Weeks 26-28

Here are some of the classes and groups I have been working with in the past three weeks:

Herr Hettig's 11th Grade: Over the past couple weeks there has been a practicum students from the University of Greifswald, Herr Stelzer, observing and conducing some lessons in the English and history departments.  I joined him in one of Herr Hettig's 11th grade classes to help students prepare for a mock debate about immigration.  The conversation began in the context of the Brixton Riots in London, but when students actually began preparing their arguments, this aspect of the assignment fell away.  Students in three separate groups (pro-immigrants, anti-immigrants, and moderator) eventually held a conversation about the topic of immigration.  I was in this classroom on the 11th (double lesson), 12th, 13th, and 18th (double lesson in which students conducted their debates).

Frau Krumrück's 12th Grade: On the 4th this class started a new topic about Urban, Suburban, and Rural Lifestyles, and I observed this class in which students first created a word cloud with terms they associate with town/city and village and then received a worksheet that asked them to determine how different statements (Transportation is terrible, it is easy to meet friends, etc.) could apply to life in both a city and a village.

I have been working with Frau Krumrück's 12th grade class a lot lately, since some students are preparing to write the English Abitur, while others have chosen not to write this portion of the test.  I often take these students who do not need to prepare for the test in a different room to have discussions or do other activities.  On the 18th I worked with these students in a double lesson.  In the first lesson we discussed the question "Do the people in your neighborhood prefer privacy or close social contacts?" and in the second lesson the students did some exercises out of a workbook.  Then on the 20th these same students had another double lesson in which they were given a list of items (health, clothing, etc.) and asked to look at each from the city, as well as the village, point-of-view.  They then got to ask me questions about where I grew up, where I prefer to live, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages of each type of place.

Reading Tutoring: I am still working with two Polish boys on their reading fluency during the Lernzeit, although they have not been coming as frequently as in the past.  Over the past few weeks we only met on the 5th, 7th, and 13th.

American Culture Club: I started my American Culture Club last week Wednesday in the Lernzeit.  10 students came to the first meeting and 8 students came to the second meeting.  At the first meeting on the 12th I just tried to get to know the students and get a sense of what topics would interest them.  I then presented a PowerPoint I had created about high schools in the United States.  Then at the second meeting on the 19th we talked about St. Patrick's Day, since it was only a couple days past, and baseball, since Opening Day is coming up.

7th Graders (Lernzeit Group): On the 4th we worked on sentences in the Conditional I and Conditional II forms.  Then on the 11th they requested that we work on describing rooms, so I had them describe their bedrooms.  On the 18th they said that they heard there was going to be a pop quiz, so we reviewed Conditional I and II, as well as Relative Clauses.

Extra Tutoring: I have met a couple more times with the girl from the Regionalschule who wants to work on her English.  On the 6th we worked on a homework assignment she had where she was asked to design a menu for a school cafeteria and explain her choices.  For our meeting on the 7th, I prepared, at her request, a worksheet on sentence structure and the order of different sentence elements (time, place, etc.).  It was interesting learning about this in the context of English instead of German!  Then this week, on the 20th, we worked on Conditional Sentences.

Other random lessons I was able to participate in:
- Frau Krumrück's 11th grade: stereotypes and national identities (March 4th, 3rd and 4th hour)
- Frau Krumrück's 8th grade: environmentalism in California, in which I did a short presentation on environmentalism and what I learned when I was in school (March 6th, 1st and 2nd hour)
- I went to the same 8th grade class on the 20th (1st and 2nd hours) when students read a text about a boy in an immigrant family in California to give a presentation about immigration in the U.S.
- Frau Zarnodt's 7th grade: I introduced a lesson about Canada by giving a short introduction with some facts about the country

- Amy