2015 - Teacher Barbara

Tiny houses

For our first enhanced activity, the students imagined their own tiny house, which they would try to sell to their classmates.

We used the iPads to look for blueprints of tiny houses - just like the ones in their student books - and the students were then free to decide how to present and design their houses. They had a lot of fun!

Save Water

In our second enhanced activity, The students were shown videos with before and after pictures of California, which is facing a water crisis. They have learned about the water cycle, as well as the reason for the water shortages in California. The Students were then motivated to use Google Slides to make presentations with suggestions on how to deal with the water crisis. The students could relate to the situation because there is a water crisis in Brazil too, and had many suggestions. Here are some of them:

Notable Americans - Biographies

The students were told to use Google to look for information about one of the three Americans selected by the teachers: Hedy Llamarr, Jesse Owens and Nikolas Tesla. Using the grammar points which are being taught class (Past Simple), they each wrote a short composition about one of them. Students were grouped according to the person they had decided to google, and then made Google Slides presentations about them. The groups then shared with the class what they had discovered about these notable Americans. They were surprised to find out that Hedy Llamarr was a beautiful Hollywood actress and also a talented scientist; That Jesse Owens faced prejudice and excelled in sport; and that Nikolas Tesla took his ingenuity with him when he immigrated to the U.S.A..

Lynda's Vacation

Since students were learning questions in the past - interviewing someone about their vacation - I wanted to make it feel more genuine for them. I asked them to make videos to my friend from Massachusetts, Lynda. She is the daughter of immigrants and she is married to an immigrant. Students recorded a few questions and made a video, which was sent to Lynda. She sent a video back, which was edited to fit the lesson plan. When the students saw the video, they also did a listening exercise in which they had to find out what question she was answering. This was an opportunity for students to get to know Lynda, who will share more about life in the US from the perspective of a multicultural family. (Link for Lynda's video | Student videos 1 2 3)

Cinco de Mayo

Students learned a bit about the history of Cinco de Mayo and the cultural importance of Mexico in American society. Then, since they are learning about food and countable/uncountable nouns, we taught them a recipe for "a Taco in a Bag". It is a great example of how Americans adapt "Mexican flavors" to their way of life. It is also something the students will have the opportunity to prepare at home, as it is not an expensive recipe.

Flavors of a melting pot

Picking up from the interview with Lynda, the students were invited to find out more about how different ethnicities find their place in American society. We started up from the names of foreign food that well known in the USA: Chow mein, Pretzels, Pierogis, Dim Sum, Pupusas, Borscht... We used the computer room and googled these names. They found out where the foods were originally from. With the names of the countries, we looked for the places in the US where immigrants from those places settled and formed communities. Then, the students used their creativity and made slide presentations about 5 communities in the US.

This project spanned over three classes. In the first week, after watching Lynda's video, students were invited to find the places she mentioned on the map. The next week, we used the computer lab to research foods that were introduced in the US by immigration. Finally, after working on their projects from home, the students presented their research to the class.

Urban mobility - Civil Society Activity

For three weeks, we discussed how people used transportation in our city, as part of the content of the book lessons. I showed some videos portraying problems with urban mobility for people in other countries who had some kind of disability. I also showed the students some videos made by Teacher José's class about the day to day lives of people who need wheelchairs and also those who are blind. I asked my students to get inspiration from those videos and think about our future. Making life easier for people with disabilities can also contribute to everyone's well-being. So, with that in mind, I told them to use their imagination to create a presentation on better ways to improve urban mobility in the future. The results were amazing!

Volunteer Work Project - Reading Corner

Dreamboards / Posters

As this is our last semester, the students will work on using all they have learned to contribute to their community. They will learn professional skills and work on creating a reading corner in their schools. The first step is being able to picture the final result. They used canva.com and their creativity to make posters inviting people to their reading corners. More about the reading corner project here.

Workshop - Librarianship skills - week 1

For our first workshop about Librarianship skills, Maguimar, from our Resource Center, told our students about the characteristics of the profession. She also informed them about the best Universities to study and their career prospects. Here is her powerpoint presentation.

Reading Corner - Personal statements

Students were taught how to write personal statements and shared their views for the projects. By reading their classmate's statements, students will have more resources to form teams and create the reading corners. The statements were lightly edited for grammar and spelling.

Click here to read them.

Workshop - Librarianship skills - week 2

The students learned basic cataloguing skills and formed small groups to implement the reading corner project in their communities.

Workshop - Librarianship skills - week 3

The students got into groups and worked on a draft of the checklist they will use on their projects. Here's a template of the file they worked on.

Halloween party

The students celebrated halloween with snacks and sweets.

Election Day

Students learned about the American Presidential Elections and also voted for class representative. They used a google form as a ballot and lined up with a picture ID to vote. Then, votes were shown to the class. The class representative is Emilly!

CTJ Makerspace

The students practiced English (vocabulary and colocations) with activities developed with the CTJ Makerspace team.

Thanksgiving

For thanksgiving, all the students gathered to have a special Luncheon. We decorated the tables with pictures and name cards.

Reading Corner - Student work

It's the end of the year and students are using their new skills to create a special corner in their schools where they will promote English Language learning and the Access program itself. They will use these corners to share their talents with ther community. They will pass the space on to students from the program who will still be studying next year.