Second Week - Stay Seated!



 

How we get by.... speaking different languages and neither of us really understanding the other -

Because my students have varying levels of English ability, and I have even fewer Arabic skills, communicating and getting things done is a great and collaborative affair.  I have some students who pre-tested identifying only a few letters of the alphabet and a couple who read the first 20 sight words and beyond.  Some students speak very little English independently, only communicating their basic needs, while a few others understand more of what I'm talking about and act as translators.  (They suddenly pop up out of their seats, talking enthusiastically to the class, passing on the news or instructions that I have just shared, Charades style.) During all of this my students are constantly learning, and my teeny-tiny knowledge of classroom Arabic is improving - the students are always excited to help me in my attempts to learn or properly pronounce my new words correctly.  And so, the days pass by...

WBT School Week #2
I introduced a simplified Rule Number 3 - "Stay Seated!"  It took a few days for the students to learn how to say the two words correctly, and I suspect this will be the rule we will need to practice, practice, practice, all year long.  The students can be incredibly mobile, especially when they have finished their assignments.  Wherever I am, and whatever I am doing, they will jump up from their seats, come right over and push their papers in front of me (sometimes even into my face) repeating,  "Miss, finished...finished Miss....".  The (pictured) modified rule card featuring a model student helps me to address that behaviour with only the two words and a simple gesture.  My own professional challenge this year is to be clear (in my own mind and with them) about what needs to happen when their work is finished, and then to have the right activities easily available for them to use.

We are just two weeks into the school year, and I am still scaffolding Teach/Okay.  We practised a little more handling yellow and red counters, taking turns speaking.  And, as recommended in the WBT Instruction Manuals, I now have seating arrangements for the students so they can pair up easily on the mat as well as at their desks.

My biggest achievement at the moment is that I have finally completed reading pre-testing for both classes, organising students into pairs for SuperSpeed 100.  At the moment half of the students in each class will begin reading SuperSpeed Letters/Phonics, and the other half will begin at Level 1 of SuperSpeed 100.   How I'm going to pull this off in my classroom is still a bit of mystery.  But, how can I lack confidence with the Coach Biffle videos handy and all those WBT free downloads?





 



Whole Brain Teaching - first week - four strategies

A fabulous first week of Whole Brain Teaching

 

          This is my second year teaching in the United Arab Emirates as part of the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC)s 10-Year Strategic Plan for school reform. The reform program aims to provide an international standard of bi-literate education in ADEC schools by improving the quality of teaching, improving the school environment, and making the program accessible for more children.
          I teach at a beautiful and newly built Cycle 1 (primary) school about 100 km away from Al Ain.  It is a very traditional community located near the border with Oman in the middle of the desert.  ADEC provides buses for the English Medium Teachers who are generally housed in Al Ain and commuting to this remote school location - my bus ride is about 1 hour each way.
          Last year was the first year boys and girls were educated in the same school building (different wings), and it was the first year that the boys had female teachers.  I think it was a culture shock for all of us at the school, and much of the year's work was focused on shaping appropriate school behaviours, procedures and social skills in the children.  Toward the middle of the year I began experimenting with WBT strategies in an attempt to calm some of the challenging behaviours and difficulties in my boys classroom.  They responded so well to the strategies that I decided to use WBT from day one this year.  

 

Now, the students have been back at school for one week.  I think the hard work of all the teachers last year has paid off, and my new 2nd grade students are quite amazing.  They are native Arabic speakers immersed daily in a two-hour block of English, Math and Science, and they are loving their first experiences with Whole Brain Teaching. 



I'm very excited that the students have learnt "Class? Yes!", "Hands and Eyes", "Rule Number One", and "Rule Number Two".  Based on my experiences using pieces of WBT before summer break, I chose to modify the language for some of the rules, so they look like this:
 



Modified Rules







Rule Number 1: Do it quickly! (same gestures)

Rule Number 2: Bubble! (make the two with fingers,
then fingers on cheeks and put a bubble in your mouth)

 

What I'm most excited about this year, however, is trying to implement "Teach! Okay!", which is a complicated thing for these young students who have widely varying levels of English and are new to Western teaching styles.  My first goal is simply to get them to turn to each other and speak to each other in English.  I started this week, by giving the students red or yellow counters to hold - to make their roles more concrete -and we began by playing a version of "Simon Says..." with children following instructions for either reds or yellows.  It will take some time, but I think that using "Teach! Okay!" in the ELL classroom has phenomenal possibilities. 

For more information about the school reform program in the United Arab Emirates:

http://www.adec.ac.ae/English/Pages/Schools.aspx