Today I was tired for two reasons. Last night it was really windy and everybody was uneasy as to whether our cottage would hold up in the wind and the rain. I mean they have been standing for a while but still. We were still questioning it. So that cause me to wake up a number of times in the middle of the night. Then when it was time to go to school the winds and the rain hadn't settled down. We (Kylie and I) turned around so that we wouldn't have to face the wind and get pelted with rain that felt as though it was going 60 mph or so. It was really intense.
Once we got to school I was talking with Kylie about how we could best make our time effective here in Norway. So far I have observed a bunch of Norwegian classes. Many of them are math classes and those are better than other classes but still Norwegian is tough. My mind is so tired because it is trying so hard to pick up on words and trying to figure out what is going on and what is being taught. However, I don't speak Norwegian. I may try to pick up some things but I definitely don't speak Norwegian.
For one of the classes that I had today it was the math group again. So H was there and I worked with her the whole time. One of the other students wasn't there and so Erland just worked with the other boy in the class. I tried to make more progress with H by using Google Translate. I am not sure how effective that was. Since Norwegian is complicated and has all of the cases it is hard to tell what the ending of a word should be because I don't know anything about the cases. I would use Google Translate to translate something into Norwegian and H would pay attention to what I was writing but when it came to actually listening to my instructions she did it about 50% of the time. She just didn't really understand what I was telling her to do. The main thing that I learned from this is that even if the words are in the "right" language there will still be misunderstandings. It will be difficult for the ELL to develop vocabulary as well as the concept attached to the vocabulary word.
In a later period we go into a classroom and have math class where Erland had a quick lesson about the vocabulary word "factorial." Then he turned the rest of the class period over to the students to work out some problems with partners. I went up to a bunch of students and asked them which problem they were on and then proceeded to have them explain how to do the problem. The students surprised me with their English abilities, For the most part they were able to explain the problem to me and then I helped them think through the problem, I was excited for it to work out so well.
Once we got to school I was talking with Kylie about how we could best make our time effective here in Norway. So far I have observed a bunch of Norwegian classes. Many of them are math classes and those are better than other classes but still Norwegian is tough. My mind is so tired because it is trying so hard to pick up on words and trying to figure out what is going on and what is being taught. However, I don't speak Norwegian. I may try to pick up some things but I definitely don't speak Norwegian.
For one of the classes that I had today it was the math group again. So H was there and I worked with her the whole time. One of the other students wasn't there and so Erland just worked with the other boy in the class. I tried to make more progress with H by using Google Translate. I am not sure how effective that was. Since Norwegian is complicated and has all of the cases it is hard to tell what the ending of a word should be because I don't know anything about the cases. I would use Google Translate to translate something into Norwegian and H would pay attention to what I was writing but when it came to actually listening to my instructions she did it about 50% of the time. She just didn't really understand what I was telling her to do. The main thing that I learned from this is that even if the words are in the "right" language there will still be misunderstandings. It will be difficult for the ELL to develop vocabulary as well as the concept attached to the vocabulary word.
In a later period we go into a classroom and have math class where Erland had a quick lesson about the vocabulary word "factorial." Then he turned the rest of the class period over to the students to work out some problems with partners. I went up to a bunch of students and asked them which problem they were on and then proceeded to have them explain how to do the problem. The students surprised me with their English abilities, For the most part they were able to explain the problem to me and then I helped them think through the problem, I was excited for it to work out so well.
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