Laura Rizzo
Professor
Gleason
Teaching Adult Learners in Diverse Contexts
April 28,
2015
Field Notes: CAMBA Adult Learning Center (HSE/ABE Class)
I observed Ms. Anahit’s beginner level HSE/ABE class at CAMBA’s Adult
Literacy Center. The class took place from 1:00-4:00 on Monday, April 27th,
2015. I attended the class on the
first session of the third week of their April cycle. Ms. Anahit is a woman in
her late 60’s who told me she had been teaching “her whole life, since she was
22,” when I asked her about her career. She has been working for CAMBA for the
last 8 years and was originally one of their ESOL instructors. When I was
speaking to her supervisor, Mara Kotler, I learned that Ms. Anahit is
originally from Armenia where she was both an English teacher and an economics
professor.
The CAMBA building is located in the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn on
the corner of Church Avenue and Flatbush Avenue. The neighborhood is primarily
a commercial neighborhood and many of the students are from within a few blocks
of the center. Most of the students at the center are African Americans from
the Caribbean, and they have a large Haitian population. The building is old and has linoleum
floors and very little décor. In the waiting room where I sat, there were
several pamphlets and posters, some about academic support and others about
health concerns. Most resources were also in Haitian Creole or Spanish.
The classroom I visited looked similar. It had two long, folding tables
parallel to each other, so that students sat perpendicular to a whiteboard near
the entrance of the room. In the back of the room, there were two bookshelves
filled with lots of workbooks and copied worksheets in piles. Next to the
bookshelves was a large teacher desk with a desktop computer on top and a
printer. Opposite the teacher workspace were several file cabinets. The décor
looked like it had been accumulated over time. The teacher’s desk was covered
in a plastic tablecloth that said “Happy Birthday”, on top of the shelves there
were some arrangements of silk flowers, and around the room were several
pre-fabricated posters. The posters focused on English vocabulary and grammar
(there was a chart of “Adjectives and Adverbs”,” Emotions” with labeled photos
of children, and months of the year) as well as a map of the world and the
United States.
I had been told that the morning groups are much bigger than the
afternoon sessions. In the class at the same level that Ms. Anahit had taught
at 9:00 that morning, there were 24 students enrolled. When I entered the room
at about 12:50pm, 10 minutes before class began, there were 2 African American
women waiting for class to begin. All three were working on a photocopied
packet from the Easy Level of the TABE Test review book by McGraw Hill that I
had been shown by Mara Kotler, the program supervisor. None of the women seemed
to be prompted to work on this assignment before class began.
I spoke with Brunelle, a woman in her mid-fifties who was sitting in the
back left of the room, and asked to look at the packet. There were
approximately 30 pages of reading passages and comprehension questions,
primarily focusing on identifying main idea and supporting details. Brunelle
wrote in very precise script when writing her answers and she told me that she always does her homework. She had been
experiencing back pain over the weekend and had struggled to complete the
homework. She expressed concern with holding the class up if she has not completed the assignments.
Brunelle brought lunch and ate as she got ready for class.
Another woman, early 30’s, who Ms. Anahit pointed out as an ESL student
from Haiti, sits near the door, facing the back of the room. This woman, Ludia,
reads quietly to herself as we goes through her assignment.
Tracy, an African-American woman in her early 40’s, dressed in athletic
clothing and a “ ‘do rag” with $100 bills printed on it comes into class around
the time that class begins and also takes out her homework and works
independently.
When class begins around 1:00,
Ms. Anahit circulates around the room as the women continue to work on their
homework independently. She makes positive comments on the students’ work. She
sits at her desk in the back on the room, which has a folding chair next to it.
She begins to hold individual conferences with students about the homework,
having them sit next to her.
Ms. Anahit has her first conference with Tracy. Tracy seemed concerned
about the work, though I did not hear what she was referring to and could not
see the packet at this point. Ms. Anahit responded positively saying, “It’s ok.
I’m here to help.”
At 1:07 an African-American
man in his mid-forties arrives saying “Good afternoon everyone.” He puts his
bag and coat down at the table on the left, but then chooses to sit at the
table on the right, sitting near Ludia. He also takes out his homework without
Ms. Anahit prompting him.
At 1:08 Ms. Anahit meets with
Ludia. She reminds the student about what they learned about making sentences
with a capital letter at the beginning and a period at the end. As Ms. Anahit
speaks with Ludia about a passage that discusses the cons of having pots with
metal handles, she uses many examples, describing the different ways that
things can be heated, such as a wood stove, or a radiator. She gestures to the
radiator behind them.
At 1:10 an African-Amerian
woman in her late 30’s (Betty) arrives and sits across from Bernard at the
table on the right. Bernard stops doing his work to say hi to her. Ms. Anahit
pauses her conference with Ludia to speak to him, “If you want to achieve
success… I told you… She came late. Don’t say hi.” “If you focus, your success
if with you.”
At 1:13, Ms. Anahit asks
Bernard to pass around a sign-in sheet. Bernard also approached me with the
sign in sheet. Ms. Anahit corrected him, saying I was visiting and would be a
future teacher. Even when all students arrived by around 1:40, between a third
and half of the students on the roster did not arrive.
At 1:15, Ms. Anahit announces
to the class that everyone will have a conference with her and then she’ll
teach the full class after a few more students arrive.
At 1:17, a young African
American woman in her early 20’s (Natasha) arrived and took out her homework.
Generally, I observed that every student that arrived to the class
arrived prepared with their work packet, and writing utensils. Though none of
the students had finished the packet, most had finished at least half.
At 1:20, I hear Ms. Anahit
tell Ludia firmly, but encouragingly, “Calm down. You do better when you are
calmer.” She also asks the Natasha about a work packet on government from a
week ago. Natasha does remember getting this work packet.
*Eventually, I determined that using this level of narrative description was an inefficient way to catalog my findings. I typed up all of my notes in a table like the one below, then selected quotes and observed actions that supported my explorations of the effects of 5 teaching strategies: 1) Strong classroom norms. 2) Conferences 3) Creation of a communal co-learning space by writing on the board and having students read out loud 4) Treatment of practice passages as authentic texts 5) Humor
*Regarding my interview, I recorded my nearly 2 hour conversation with ABE Program Director, Mara Kotler. I only chose to transcribe relevant quotes after drafting my paper for the sake of efficiency, using my questions and time stamps as a guide.
Visuals from Oral Presentation
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