Some ESL Moments from the past

Today's ESL moment. The problem says to translate the triangle four units to the left. I walk over to our newest student (new!), who got the first two problems right, and I see that the triangle hasn't moved, but she has a sentence on her page in Farsi. I asked her what it said. "Triangle go four units right." Oh. "In MATH, Translate means to shift or move."

---

Student: "Ms. Markman, this math problem is not having fruits. I no understand."

Me: "Fruit?"

Student points to a problem involving a train traveling 70 miles PER hour. (Not PEAR)

We are not terrorists. We left because terrorists hurt our families. ISIL is not Muslim. ISIL is bullies.

via http://goo.gl/Y1Cbrf

So .... I talked to the high beginners and a few intermediate kiddos today about Paris and its aftermath. (These kids are 11-14.) Mostly we talked about the fact that people in government and on TV are blaming refugees and Muslims for terrorism in general and the Paris terrorist attacks in particular.  Told them they may hear negative comments and may experience ugly acts from other students or within the community.  We talked about what they might do if these things occur, even extending to what kind of people we should ignore (and report!), and what kinds of people we might want to talk to and educate.  Their first instinct is to want to educate everyone, but we decided that angry people aren't ready to listen.  Their message is this:  "We are not terrorists. We left because terrorists hurt our families.  ISIL is not Muslim. ISIL is bullies."

Our Immigration Narratives

The middle school students who wrote these have been in the United States between one month and one year.  Some studied English in their countries. Most are refugees, and most have lived in more than one country before arriving in Texas.  One speaks four languages. One has never seen his "native" country and never lived outside a refugee camp until June. The amount of editing that has been done is minimal, but all did have both a peer editor and some editing and revising with me or one of the volunteers.  In some cases the name of a city has changed, and no student names appear.

_______________________________________________

In Sudan when i 11 all old i go to school every day and when i school in the morning i took my brother every day with me when i come back to home i eat and i sleep and then i go to play with friend  we play every day after school we like to play challenge after we finish the home works and then i check out home i go to play with my brothers we play games the name of the games is jamb and jamb.

I played here every day but people were fighting with guns.

ethiopia

i go ethiopia bucase my dad he don,t had good work in sudan in sudan is so hot this way he live to ethiopia there is not hot you play every time in ethiopia i don,t had friend i can,t go out said my home to play  but i like it.  i didn’t go to school because we were there 3 months.

austin. welcome to america

when i come  america i don't know where i am when i come to school .i don had freind  and they lafin to me. i don no why because i didn’t spike english .  this yer is beder is not like sudan because in sudan i don,t spike English .  8 in eight grate i can spike english little big but in now i had a meny freind. 


_______________________________________________

I was Born in iraq. I lived in iraq for 11 years before I moved. Because of  the war in Baghdad  my family and I moved to Turkey.  Turkey is a good country, but some of my peer in school said to me: ”why you come to turkey, go to another country?“ and theirs no jobs for my parents.in turkey. we lived in turkey 2 yares.

I was 13 wahen imove to U.S.A my mome got  a job and I come to a   new school i have a good friends and i live my school and U.S.A is good..

I like U.S Because good for my parents now have jobs.and It's good life.

Irregular Verbs for Wednesday and Thursday

Activity 1:  What do they mean?


Activity 2: When do we use each in the past tense?


Activity 3: PAIRS  Testing each other for meaning, pronunciation, and spelling (flash cards)


Activity 4:   Classification:  THINK, PAIR, SHARE

• What are five you know how to do? (answer in present)
• What are five you did this week? (answer in past)
• What are five an animal can do? (answer in present)
• What are five you did as a child? (answer in past) 

Activity 5:  PAIRS  Testing each other by offering definitions first.


Activity 6: Negatives and Questions, pages 46-47.

Verb	Past Tense
become	became
break	broke
drive	drove
fall	fell
fight	fought
fly	flew
hide	hid
hit	hit
lose	lost
put	put
speak	spoke
stand	stood
teach	taught
think	thought
win	won
eat	ate
come	came
do	did
drink	drank
give	gave
get	got
make	made
meet	met
run	ran
read	read
see	saw
swim	swam
take	took
go	went
write	wrote