Finishing up the Final Draft

Today was the last day that my LA students had to work on the final drafts of their papers. As they finished, I went around and had a "mini writing conference" with each of them like I used to in the Writing Center at GSU: one of us read the paper out loud, while we stopped to make changes to punctuation or word choice. We also discussed why we made those changes. This was a focus on the lower-order concerns of a paper. The higher-order concerns (organization, thesis statements, transitions and topic sentences, citations...) were already addressed in the students' outlines and rough drafts. So, once I came around and read a student's paper one last time on the computer screen, he or she had to print a final copy to turn in as part of the research packet due tomorrow.

In the research packet, the students must include:

1. KWL (complete the "L" first)
2. All of the articles/websites used in essay
3. Notecards
4. Outline
5. Both rough drafts
6. Final draft
7. Works cited page

From what I've seen, most of them will be ready to turn in everything tomorrow! There will be a few behind, but I am so proud that most of them were able to keep up. I should do something special for them on Tuesday when we get back from Labor Day. I want them to know that they should be proud of themselves for completing such a big assignment, and that they shouldn't just do assignments to make their teachers happy.

Next week, my LA students will be working on their presentations of their research projects. We'll have some extra time, so I really would like to teach them how to present professionally. In other workds, teach them how to prepare note cards, practice their presentation so they don't have to read their note cards, and then present the information to the audience while keeping eye contact. For most students, a presentation is just reading the information from the PPT slides. I want to try to teach them to be better than that.

For my LDC students, today was Speaking Day, and they did some exercises so I could hear each student's pronunciation of different words and letters. I have some lists of minimal pairs (eat-it, neat-knit, beat-bit, etc.) that each pair of students practiced reading out loud to each other. They were able to ask me or each other how a word or words are pronounced. Then, each student stood in front of class and read their list of minimal pairs aloud. As they read, I made notes next to the words that were mispronounced.

After that, we went over the worksheet they completed yesterday on present perfect tense. I have all of their names written on popsicle sticks, and I chose a student at random. That student had to read aloud the next question and answer on the worksheet. If he or she got the answer wrong, I asked for volunteers to help. The students made corrections to their worksheets as we went through each question. Today in LDC IV, the students spoke and heard ONLY English for about 70% of the period. That is a good day. About 1/2 the class is Korean, and the other 1/2 is Hispanic, so as soon as they get the chance, they revert back to their native language (L1) to speak to each other. It's extremely hard to prevent this. I've not yet become as hard as some teachers who write their students up every time they say a word in their L1. Sometimes, teachers will deduct points from students daily grades for speaking in their L1. ...I'm just not that kind of teacher. I think there must be a better way. I think, if I give them activities and assignments that make them use English while they enjoy doing the work, that would be much more effective than punishing them for using their L1.