[ola] Students constructing understanding of grammar
- From: Ruth Whalen Crockett <rwhalen@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 00:45:15 +0000
Yesterday my Spanish five kids were engaged in an activity where they took on a
secret role of a famous person and their peers asked them questions about
themselves working to guesses who they were. I went into the activity hoping
they would practice the present perfect and was quickly reminded that they
weren't ready for this forced grammatical goal. As I stepped back from MY goal
and listened carefully, I was struck by how much difficulty they were having
with Ser and estar. They were making a mess of this. I just listened and
asked them to do some investigating before today's lesson. My goal for today
was for them to teach me when to use Ser and when to use estar.
I ended up getting a fierce cold yesterday afternoon and I was in no shape to
teach this morning. My sub plan, look over our last four short stories and
using examples from the stories, teach me the rules or Ser and Estar. I got
this note from one of students this evening:
"Hola,
Estaba buscando ejemplos en clase del uso de ser y estar hoy, y me duve cuento
que nunca vio un uso de estar con un sustantivo (como en "estoy un pianista"
debe ser "ser") y no puedo imaginar un caso en cual se use "estar" así ¿Es
verdad que siempre se usa estar con un adjetivo y nunca con un sustantivo?
(También, me pregunto si siempre use "estar" con los participios pasados - como
"está muerto" o "estoy asustada" - pero, no estoy muy seguro en eso)"
This email got me really excited. I feel like I can see that this student is
ready for this type of grammatical understanding. He was a student who was
most surprising me by his mistakes because he makes many fewer mistakes than
his peers but frequently makes mistakes with over using estar. It looks like
he was ready for this lesson.
I'm interested in harvesting more examples of readiness as this is exactly what
I need in helping nervous parents to understand what we are trying to do.
What do you think? Does this jive with your practice? Am I way off the mark?
Please weigh in.
Ruthie
Ruth E. Whalen Crockett
Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School &
Theodore R. Sizer Regional Teachers Center
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