Tuesday 12 Jul, Level 2

[Caroline M Mwaniki]

Hi all,

yesterday we continued our work on conjugations of the verb "to be" in the present, pronunciation and vocabulary building and reading comprehension from "Sam and Pat". We also worked towards the end of class, on spelling out numbers.

Like the previous day, I started off class with a short fill-in-the-blanks exercise where I asked students to provide the appropriate conjugation of the verb "to be" in the present tense. These drills are helping reinforce students' knowledge and build their confidence in providing the correct conjugations. 

Our next activity was discussing the difference in pronunciation between three letter words with the vowels "a" and those with the vowel "u" - Ex: Sam and sum, fan and fun, etc. The first few chapters in "Pat and Sam" focus on the vowel "a" while the chapters we are studying at the moment introduce the vowel "u". I thought it would be useful to highlight the differences in pronunciation. We also went through the meaning of certain words students were unfamiliar with including bug, mug, hug, gum etc.

We then moved on to reading the sentences in Lesson 5, which were pretty straight forward, and finally with a simple exercise where I asked students to spell numbers 1-20. Most students had difficulty with most numbers except ten. They told me to request the other teachers to spend 5 - 10 min per class working on spelling numbers, as this is a useful skill, especially for practical purposes such as writing checks. 

Also, I called Athe, the PSA president yesterday, to ask about the use of the space for tomorrow and next week: he said that they will only need the room for a meeting next Wednesday (20 July). Otherwise, today, next Monday and Tuesday, the classroom is free for us to use.

Cheers!

--
Caroline Mwaniki
Department of French/Institute of French Studies
New York University