Teachers Cut Class To Extend Holiday--Oh, Yeah?

I was surprised to see today's headline about teachers' cutting classes, but I thought "cut" could have more than one implication.  However, the sentence following said that 600 teachers cut classes to extend their holiday.  How do they know that was the reason?  I could see why they might say, "possibly to extend their holiday."  But statistically it didn't look good.  On any day about 7% of the teachers are absent.  On Fridays about 9%.  But yesterday 12% of teachers called in ill or had a family emergency or some such thing.

Strange when this is the first Wednesday since I started first grade that we've had Wednesday off!

A Visit by Two Former Students

Today was definitely a better day than yesterday.  I felt better from the beginning and saw that my brain was mostly sunny and clear instead of cloudy with a chance of rain.  In an hour or so Javier arrives, and this will be the first time I've seen him since I saw him off on November 3!  Tomorrow Jonathan arrives.   So this is going to be a very nice holiday (in spite of leftover work I have to do).  But this morning was made really special by the visit of two former students who were waiting for me at Bungalow 707, where I teach on Tuesday mornings.  They greeted me with hugs and a bag full of presents.  (I haven't yet opened the presents, but I sent them a thank you note before posting them here!)

It's funny, but by chance I was wearing the second outfit that Linh has ever liked!  She has some kind of outfit in design, and she praised me as she did several weeks ago for wearing colors that go really well toether.  Apparently I rarely do that!  I'm so glad I did this morning.

Sleeping Overtime

I got a message from a student saying she was sorry that she absent today.  (All my students agree that absent should be a verb.)  She explained that the alarm didn't work, so she slept overtime.  I wonder if we could get some kind of extra pay for sleeping overtime. 

We're now doing a unit on sleep in my ESL intermediate listening and speaking class, so I just finished interviewing my sister, who I thought had a really interesting sleep experience, but she didn't want to talk about it, so I'll use the one of her and me in Madrid:

My sister and I shared a bedroom in Madrid, Spain, and one night when we were sleeping, my sister woke up and felt a hand around her wrist.  She thought maybe I had grabbed hold of her wrist, so she said, "Tina?"
I said, "Huh?" and when she heard my voice coming from the other side of the room--not near enough to be the person with the hand around her wrist, she screamed, "Tina!"  I immediately understood that someone was in the room with us, so I started throwing things while trying to reach the light.  I wanted whoever had come in to go out! 

But when I reached the lightswitch and turned on the light, nobody was there except my sister and I. 
I asked, "Suzy, what's wrong?" and she looked down at her wrist and said, "Oh, it's my hand that's around my wrist." 

But I have so many other stories pertaining to sleep.

Once Mom, an honor student and avid reader, surprised her teacher by failing a reading test.  Mom explained, "Oh, it was so boring that I fell asleep."

When I was twelve and spent the night with a friend, she told me that I woke her up with a poem I kept reciting.  "Roses are red.  Violets are blue.  Some poems rhyme, And others don't."  She said I kept saying it, but it my dream a lot was happening between my saying it each time.

When I hitchhiked with Andrea, I'd always go to sleep in the back seat, and she'd have to entertain our driver.  One day she got in the back seat so I'd have to entertain our driver.  But I still fell asleep. 

Once on my way to see my brother, I was fighting against sleep because I kept coming very close to dozing off.  I finally took the exit off the freeway and drove until I was a block away from his residence.  Then I dozed off and drove into a ditch. 

When I had just given birth and was nursing my baby "on command," my baby wanted to eat every hour, so I wasn't getting much sleep.  I went to see a really good production of the play Little Foxes, but after we sat down and the curtain opened, I fell asleep.  I didn't wake up until intermission, when people started clapping.  Then I was wide awake during the intermission.  But when we sat back down and the curtain opened to Act II, I fell alseep again and didn't wake up until the play was over and everyone was clapping again.  I clapped too, but I hadn't seen a moment of the play.

If you want to have bad dreams--or see what we put our animals through--here's a link one of my students sent me.  She said it made her think of Chew On This, which we're reading for our high intermediate reading and writing class.  She's also a vegetarian.

http://vimeo.com/73234721

Jane Morrison Hosts Save CCSF Champagne Brunch

After View and Chew, which I left early, I went to Jane Morrison's house for the Champagne Brunch to Save CCSF.  She told me that she had agreed to host it as long as she could just sit there on the sofa and smile.  She did just that--very graciously.  I saw the picture of her making eye contact with JFK as he was shaking her hand, and I congratulated her on having met him with the usual follow-up act of writing a book about sleeping with him.

The event was really nice, but I've been going so fast for so many days that I need to turn the computer off now and relate later!

Student Presentations Remind Me of My Own Failings!

Today the students in one of my "high intermediate" speaking and listening classes presented their paraphrases on some pages in the already paraphrased (for younger readers) Chew On This.  In the other class, students in the same level but a different section presented their paraphrases of the description of campus art.  I encouraged them to use the blackboard or the overhead projector.  When they didn't, we were really in trouble.  That is to say, most people had no idea what they were talking about, and I had an inkling just because I was familiar with the material in the paraphrase.

So here's a reminder to us all:  Keep it simple.  Show and tell--briefly and clearly. 

And now I'm off for the third from the last of my birthday celebrations--this one with Leslie in the Mission--the Herbivore on Valencia Street. 

Segmented Sleep

We're on the unit on sleep in my intermediate speaking and listening class, and since the students think sleep late means go to be late at night (or stay up late), I explained terms like sleep in and sleep late (intentional) versus oversleep.  I did a song to the tune of "Frere Jacques":

Are you sleeping?

Oversleeping?

Please wake up.

Please get up.

You stay up too late nights

Listening to those sound bites/bytes

Please wake up.

Please get up.

Are you sleeping?

Oversleeping?

Get up now.

Stay up now.

Get up.  Go out.  Get on.

Ride, get off, and then run!

Get to class

So you’ll pass.

Are you drowsy?

Close to dozing?

Nodding off?

Nodding off?

Get up in the morning.

Listen to the warning.

Red alert!

Don’t get hurt.

But the most significant thing was my mention of segmented sleep--something I didn't even have a name for until I looked it up just now to see whether I could find an explanation in simple English.  This is how I sleep, and I explained that sleeping, waking up, and then sleeping again was the natural way to sleep, according to experiments.  This was news to me--Me, normal?!--just this year or last, but it's gotten a lot of press in the past year, and it's actually recommended because it's considered healthier and keeps people from lying awake worrying about not sleeping when they could be getting up and doing what they feel like doing.

A "Fired" Student's Apology

I've gotten so many sweet messages from this student, who wants to reassure me that her dropping my High Intermediate Academic ESL class had nothing to do with any dissastisfaction with me.  (Another time I'll share her letter of reassurance--so earnest that it brings to mind the words of Hamlet's mother, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much.")

Here's what she had to say about not obeying Manuscript Rules:

Note: I am sorry because I usually used a pencil to write my assignments to turn in them to you. It is my bad habit because I love to write with the pencil and I feel comfortable by using it. Therefore, I broke your laws of the class, did I not? I think that is why I am not qualified and I am fired from the class. :):)..

 

In-Class Writing Not Written in Class and Students Who Ignore the Specific Topic

This morning in the Duplicating room I saw a teacher I like and respect a lot and told him that I'd really wanted to respond to the message he sent out about catching a student who had written her "in-class" essay out of class on the pages of her dictionary!  I told him that because my students always knew what the general topic would be--the one related to the unit we were on, the one we'd practiced for for days and days--I was afraid some of them were writing it ahead of time and then handing it in as if it were the one they'd written independently in class.  He told me that he actually went around to their papers and stamped them.  He stamps them with a happy face so it might seem more like a good luck charm than a gotcha! maneuver.

Once home, I decided I wouldn't accept any of the students who handed in a generic mandatory community service essay instead of the one on the prompt I gave them in class.    This is what I've written on their papers:

You needed to focus on the question about CCSF imaginary proposal for a mandatory community service.  Please re-read the instructions on the front page.  Because your  essay is off-topic, I can’t accept it.  This time, I won’t give you a zero.  I simply won’t count it.  In class, I’ll read examples of essays that focused on the specific CCSF mandatory community service program you were asked to write about.  You’ll have the chance to write an out-of-class essay on the CCSF proposal.

The students who wrote on topic got good grades.  

This saved a lot of time because I gave them a generic response with just a few personalized touches, and their writing off-topic meant I didn't have to respond in length to about seven--that saves almost 2 hours!

Now I'm off to Gracias Madre for another celebration--this one with Vilma, whose birthday is tomorrow, and Bill, whose leukemia is in remission!

A Teacher Losing It--and A Student Finding

I was perplexed when, last Friday when I was about to give the students' evaluations back to them--something that had taken a big hunk of my three-day Veteran's Day weekend--I couldn't find the evaluations.  They were NOT in the sheet protectors I was using as a folder for each of the students.  Yesterday when I returned from Greens, I could find only ten of the twenty-five, so I printed them out all over again and checked the nearly-meaningless boxes the ESL Department created to satisfy standardized SLOs.  Then after I gave them all back to the students in that section of my high intermediate listening and speaking class, I noticed that one student was passing papers around.  I'd used her sheet protector as a catch-all for all of them.  So it goes.  I lose it.  They find it.  But they find that I'm losing it, no doubt.

Reciting a Memorized Plagiarized Written Report

Last Friday I stopped a student just in time.  She had lifted a report on Green Corps from Wikipedia and after trying to memorize it (not recommended!), began to recite it.  I was able to stop her in time and placed the blame on myself.  I’d begged them not to read a written report, but I’d forgotten to say the same about memorizing from a plagiarized written report.  I found what she’d downloaded:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Corps .

Since its founding in 1992, Green Corps has trained more than 350 people. These graduates have since become leaders of the environmental and social change fields, holding positions with the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and MoveOn.org.

Green Corps formed in response to the inertia created by Earth Day in 1990. Interest and desire to act burgeoned on university campuses around the country, producing graduates who were passionate and ready to contribute to the movement but who were faced with an obstacle—how do you find a position with one of these activist groups with minimal experience? This was where Green Corps came in, seeking to channel this valuable force directly into the causes that need it, through a training program involving direct fieldwork.

During the Green Corps year, participants work with veterans in the field to make progress on important campaigns. Through partnering with these other influential groups, the Green Corps member creates valuable ties and learns from those who have been on the frontlines. Upon graduating, Green Corps members pursue careers with these leading organizations.

This alerted me to another problem:  the inaccuracy of the report in Wikipedia.  Do they really mean inertia?   I have a higher opinion of Wikipedia than most instructors.  I’m grateful when the students are reading anything at all, and I think Wikipedia can be a good start.  But inertia?  That was one of the words she’d tried to memorize.  She was going to share the info that Green Corps was inspired by the inertia of Earth Day 1990.

Inertia...burgeoned... 

I just saw an e-mail from this student, saying that she'd like to forget this speech and focus on the next.  But I'd really like to help her.  Can I?

Birthday Other Places, Students on the Side

I just responded to some e-mail messages from some students and thought of the assortment.  Most of them were related to our classes, but one just wanted to let me know about the little boy whose wish was granted when San Francisco became Gotham City yesterday.  She sent me the link and commented, " I think it is a very moved and warm news."  I agreed with her.  (I'd already torn out the pages of the SF Chronicle and put it aside for Monday, when I'd related it to our unit on mandatory community service because 13,000 volunteers made his wish come true.)  I thanked her for sending it to me and praised her for reading.

I'm too tired to do anything more for my classes today.  I've gotten so many wonderful birthday messages and will share some of those tomorrow. 

Birthday on Campus

When I taught non-credit, I had a list of everybody's birthday, and when someone's big day came up, I'd bring a cupcake to class, put a candle in it, light it, and have the class sing "Happy Birthday" to the honoree.  Then I'd ask the birthday person to cut it into 40 pieces so everyone could have some.  They'd ask when my birthday was, and there were cakes--whole ones!--when my birthday came around.

We don't do that in Credit ESL.  I don't know when they were born, and they don't know when I was born except that it was a long, long, long time ago.

Still, I celebrated my birthday on campus because a friend whose birthday and retirement I had wanted to celebrate insisted on treating me.

The day began well enough in spite of my having lost a number of items.  I had good energy and a call from Jonathan wishing me a happy birthday and telling me he could get a cheap flight here for Thanksgiving!  Then after I'd been blocked from getting out of my driveway and the light turned green, some kind soul stopped to let me out even though he wouldn't have had to wait, anyway, for a red light.

Here's a song to the tune of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

I leave my house.  At least I try to
On 19th Avenue, my street.
I wait until their light is red.
But they speed up ahead.
They only stop
To block
My way
Every day...

I haven't yet written the end of the song when the kind soul lets me out!

Once on campus I found the yellow folder I'd been looking for, so I had my scored Scantrons for the "Meat" section of Chew on This and the group work pages for ESL 142 002.  Two copy machines were working, and Miguel, a Spanish teacher who loves Madrid as much as I do, was there to rhapsodize about Spain with me.

A student returning to classes just so she won't lose her student visa and return to China accompanied me to the registration office to turn in the signed-by-both form reinstating her, and on my way I saw a distinguished woman, who turned out to be a Tonga, here at CCSF since 1989.  When I asked her whether I could take her picture, she said, "Why not?"  A response I loved.

Later I'll tell you about he lunch I had with my retiree-friend-since-1976 and the funny things he said as well as the former student--one of the best--who greeted us.

Directions and ESL Students

I should be understanding because I miss so much, so often fail to see what's in front of me, and I can specifically speak of weaknesses in the area of directions, too, since I'm inclined to get instructions and ask someone what they say, indicating that I'm functionally illiterate.  (I really ought to get to my retirement packet before long and ask someone what that says!)  Still, it seems strange to me that when I give students both spoken and written instructions, they can't follow them.

Leader of group:  Read this limerick to the other group members.
Members of group.  Write this limerick.
When you finish, read it to your leader.

That can't of thing.

"What are we supposed to do?"  They'll ask.

They did eventually manage to do it, and whenever I think that there's been a wind change and a sea change (a tsunami), I remember that we students in junior high school back in the late 50s were told, "It's like pulling teeth" about our teachers' efforts to get us to respond.

Today there was literally a lesson on directions--north, south, east, and west.  I should say another lesson on directions, since the students had spent more than a week giving presentations on their country with the phrase China (Belarus/Indonesia/Ukraine, etc) shares a border with X to the north and Y to the south.

But I wanted to be sure, so I brought a map of our campus.  Granted, it's presented with the East at the top and West where the south should be, but I turned it around for them. 

We then figured out where we were and did an exercise "Turn to the east.  Turn to the west," etc.  for the kinesthetic learning.  We did two more exercises in the book  with a map of the United States, following dialogues they'd done:  "Utah is weest of Colorado," etc.  We even practiced the difference in the vowel between southern and south. 

They seemed to be doing okay.  But when I gave them the last five items of the tests--"Kansas is ____of Texas"--with their books open to the map of the United States we'd just gone over--it was beyond them.

Of course, one of the complainers, a charmingly chatty guy who wanted to know whether the east was on the right or the left when you're facing it, was reprimanded by my outspoken Ukrainian student who said, "You always talk.  You never listen." 

But that's a subject for another day.

When I am appalled at how much is beyond them, I need only to consider how much is beyond me.

Their Understanding English with the Accent They Have

This is only anecdotal, so I've got to check it out, but it's my impression that students understand English spoken in the accent they have when they speak English better than they understand English spoken in an accent they don't have.  For example, Chinese speakers understand other Chinese speakers in English better than they understand Spanish speakers in English or Russian speakers in English.  This is true only of heavy accented English, not with nearly-perfect.  (And I'm not really sure it's true of them.)

Self-Inventory

(To the tune of "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let it Snow!")

Self-inventory threw me
And made me kind of gloomy.
So help yourself and pass the gas,
I'm an ass, I'm an ass, I'm an ass.

How English Spell Check Corrects My Spanish

I sent a text message to my meque (mejor que un esposo--better than a husband), Javier, who is in his hometown of Nicoya, Costa Rica this month, repairing the  house he was born in. 

Spell check just wouldn't leave my message alone:

Como van las cosas?  How are things going?  became Como van las visas.  How are the visas coming along?

Me saludas a Marcia y a Miguel--Say hello to Marcia and Miguel for me--became Me salinas.
Tengo una  (as in I have a) became Tenfold ina.

Conmigo (with me) became Cosmogony.  Now that's a useful English word!

Miercoles (Wednesday) became mercilessly.
dia (day) became dis.  (Don't dis my day!)
entradas (tickets) became entrap as.

Estar (to be) became estate.
Comprendo (I understand) became compressor, and cansado (tired) became cans ado. 

All this seems cans ado about nothing.  I just don't compressor.  Do you?  If so, come cosmogony in spite of the fact that I tenfold ina splitting headache.

Alex Capus, Good at More than Writing--Is That Fair?

On Friday I got the book that Alex Capus, my favorite Swiss writer, sent directly from his home in Switzerland, Almost Like Spring, and a postcard from Jutta, my penpal since 1963 and sharer of a diary, saying that she had listened to the CDs of Alex Capus' Leon and Louise, the book that had put him on the top 20 list of the best books in German 2012.  (I sent her the CDs of the recording I ordered, not realizing it was in German.)  Alex had signed the book "To my friend Tina," which I wrote him thrilled me because now I wouldn't have to be the groupie I was planning on being.  I also told him that when people ask me what I'm going to do when I retire, I say, "I'm going with Jutta to visit my favorite Swiss writer."  He wrote back and said when we visited next year, we could see his new bar in Olten, and he sent me the link. 


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Galicia-Musik-Bar/630580276964859?ref=ts&fref=ts

So you see, he paints bars as well as lives and epochs.  Now my question is this:  Is it fair?  Is it fair that someone like me doesn't even successfully reach the students she teaches and someone like Alex Capus is good at everything?