February 2009 of James 5, Sydney 7 years
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February 3, 2009
I was floored today talking with a friend, Angela at church. I heard her speaking German with her girls. I asked her about how they were progressing and how people reacted to her speaking it to them. She said she's had positive feedback except for a woman in a store who heard them speaking and said, "This is an ENGLISH speaeking country. Speak ENGLISH!" Ouch.
February 6, 2009
I found Sydney's language strategy today very funny and charades-esque. She couldn't remember the word "yeast" in English to tell Stephen a story. She's reading "How to" books at school and apparently had read one on making bread and wanted to comment on it. To "get" the word "yeast" out of him, she said, "Daddy, what's in bread?" He said, as you'd expect, "flour."
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Sydney: What else?
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Stephen: Um, eggs, sometimes. Milk?
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Sydney: what else?
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Stephen: yeast
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Sydney: Yeah yeah, yeast!
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Then she started her story.
February 14, 2009
James and I have been playing alot of board games after preschool. We have an hour and a half window before we pick up Sydney at her school and on these cold winter days, it's been our entertainment of choice. Mainly Sorry, Trouble, and Uno. It's funny to watch because as we're playing, he'll count in Portuguese most of the time. Even when he's whispering under his breath he's whispering "onze, doze" ("eleven," "twelve"). But every now and then he forgets and starts counting in Portuguese. If I start counting in Portuguese while he's counting in English, he continues to count in Portuguese. So then I take my turn, speaking outloud as I count. Then when he gets his next number, to preempt the switch to English, I'll say the number just as he receives it in an excited voice. "OH, an 11!" And then sometimes I'll even start to count with him "um, dois, tres" and he'll take over in Portuguese no problem. He does not notice that I am doing this. He doesn't appear to struggle any more in Portuguses than in English unless the numbers get higher. He has trouble with 100 because when 100 stands alone, it's called "cem." But if you add anything to it, it becomes "cento e' ____________". So 101 would be cento e' um. He wanted to say 140 the other day and he said, "Cem and how many years mamae is." (I just turned 40.)
February 16, 2009
One of my students at Duke has an interesting observation. They write journals about what they've learned in our class about teaching English and about their experiences doing their student teaching. This student is actually a French Literature professor who's taught for years. She was taken with something I relayed in class, a concept a teacher mentioned to me once: "Avoid asking questions you already know the answer to."
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She wrote in her journal:
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"Never ask students questions whose answers you already know. This is GREAT advice and as I teach this week, I notice when I do that. It’s so-o-o-o-o-o easy to do, and indeed it does not lead to completely honest interactions. Rather it is a weak way for me to promote my agenda. I’m speaking about my Duke teaching (am teaching two courses in Russian literature this semester), but of course it will apply to any teaching context. Generally my experience in the ESL teaching program has been most valuable in what it has taught me about teaching per se, not about anything specifically related to English to speakers of other languages."
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I responded:
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"That’s interesting it struck you that hard. I’m convinced it’s one reason why children don’t talk to adults more. Adults are asking such self-evident things, that the kids are dumb-founded at their stupidity. Just a theory."
February 23, 2009
Today James had his 5 year old check-up for kindergarten registration. He cracked me up on the eye test. He had trouble reading some of the letters on the test, so he said to me (not even in a whisper since he knew the nurse couldn't understand), "Voce pudia me falar?" ("Could you tell me?")
