Day 2

Today I went into school and shadowed a French IV class. I also had to go to the assembly and my period 1 band class to prep for the performance, so I got less done today. I did make progress on ironing out some tweaks. Plus I got some good info from Mr Anonymous. From interviewing him I've come to the conclusion that I missed out by not taking French at Drew.

Theres not too much to post today because I'm not done compiling my information. There are a few things I'll take note of, however.

The importance of the classroom dynamic, and managing that dynamic. Two classes with identical curriculems and the same teacher can be vastly different simply due to the dynamic of the students.

The degree of liberty given to the teachers concerning curriculem design and how they run their classes.  There is a collaborative environment when it comes to telling teachers how to do things. While I definitely see the importance and benefit of this, I wonder if it may be short-changing some students.

I'm going to preface this next part by saying that I have very little experience and no right nor desire nor sufficient amount of information to make judgements on any individual teachers - I really like all of the teachers and I am not going to do that. But, be that as it may, I'm still going to be as candid as possible on this blog so I can follow my actual train of thought instead of a censored version. So, I'm going to be talking in generalities here, because what are assumptions if not good starting points.

Ok then, candid me definitely thinks that I have never experienced or even seen an approach to language classes like I saw today. Never seen a class of students so interested and engaged in language learning. If candid me had, candid me would never have done this senior project.

This approach pretty much aligns perfectly with what my research has shown to be effective. Its content-based, its conversational, its culturally relevant, its true to the real world. It works backwards from real life to vocabulary and grammar. The students I talked to all said that they are much more confident speakers and they felt they learned a lot. They also said that they really enjoy the subject and the class and they loved the teacher.

It looks like my work is cut out for me. Well, at least one portion is - pretty much the system that I would consider ideal already exists. My question becomes: If it exists, why has it not spread? What is preventing the method from going to all of the language classes? What other factors contribute to its failure or success in different classes?

I'm hoping to see some more classes at Drew. I'd like to get as wide a scope as possible. I'm also waiting for a response from Waldorf and I'm going to contact the other schools over the next few days. I think my plan going forward is to iron out all the kinks in the visiting this week and then do the more serious visits next week. My project is finally starting to take shape and I think the way its going is going to work out well.