Week 4

Hello everyone, time for week four! We are now more than halfway through. We have a guest speaker this week!

I know that some of you have participated in intercambios. If you have not, please do…get together with your family and have a little Spanish time.

Relationship building between student/teacher can be the biggest factor in the progress of a student, though this is hard to document. For the class I am taking in my graduate program, I was assigned an article about a volunteer who completed a summer tutoring program for high school students who had flunked English and checked back with his 18 yr old student 15 months later. The purpose of the article was to describe methods given to the student to help with reading comprehension. The conclusions were a bit different from reading comprehension…the books and topics that the tutor had found in the interest of his student rather than the strategies and the encouragement he had given him had spurred a change in the mindset of the student and aided him in advancing his career and education. I assume that as MBA’s, networking is a big part of your education. The same should be true in the Education field. It is amazing how relationships between teacher and student can make a huge difference in learning! The article is attached, if you have time and are interested.

I feel that I see progress in the comfort level and feedback from the families, but WE REALLY NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU! Please use the blog function, as it will be very helpful. I’ll also have a sheet for you to fill out tomorrow.

Week 4: Guest Speaker, and let’s catch up!

5:00–5:30 Social time:
Please get your food and sit down with your family or another family to talk about the week.

· Review what you did last week in conversation.

· Make an effort to speak a little Spanish or "Spanglish" so that they can see that you can relate to communication difficulties.

· Ask the families what literacy activities they did at home with their children. Did they complete their recipes, read the books? Did they enjoy the time? Did they see learning and conversation with their children about their home recipes and traditions?

5:30-6:30 We have a guest speaker this week!
Hugo Rodriguez, a Spanish/English interpreter and community organizer for the Latino community in Northern IN, (who also happens to be my uncle), will speak on the importance of literacy & learning English with the children in mind, and he will share information on resources available to Latinos in the area from $ to healthcare to educational programming.

Tutoring Time: 6:30-7:00
Because I’m not sure where you are in your progress, I’m assuming that we need some catch up time, especially after the guest speaker
· Take a moment to discuss the guest speaker. (You may need to use Spanglish here) Please take notes for me (sheet provided) Did they find the information helpful? Why or why not?

· Review vocabulary from the last couple of weeks, try and get a feel for how they are doing and what they want to practice more. If you need to, take the time to go back and practice. (5-10 min.)

· Make sure that they have the following for their albums:
1. autobiography
2. family tree, with descriptions of each person in the family
3. a family story or tradition
4. a family food
Please work on editing, adding and improving to these things in the album
If time, work on the Book 6 of the Sed de Saber Materials—weekend plans. They can add a page to the book about things that there families like to do together.

7:00-7:30 PACT Time (Parents And Children Together):

1. The parents explain what they have added to the albums and the kids will have an autobiographical collage to share. Try to have them practice English together.

Homework: They will have to write out a story or description about family activities.