Back to school...

9 Jan 2012

Alas, all good things must come to an end.... The kids started school again yesterday, but Monday is my day off so today's my first day back.

It was hard to go back. I've gotten used to sleeping until 11 or 12 AM--which makes it hard to wake up at 8 AM. The kids also aren't used to the schedule yet and so they are a little tired and cranky.

I was really intrigued by a number of the questions my kids asked today and what this says about how their understanding is changing.

With one of my 5th grade classes, a student asked me if the text we were reading was more American or English.

It's hard enough for some of the kids to understand that I'm from the United States--NOT from England. However, this question tells me that the student understands that English isn't the same everywhere. He probably knows this about Spanish (especially since a number of the student's at my school aren't originally from Spain), but now he's making the same connection in English.

I told him that some words are different (eraser versus rubber) and sometimes we spell things differently (color versus colour), but that mostly it's the same.

Then, another student asked if I would read the text out loud so they could "hear the word pronounced properly."  

This is interesting because some of the students just pronounce English words as they would in Spanish. This is one of our biggest problems. The teacher will tell them to pay attention to my pronunciation (or the audio selection's), but they disregard everything they hear.

They pronounce "e-skate" instead of "skate." Or "rrrrred" instead of "red."

Some of the classes are better than others at hearing the difference and trying to emulate the native pronunciation. I was excited to hear that these students are trying harder to better their pronunciation!