Kilmer Middle School

Journal 10
July 26, 2007

Kilmer Middle School

Mr. Sam Klein, a supervisor in Kilmer Middle School, gave us a fantastic presentation on the Fair Fax ESOL program and explained the system clearly. He was an enthusiastic teacher and even encouraged us to experience the different exotic food in Washington D.C. He had a lot of experiences of sharing the food with his immigrant students and the homemade food was very delicious! He also mentioned that the immigrant students changed a lot after they lived in the States for one year. The students soon get used to the American living style. However, they cannot quickly go into the mainstream regular program in school. President Bush’s government proposal, “No child left behind” forces their students to get higher standard of academic achievement in a short time. Yet, it is difficult for these students to achieve the goal. ESOL program provides a different teaching method to help the immigrant students engage in the regular school curriculum.

The classes we observed today were running the reading program. Susanne taught content-based approach. She taught the science lesson in English. The topic of the class was “Human Body.” There were many item cards about the body organs on the wall, and the students were working out some healthy menu that our body needs. They were busy completing their cards and put the information they got from the internet. After some time, some groups began to do presentations. I noticed when the presentation was going on, some of the groups didn’t pay attention to the speaker because they were busy finishing their work. I had the same trouble in my big classroom. Maybe
the teacher should stand a firm attitude and asks the students stop their work. The teacher in summer school here doesn’t have to worry about their teaching scheduled progress so they can take their time to make sure that all the students can come up with the class.

The teacher, Sarah, was also teaching reading. The reading book was “Small Pig” by Arnold Lobel for the first beginners. In the first period of class, every student played one character of the books and took turns reading the story loudly. In the second period, Sarah asked the students to answer which part of the story and which character they like the best and wrote down their opinions. To ask the students to write their opinion is the most difficult job for the teacher. The best way is to give them some guided writing so that they can follow the model and create their own. In Elisabeth’s class, a lot of students’ compositions were put on the wall and I found there were some grammatical mistakes in their writings. However, the teacher didn’t have any error-correction. Maybe, too much error-correction will make the students feel frustrated. It’s a pity that Kilmer School is the last school we visited but I do learn a lot from the school visiting.