaire will also be their reference
when they make their own story. Next, we will focus on the style of telling the story itself. After
this is complete, we plan to have them work in groups in order to come up with a story on the
spot. This activity will enhance their skills of thinking on the spot and can also facilitate
teamwork. The teams will then elect one member to come and present the story (each story
would be 5 minutes long, at the maximum). The team also has to come up with questions for
the audience.

Week 6

Two more weeks Left :D !! 

Yesterday's class started off on the wrong foot, the bus was late and we had a lot of students absent, and the students were a bit quiet because we had a visitor in the class yesterday! We were also quite sad to find out that one of our students had resigned and wasn't going to be attending the class anymore.

Things got better though, as the students regained their comfort in the classroom and speaking in front of others. We started off the class with them reading the homework that we had assigned last class, which was to write a paragraph about something they had done at the weekend. The students are becoming very good at writing and using the different things that we teach them in class.

Yesterday's class was mostly about simple past, and converting sentences from positive to negative. We also had them form questions that suit the sentences that they were changing. we explained to them when we use the present and past form of the verb, and how the difference between asking about things that happened in the past and habitual things.

A lot of the students told us how much they were enjoying the class, and that they wished it would take place on a daily basis! They told us that they were learning a lot and that they enjoyed coming here to the CMU building. We tried to make the class more entertaining by chatting with the students individually and using funny sentences for the examples.

We told the students if we finished class early next week we'd take them for a tour around the building because we've noticed that they like to look around during the breaks. We're very excited but sad at the same time that the classes are coming to an end! we can't wait to see all the workers next week. We have a surprise for them! 

Sara, Amna, and Sakib

The Last New Group! - Saturday's Class

It was great to finally teach a group of learners who I know I will be teaching for the remainder of the program. This encouraged me to learn names and engage with the learners in ways that will last over multiple weeks. We taught the learners how to create sentences expressing their abilities and their desires using the verbs "can", "can't", "will", and "won't". This was a good lesson, as it led to a dialog between the teachers and the learners as the learners constructed sentences about what they can do and what they will do. In order to properly define what it means to say, "I will do this," we had a talent show! To a student who said, "I can dance," I asked, "But will you dance for us?" He said he would! He did a wonderful dance for us to some Hindi music. I will try to post the video on the Facebook soon, as it was a really good time! Another student chose to sing after him.

The talent show was wonderful because it encouraged the students to interact and be social. It was wonderful to see everyone open up and enjoy themselves! I hope that we can have meaningful interactions like this with the class in the future.

After this, Alisher led a word game on the board, and I took one group of learners so that we could have the game

ds based off of the words they knew in the game. For example, one student wrote the word "up." This gave me a great opportunity to teach the word "down," and it was easy to do because I knew that this learner already knew the opposite to the word. This relates well to Brookfield's emphasis on using prior knowledge in education.

goi

ng in two places at once. Working with these learners one-on-one was really great, as I was able to give them specific new vocabulary wor

I hope to see all of these learners in this week's class! I remember nearly everyone's name, so one more class should give us all the opportunity to finally know each other!

~Natalie

Abhay - Week 2 - Expectations

I am really looking forward to teaching the workers at the Pearl. In the Language Bridge Program, I’m sure to gain a lot of knowledge about teaching and hope to improve my teaching skills. Right now, I really am not sure what to expect, but, I know that this experience will definitely prove worthwhile and memorable for me and hence I’m here; taking the class.

I expect the teaching experience to be fairly challenging. Although we have lessons planned out and other activities laid out for us, from my experience in the past, I’m expecting a lot of variation from the actual plan. We need to improvise at times and I think my skill of improvisation will come handy in these challenging situations. I hope that the classes would run smoothly but it’s natural for things to go wrong and I think I must prepare for different scenarios and have back up plans up my sleeve, just in case.

The students are very important part of the experience and I’m expecting them to come with a sincere quest for learning. To me, it really doesn’t matter if the learner is intelligent or if the learner doesn’t even know the alphabet. As long as there is interest, I believe that anything is achievable for them and their interest would also motivate me to teach well and prepare good activities for them.

I’ll try to be a teacher that makes learning for the students a comfortable process. I will try to establish a healthy environment in class, where all students can feel free to express their opinions yet they must do it in a disciplined manner. My first task would be to set the ground rules so that they are all clear about the discipline issue from the very beginning. While I try to make the class a comfortable experience, I will make sure that I am strict on homework or other class material that I ask them to complete.

I think the biggest challenge would be to get the learners to come out of their comfort zone. They may not be used to sitting in a classroom and talking to people outside their camps. I want to make sure that they do not feel awkward while sitting in the class and will try to involve them as much as possible in our discussions. Many learners might be shy or ashamed since they do not know English as well as their friends and maybe some of them might not even know the alphabet. My responsibility is to teach them and I would really like to spend some time and help these students. I think making them feel less intimated of us as teachers is more important at this stage.

In the readings by Brookfield, we discussed that adult learners have an improving long term memory and that they rely on this long term memory to make sense of new information. I’ll make use of this concept and shall try to relate all the new information to some of their past experiences. This way, they’ll not just learn new things, but more importantly, they will also be able to remember them in future. 

Week 5 Reflection- Abhay and Prince

So far, the teaching experience has been really interesting. Although there were a few challenges initially, we managed to work together and resolve all the issues that we had. It has been a lot of fun as well. Working with a co-teacher, I learnt to adjust to different ideas and to use adaption strategies as well. The workers are a lot of fun and there were several instances where everyone would just laugh because there are a few students who have a really good sense of humor.

The first week of teaching was really exciting since we went to the camp to teach. This was a totally new experience for all of us and so it was equally challenging. The introductory class was really simple and we just had a few conversation lessons and introductory lessons. During this class, we managed to learn the names of all students and tried to get as familiar as possible with their names. Most importantly, we made to sure to have some fun with them as well since it was their first time and so we wanted to make sure that they were really comfortable and not intimidated by us. We also played hangman in the first session, and ever since, they have always been requesting us to play this game at the end of each session.

In week two, we had a few changes in plans. Firstly, the classes would now take place at the university so this was a major difference. The students came in to the class in the university. They were really happy to be at our university. They enjoyed coming to a different location as it was a good change for them as well. Also, some of the students had left the class and we now had our final set of students. During this session, we practiced some of the introductory conversations that we had covered in the first session. Each student came forward and presented a little introductory speech to the class. I found this really amazing since we had just taught them the format of the introduction in the previous class and now we were seeing immediate results. We shifted gears and moved into everyday conversation. We had different scenarios and taught them what is normally said in these scenarios.

Brookfield mentioned in his book that adult learners relied more on their long term memory in order to make sense of any new material that is being presented. I found this really helpful and considered this thought while teaching the workers. For instance, while teaching about job applications, there was a little section about health forms. Initially they did not really understand what we were talking about. Later I asked them if they completed a ‘medical’ form for the job in Doha. Almost all the students repeated the word ‘medical’ after me and said that they had indeed completed it. Apparently, ‘medical’ is a term of the procedure in the labor processing in Qatar, during which the worker’s medical records are examined and necessary treatment is provided before beginning the work term. They all could easily relate to it since it was a term that was embedded into their memory.

During weeks 3 and 4, we focused a lot on the use of adjectives to describe people and also taught them how to do job applications. Moreover, we also taught them some basic interviewing techniques, focusing on jobs that were similar to what they were employed in, such as, security guards, electricians, plumbers etc. This was really interesting since the students actually came up for one on one interviews in the class and it was somewhat similar to the experience in a business communications class at university. They really enjoyed it since, for most of them, it was their first ever interview.

During week 5, we taught them some new exercises such as positive and negative statements. We also taught them how to frame questions based on the given statement. In this week, we implemented a really interesting strategy. We taught them a simple song titled, “We shall overcome”. They were really happy to sing with us and this is something they want to do each class. They requested us to sing at the end of each session. In our future sessions, we hope to have more music based lessons in which the students can even learn new words and sentences, while having fun with music as well.

I personally learnt a lot about the learners in this project. I can now relate to the workers in a better manner and can understand their situation better. I think the program “Language Bridges” is a great initiative not just for the workers but even for us students who are teaching. There is mutual benefit in this venture. It’s my first time interacting with workers but I’ve really enjoyed it. They are really curious about the language and they show up almost every class for learning. This shows their interest and their quest for knowledge. Planning lessons has been easy because the materials provided are really well detailed. However, there are times when we have to improvise and I’m sure we’re getting better at this over time.  As a teacher, I think I’m gaining a lot of experience. I sure have worked as a teacher before, but that was for an entirely different audience. I’ve always worked with young kids and I’m glad that I’m teaching adult learners this time around.

Week 5

The topic for week 5 was verbs - we began by reading Fast Money together and having a discussion on the moral of the story. Something Abaan and I noticed from the pre-test we gave our learners on Week 1 was that although they can speak English, they have no idea about verbs or the different forms in which they are used. As a result, we decided to dedicate this class to going over many verbs with them - for example:

Verb: To Be

Past: I was

Present: I am

Future: I will be/I am going to be

This proved to be something the learners were really interested in learning about. It was easy to see that they were frustrated, because they found it too difficult. However, we explained how it takes a lot of time - months, even YEARS - before people are able to get the hang of grammar correctly, and this is why they should practice and try to learn English on their own even after the 8 week program has concluded. 

At the end of class our learners were exhausted, but they were grateful to us for teaching them something very relevant to their daily use of English as a language. Many of them asked us if they could sign up for Language Bridges again, because 8 weeks is not enough for them to learn English. I told them that even if they couldn't, they should continue practicing English with each other and not to give up!

~ Reham

Week 5

Last nights class went by really quickly. We spent our time trying to explain the concept of verbs and the different forms of them. Though we planned for this to take around 30 minutes, it ended up taking up around an hour and a half. Even after taking up the entire class, we noticed that there were some learners which were still confused about the material. We understand that the concept is difficult to learn in one class which is why we tried our hardest to make sure that as many people as possible were able to understand the material. We have decided that for our next class we will go over the same idea again for around 30 minutes because I believe that it is a very important concept for the learners to understand. Aside from the difficulty of the material, the learners really enjoyed the class yesterday, there was a lot of laughter after we read the Fast Money story because one of the learners was being quite the comedian. In general I am enjoying teaching with Language Bridges because I feel that what I am teaching is making a difference in the lives of the learners. As a teacher I realize how important it is for the learners to understand the concept before moving onto the next thing. Our learners appreciate the fact that Reham and I take our time to make sure that everyone understands what is happening before we move onto the next thing.  

Filling In

Last Saturday, Haroun, Alisher, and I taught a class for Fawwaz and Syed. This Saturday, I think we will take part of their class in order to reduce the size of the group. It was great to get an opportunity to teach again, especially after so many unanticipated problems with getting a class together for us to teach! The group was active and diverse; they were dressed in all manners, and they came from many different countries. We were nervous to teach the group at first, as it was like the first day for us all over again! We did not know what the learners knew or how varied the skill level of the group was. But Haroun did really well at starting us off; he had every learner introduce himself, and then had every learner come up and talk about his family. It took a while, but it was a really good exercise because it enabled each learner to practice both speaking and listening skills, all without one of us teaching them anything! Before the break, we had the learners practice describing my family (I unearthed a picture from my computer so that they could point at different members of my family). This was a lot of fun, especially since we got to introduce new words such as "grandfather," and I got to remember just how much my hair has grown since the last family photo!

After the break, we went over pronouns. This was challenging because pronouns are a bit abstract, as you can't point at anything and say, "This is a pronoun." The greatest challenge was describing the meaning of the word "she" while being the only girl in the room! Alisher helped me out with that. But everyone caught on, and it was really great to see the learners using pronouns and possessive words by the end of class. There were a few learners who were shy, but they would participate if called upon to do so, which was encouraging.

Lastly, we decided to take a group photo. This was a lot of fun for the learners! So many of them had cameras, and they wanted to stop at many locations on the way to the bus to take group pictures. Perhaps we can use this to teach in the future- photo scavenger hunt, anyone?

Overall, it was great to teach this class on our first day teaching in a while!

Week 5

Week 4

Our last class was quite different in comparison to the past three weeks. I think this was because the topic for the week was a lot harder - we were learning how to fill in job applications and understanding the concept of a job interview. Also, typically it is both of us teaching together and explaining the materials at the same time. However, since this class we had to each interview a learner for our final project, I taught alone for half the class, while Abaan taught alone for the rest. 

This class has been the most challenging for me as a teacher, because the learners did not seem to understand how a job interview is conducted. Even though all of them had experienced an interview before, whenever I tried to do an activity from the materials with them, I was faced with silence. Unusually, no one volunteered, no one shouted out answers, and no one seemed to know what they were doing. As a result, we did not cover as much material as we usually do in class, and only focused on different jobs and the abilities required to do them.

The end of the class was more fun though, and less serious and frustrating than earlier. We talked to the learners about ourselves. I answered a lot of their questions about myself and my life in Doha. They shared many new interesting things about themselves and we even got a little performance out of it!

~ Reham

Week 3 - 29th February

Our third class turned out to be a lot of fun. This was mostly because of the weekly topic (which was abilities and obligations) and also because we had two visitors – my sister and Professor Silvia. After spending two weeks talking about the learners and their family back home, it was nice to introduce them to my sister and share stories about my family with them. This class allowed us as teachers to get to know our learners a lot better – what their hobbies are, what they’re good at, and what they aren’t good at too!

The topic for the week was abilities and obligations, and so we focused on getting everyone to talk about themselves and share two things they can do, and two things they can’t do. This activity was extremely fascinating and informative – we found out that we have many singers, dancers, cooks, etc. in class. 

All of our activities for the lesson involved the learners communicating with each other and using English more interactively. It was nice to see them become more confident in speaking English, while also having fun. There was a lot of giggling and joking - something we enjoyed, because it showed that our learners were comfortable with us. This is a huge improvement from our first class, when they stood up every time we asked them a question and insisted on calling us Sir and Madam! 

  
At the end of class, there was a huge photo session with Abaan - all the learners had brought their phones or cameras along and wanted to take pictures with him. We even got some group photos before walking them back out to the parking lot:

~ Reham

Week 4 of teaching

Our fourth week of teaching was really nice. After having an extra week off between classes due to spring break, the learners were really eager to resume classes. I felt that this recent class was really comfortable for the learners because they all came in talking with us and joking with us. I think that the relation between the learners and us being the teachers has become more of a friendship as opposed to a teacher- learner relation. As a recap of what we did the class before, we decided to go over abilities and obligations and so I decided to ask the class what their abilities were once again; it was amazing to see how talented the learners are, and the amazing talents that they have. The class was really interesting towards the end because one of the learners wanted to show the class his dance moves which was really fun. Next class we will have another performance by a learner who loves to sing. I believe that it is a good thing that the learners are able to show their talents because that way we are able to see their hidden talents which nobody would ever see.