An Update

So I am working with a beginning intermediate and a beginning ESL class. I have enjoyed both but the beginning ESL class has been a challenge for me. We are working on a grammar interactive notebook and we are currently on pronouns. In one lesson I pronounced “demonstrative” like demonstrate-ive and “interrogative” like inter-ro-ga-tive. However, they are not pronounced like they are spelled (funny how that works in English). None of the students knew that of course ; ) but I was informed by Ms. Therrell after the fact. It was funny, to say the least, but the lesson went well and it’s over.

Now we are on verbs (a much easier concept to understand) and there is a new student in the class. His name is Sergio and he has been at COMPASS for the last month and a half. COMPASS is the alternative campus that students are sent to after they are written up for behavioral problems. The intervention steps before COMPASS are D-hall and SAC (in school suspension). This boy has been disruptive enough to earn a stint in COMPASS, not an easy thing to accomplish unless you try. *side note* this observation shows just how biased I was from the moment I met him.

Sergio would not do his warm up because he didn’t have a pencil. So I offered him a marker. Five minutes later Sergio was still not working and had his feet on the desk. Like Ms. Therrell (who was outside) I told him to please take his feet off the desk and start his warm up. Instead of working he looked up at me and then at the student next to him Martin (who is a very, very attentive student). He started saying puta… puta… puta (1) repeatedly. Martin slapped his him to stop (2), and Sergio made a suggestive movement (3) with his hands.

My brain added 1 + 2 + 3 = he was calling me a bitch. I told him to stop and finish his work. After about 10 min I went to the adjoining classroom to inform Ms. Therrell what Sergio thought of me. At the end of the period Ms. Therrell pulled him out of the room to talk to him. She came back and informed me that he was saying point, point, point repeatedly. I was offended the most by the fact that Ms. Therrell wouldn’t believe me. I guess it stems from the fact that I hear Ms. Therrell rave about her students daily even though she doesn’t challenge them at all. They can chew gum, text, write notes, and talk during every lesson it doesn’t matter to her. I guess I was gearing up for her to support my discipline move with Sergio, but I was reminded of the fact that I don’t speak Spanish by my cooperating teacher. In the heat of the moment it was a spit in the face. Why would Sergio work when I ask him to in the future? Ms. Therrell wouldn’t enforce that.