Wow, my Beginning and Prelit classes have made me so proud lately!
In Beginning ESL we've been reading an ESL version of
Romeo and Juliet. They've been SO into it - I love seeing them excited about reading. Last week when they were reading the final story my classroom was SILENT for 35 minutes. ...This just
doesn't happen. I was amazed. Now we're working on characterization. Today I gave them a whole page of quotes from the story to sort by character, and they also had to write next to it why the person was prompted to say it. They amazed me with their ability to make connections. Since they've worked so hard lately, I'm letting them watch
Romeo and Juliet the 60's version on Wednesday. I was really surprised when they voted for the older version and not the 90's one with Leonardo Dicaprio. They said,
'Romeo and Juliet is a
classic and you can't change a
classic.' WOW. If this wouldn't make an English teacher happy, I don't know what would.
My prelit students have also amused and amazed me so much lately. A few weeks ago we read a book about dinosaurs, and 2 weeks ago we read about weather and I taught them how to use weather.com to find the weather in their native countries. So I was a little confused last Thursday when a few kids came in and said, "Dinosaur weather!" They asked if they could use the classroom computer, and then guided themselves to weather.com, typed in weather, and proceeded to show me "Dinosaur Weather" for Dinosaur, Colorado. What smart kids! They wanted to see what weather dinosaurs had. They did understand that it wasn't actually weather for dinosaurs in the past...but they thought it was pretty hilarious as did I. You can see if for yourself here:
Dinosaur Weather. :)
