Getting to Know You

   John and I got to know each other a little better today.  I opened by asking him about his weekend.  He didn't say much which is how he often responds.  I decided to go on to tell him about my weekend in North Carolina to which he responded that he often visited North Carolina.  After this conversation, John seemed to be much more relaxed and started to open up.
    We started with a few quizzes and activities which he did very well with and moved on to reading Amy Tan's "Two Kinds."  During the lessons today John took out his cellphone for the first time.  I was hesitant to mention it because I felt that we had really made some progress today and he was actually doing better on the assignments than usual.  I decided not to mention the cell phone because it was not excessive and it wasn't impairing his learning.
     The e-reader was not working on Amy Tan's story so we had to read the story out loud.  John was very hesitant to do this.  I think that this is because he had trouble pronouncing and understanding many of the words.  I believe that John's first language is not English even though he speaks it fluently.  He types as if he is typing a text: spelling things in text speech and not capitalizing anything.  This is the only first hand experience that I have had with the effects that texting has had on the written language.
    Before we were finished reading the story, the website signed John out and we had to go back into the site.  John decided not to finish the story and went on to the lesson and the quizzes.  The school and the systems in place encourage students to worry only about the quick and easy answer to questions.  Students are sometimes encouraged to not read stories and often choose not to.  The summaries that the teacher gives them is adequate to answer questions immediately after it is given but students are not able to answer questions about the story later on.  I think that the PLC is a wonderful resource but the teaching methods that I have seen in this particular classroom are deplorable.  They aren't really teaching methods at all but cheating methods.