Herb Fest

Session Activity-  Do the chart on verb form changes

Item Produced- vision on grammar, medicinal herb information

Summary- pretty good grammar exercise

Linguistic Effective- just following the worksheet step by step was pretty effective. Even when it was uncomfortable I pressed forward and the results were better than expected

Linguistic Ineffective- I had some questions that came out of this that I was not able to follow through on because of speaker interest and my own mental limitations

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- sometimes you cannot see the larger value until the greater worksheet is complete. Make sure workbook language encourages people to press through even if the exercise seems frivolous at the time

Cultural Effective- asking for grammar and delving into grammar inquiries created some good idioms come out

Cultural Ineffective-

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  maybe pairing idiom exercises with grammar exercises would make idioms accessible and grammar less painful

Tomorrow-

Further Comments-

Feeling Swole

Session Activity- Get verbs for stop

Item Produced-  cool list of stoppage verbs.

Summary-  more grammar woes

Linguistic Effective- I latently understand more grammar. That is, I understand where more elements should be even if I am not able to implement them.

Linguistic Ineffective- I feel like I am wasting my time

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- I need to find out what made me feel like I know grammar, and build on that

Cultural Effective- My speaker is getting used to me trying to use grammar stuff. He is also a bit more aware of my ability and what I am interested in

Cultural Ineffective- he is bored and not feeling like this is a good time use

Cultural Provisional Improvements- try to make sure people know that latent grammar will start, and that even through it is shitty is may help your speaker to do grammar also

Tomorrow-

Further Comments-

I am naturally wanting to structure things with more grammar words. Today was the first time I felt it. Hearing is ok today but writing seems to be getting harder. Is it better to just understand or to write? Also I am learning to expect less from each day. The routine is to start with grammar, get a story, then get some history. Should I re-structure lesson plan to follow this natural flow?

The Great Sandwich Boat Wreck

Session Activity- Ask for different forms of known verbs

Item Produced- 2 verbs, Boating stories, the time the guy wrecked the boat eating a sandwich

Summary-Grammar just does not work 

Linguistic Effective- Having the worksheet of verbs to ask helped

Linguistic Ineffective- this whole grided out grammar testing method is too culturally vapid to be effective in this conversational language learning setting

Linguistic Provisional Improvements-  Maybe for challenge two just have 3 different days with 3 different charts that just need to be filled verbatim, without a big hoopla about learning different ways to do it

Cultural Effective-  boats run, boats ran, boats running

Cultural Ineffective- the grammar is alienating my speaker!

Cultural Provisional Improvements- more conversational

Tomorrow- 

Further Comments-

Grammar Failure

Duration-  00:37:00
 
Session Activity- Orally work through the second pronoun chart ( I say, he corrects, I write)
 
Item Produced- More Pronoun examples, better understanding of pronoun grammar
 
Summary-  I think this did not go as expected, was as difficult and frustrating as the other challenge exercises, but we got an unexpected breakthrough
 
Linguistic Effective- Saying and revising phrases is the most effective way for me to understand so far in Challenge Two. It also helped my speaker to witness the struggle I have with creating sentences because he was able to help me through the process. He even came up with a grammar rule that succinctly summarized pronoun grammar
 
Linguistic Ineffective- I am still having a hard time hearing and translating into writing
 
Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Encouragement and simplifying the grammar exercises to get that breakthrough with less pain- maybe re-write from straight chart to more of a live listening exercise
 
Cultural Effective- I think it helped my speaker to watch me where I struggled
 
Cultural Ineffective- Grammar is pretty brute and does not leave much room for cultural significance
 
Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Maybe rewrite some instructions for this section to include the fact that it is helpful for your speaker to see you struggle?
 
Tomorrow- No idea. I guess we need to start on verbs just to get out of this grammar thicket.
 
Further Comments- 22 years of education and grammar still sucks the life out of me.

Group talk

Duration-  1:15:00
 
Session Activity- Chat as a group and swap stories of the week
 
Item Produced- Practice with a monologue, bible verse translation, semantic puzzle between two types of movement
 
Summary-  Another speaker and learner joined in this session. Always great for moral, and bad for progress. We swapped stories, translated a bible verse, and  had some interesting history of washing machines, and a good semantic puzzle between "Grouille" and "change"
 
Linguistic Effective- The conversation about the semantics of movement was super cool. Everyone seems interested to tolerant of the discussion. Translating bible verses went really well!
 
Linguistic Ineffective- This idea of semantic questioning needs to be put in! these were great. It should be discussed earlier how to add these in and test them when they come up
 
Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Add semantic test into section 1! Add bible verse exercise to chapter 2
 
Cultural Effective- Having the whole group together is great.. On occasion. It makes for a special session that is a surprise and always ends positive
 
Cultural Ineffective- One learner tried to google stuff. People were also not as used to being in the conversation because they are not in it a lot. They seemed a bit uncomfortable win the whole french, but more of an awe than a discomfort
 
Cultural Provisional Improvements-  There needs to be more concern given to guests.
 
Tomorrow- we came up with the homework of writing out a scripture in french and bringing it in next time we go
 
Further Comments- Great session. This is the time where I will start updating my notes again. Notes 26-17 began migration on this day.

Sick

Duration-  0:51:04

Session Activity- Shot the breeze

Item Produced- Recipe for cold remedy, Phrase translation, Whiskey cocktail recipes

Summary-  I was sick and not about it. It was a lame session

Linguistic Effective- The phrase was interesting, albeit short

Linguistic Ineffective- I came with the idea to play a word game between rhyming syllables to make words. Speaker totally was not about it

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- That game was not well explained because it was not well defined. It would need alto of structure to work, and I don’t think it is a fun game anyway. But….with the right speaker it could work…right?

Cultural Effective- Being generally miserably sick I did get a cool recipe for a cold remedy- figs, honey and lemon. Sounded delicious. I also got some good whiskey drink cocktail mixes

Cultural Ineffective- Totally wasn’t a good listener or anything today.

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Asking for drink recipes was fruitful, maybe do that again?

Tomorrow- Not be sick. Plan an actual lesson instead of being lazy and trying to make a plan on the drive to his house

Further Comments- I am finding that it is not enough to just go once a week and do this. I feel like in order to make progress I will also need to do some of this on my own. I find just by listening to french music or doing something french during the week keeps me fresh and makes it easier to listen on Wednesday nights to my speaker. Ill make a playlist...

Pronouns!

Session Activity- Pronoun Chart
 
Item Produced- Pronoun Chart
 
Summary-  Went through the pronoun chart. Got every one of them wrong, I know why. Great eye-opening experience
 
Linguistic Effective- Doing the chart beforehand and then hearing his constructions,THEN writing his constructions totally re-wired the way I was thinking about things and helped me get to a point of understanding fairly quickly. He liked having the chart in front of him and collecting the phrases in his mind while I was writing.
 
Linguistic Ineffective- We got mixed up at some point and he started saying the same constructions for two of the pronouns. I tried to fish around and find the right one by trying to make sense of what he was saying, but it just fell apart. I accepted a brute force method of a long parade of similar questions in order to resolve the discrepancy. I still don't think I got a good answer
 
Linguistic Provisional Improvements- There needs to be a better method of what to do when a speaker says the same thing
 
Cultural Effective- Meh. It was grammar. He enjoyed the structure, and working together through the confusion did improve our communication skills
 
Cultural Ineffective- I think he got confused by the forms that did make sense. Maybe those should just go off. When we were complete he also asked for other questions. I think it was too dry and he was expecting something a little more worthwhile for his time
 
Cultural Provisional Improvements-  Warn my speaker before a lengthy grammar exercise
 
Tomorrow-
 
Further Comments- I learned alot.