Monday, October 24, 2011

Second day at Bailey Gatzert

My second day at Bailey Gatzert came up with many gratification and warmness. Coming back after one week, I did not expect much from the children. To my surprise and gratefulness, most of them remembered my name and where I came from. I was so glad. Today during daily class hour, we learned how to use the dictionary. Two kids in a pair had to find a letter and begin the word with that letter and look up for it in the dictionary. Well, I usually use the dictionary without consciousness how did I learn how to do it, but seeing the kids curiously turning the page is really fun. They all wanted to explore this new concept.

However, during the Brain Train program in which I am a tutor, I found some problem. There are three sections for the kids containing reading, science and computer laboratory. The first section was really interesting. The kid I worked with was really good at vocabulary and she could make sentences with every word. When I told her a story and asked her to retold it for me, she really enjoyed it and related the story to her real life at home. However, the next two sections, I think, were not totally suitable and effective. I found the science section interesting because I love science. But my kid did not seem to feel so. She could not concentrate on the exercises and wanted to move to another part. There was mathematics that practice with time and clock. That exercise required the kid to think of her daily life schedule and present it on the clock. It was hard for her because she had no idea about what time she goes to school, what time she has dinner, ect. There was also a practice exercise that asked the kid to fill in the blank such as "5,10,15,...,..." or "50,55,60,...,..." How could a 6 year-old kid do that without the counting formula? Moving to the computer practice part, it seemed too easy for the kid because she already knew all the terms and words in the pretest. she felt boredom and kept looking around to watch other kids.

After the second day at Bailey Gatzert, I found some situations which are related to Gee's term. It is the difference between primary discourse and secondary discourses. Most of the kids here don't have an "academic discourse" at home in which they can practice what they learn at school or bring their daily life at home to the classroom. The kids sometime have difficulty in doing maths and technology because they do not have a chance to practice at home.

1 comment:

  1. Fantastic blog, Trang. I especially appreciate your description/analysis of the Brain Train. Looking forward to reading more!

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