24 Nov 08: Today I gave my demonstration class to students from the 10th of Esc. Sup. Adolfina Irrizary de Puig. WOW, what an experience.

For my 1st group, Mrs Carrasquillo, wanted me to present the parts of a PLOT as they refer to a Short Story. The students were a bit loud and somewhat lacking of discipline. They believed that just because I was there they could get away with whatever they wanted. I stood up and waited until they became quiet. Mrs Carrasquillo, asked her students to please quiet down so I could present my class... I introduced myself and gave them a bit of my background. At the begining they started with the excuse of not knowing a lot of English, so I went ahead and asked them a couple of questions and I explained to them that we, puertoricans, are lucky because we grow up in a bilingual environment.. "Believe it or not". I went ahead and as I presented the material, I translated into Spanish so no one would stay behind. It worked, because I then turned the class into an interactive one. I got them to cooperate, answer questions and even ask questions. I noticed that this group was still hesitant towards me, but that is understandable... A person that they are not use to showed up to teach them a class...

For my 2nd group, which according to Mrs Carrasquillo was her academically difficult group, it started basically the same way as the 1st group. I waited until all students sat down and were ready to pay attention. I introduced myself as a Univ. of Puerto Rico student as I did with the previous class. I opened my class asking, How many of them could speak English? Two students advised me that they understood without a problem. One student came with the excuse that he did not know English, so it would be difficult for him to understand the class. I went ahead and asked him if he goes to the movie theaters and he responded that he did. I asked him if he could understand what was being spoken while he watched the movie and if he attempted to figure out what was being said based on what he heard with what was happening. He responded that yes, he would understand what the actors were saying based on what was happening. At this point in time I told him... "you are bilingual, either you believe it or not". I asked him if he knew what the word parking meant and he knew. I also asked him about the words Doctor, Hospital, Jeep and Toyota. He responded that those words are in Spanish and I told him that yes those words are from Spanish but the only difference was the pronounciation between English and Spanish. From this point on, the student did not disrupt the class. Actually, he was one of the students that was participating the most and did not have a problem understanding me. This 2nd group was a lot more outgoing than the first one. I told them that in this type of classroom setting, I prefer an interactive class vice a conference type class. After everything was set and done, Mrs Carrasquillo stated my class was a success. She could not believe how outgoing her students were in the 2nd group.