As part of SWAP, each person was handed a teacher's handbook and student's workbook. On about the second week my student accidently misplaced her workbook. Faced with this ordeal and having the teacher's handbook differ from the student's workbook, I made the decision to 'wing it' without the book.
My lessons changed from simply 'filling in' the necessary information to more code-switching style. I was already aware that my student knows a lot of English words so I decided to have a type of oral quiz with her. I asked her questions about the days of the week, months in the years, numbers 1-100, and important holidays that are celebrated in the US. As we went through this orally, I realized that although she knew many words, she was mixing up a few or relying on me to supply her with an answer when she did not know. Unsure of how to enrich her experience, and not just feed her the information, I asked my personal friends after having an unproductive day with her. The advice that I received from the majority of my friends was to have her write down the information and that supplying it is sometimes necessary--it's important to not expect her to know every English word that I ask her about.
With this in mind, the next teach day I went in with a pen and notebook. I once again quized her orally to see what words she was able to retain and which ones she still needed help with. As I was going through the quiz I noticed that there were still a few words that she was struggling with. I decided that perhaps seeing the words written down would help her visualize them better. Once I did this she asked me if I would go through the alphabet with her, because she had a few anxieties about her English writing. I went through the English alphabet with her and was stuck with the "e" 'i" differentiation. The English "e" sounds like the Spanish "i" This differentiation had come easily to me, because I had learned English as a 5 year old, but it was a very difficult concept for her. I stumbled my way through different explanations why the phonology of the letters was different and provided word examples, but she still seem confused. This was a bit frustrating for me...but I was able to calm myself down and remind myself that she had not grown up surrounded by these distinctions.
As I was reminded of this, I took a deep breath and apologized for expecting her to understand this information right of way and attempted to expalin it once again at a slower rate and explain the different positions that the tongue takes with the vowel distinctions and common words that have an "e" or an "i." I am not sure how much she understood the second time around, but I decided to move on. I explained to her that I needed to think of a different way to illustrate the differences between the vowels, because she had been unable to understand my different examples, and that we would get back to it at a different time.
These lessons allowed me to understand that having Spanish as my native tongue and then learning English at age 5 was difficult for me, but evenmore so for adults who are past the critical age of learning a different language.
