The First Meeting

The first class meeting: Introduction 4/4/09

On Saturday April 4th we had our first class meeting in the Plainfield library. We met for three hours, 10 am to 1 pm, which will be the standard time. There were seven new students. The husband of one also attended. He was a student the last cycle and had recently passed his interview. Of the new seven, six have Spanish as their native language; five are women, two are men.

We began with J, the new citizen, who told us about his interview experience, which was mostly positive and smooth. In contrast, AH volunteered the story of his recently failed interview. He appears to have not had some required documentation, although he felt that he had what was called for. The there was a dramatic contrast between the two CIS officers, one of them, MO’C, was cordial and non-adversarial, while the other was described as oddly distracted and coldly unhelpful.

The rest of the class reacted by adding their own stories of friends and relatives, both positive and not.  The thread was that a lot depends on the demeanor of the interviewing officer. The characteristic that raised the most concern was “strict”.

One of my objectives for the first class was to make an informal evaluation of the learners’ level of spoken English. I asked the students to introduce themselves and tell a little of themselves. I think that I can identify three who can use extra attention, and three who might have strong enough English skills to help.

Here’s a list of the students:

R1: 30-55, female, South America, medical assistant, anticipates interview in early July

E: 55+, female, SA, childcare, plans to apply soon

A2: 55+, male, SA, factory worker, interview in two weeks

F: 30-55, male, SA, driver, applied approximately March 1st

A1: 30-55, female, Caribbean, no application yet

X: 30-55, female, SA, no application yet

B: 55+, female, SA, factory worker, no application yet

Towards the end of the class I distributed my contact information, the class syllabus, and the book that we will use, Pasa el Examen de Ciudadanía Americana (PECA), discussing each briefly.

Next week we will begin the actual content of the course. For clarity (mine, if no one else’s) the next 12 classes will be numbered from 1 through 12.

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Things I wish I had done:

Had a formal lesson plan, even if just scribbled on legal paper, instead of an ineffective portion of a spreadsheet.

Introduced myself earlier. I didn’t want to make the first class about me, but I waited so long (until almost the end of the class) it must have seemed weird or at least make me look eccentric. Oh, well…

Made a more concise class schedule. The syllabus/schedule is accurate enough, but it’s spread out over two pages, and has too much unneeded stuff, so it’s almost unusable. This is easy to fix for the next class meeting.

Spent time with the alphabet page that I distributed, showing the letters as pronounced in English as well as their Spanish pronunciation.

Been more proactive when two of the Latino students made remarks that possibly could have been taken as derogatory towards blacks, especially because one of the students is black. Neither comment was harsh, to my ears, and neither was racist, to my mind, but both showed lack of sensitivity. I need to find a strategy to deter and/or defuse similar future episodes, without stifling candid expression.