I had been doing that in DC and thought I might continue for a while.
It turned out to be a terrific program, where our "students" (whom we taught every afternoon) were men and women from other countries employed by Georgetown in jobs including building engineers & maintenance people, housekeeping and restaurant employees, etc.
It the morning we learned from our teachers and in the afternoons we practice taught with these students, who were given free time and free tuition to take our class. It was a win-win-win; for Georgetown because as these newly immigrated employees improved their English, they could take on a wider variety of jobs; for the employees themselves because they would earn more in these jobs and live more successfully in the U.S., and for us because we could practice on real people while being observed by our own teachers with whom we would continue in late afternoon sessions after the students left.
It was a long day but I learned a lot -- and enjoyed the class and my fellow students. (And enjoyed teaching both in D.C. and when I returned to Chicago about two years later.)
I wrote the first song below for us to sing to our "students"at the party marking the conclusion of their program. Georgetown provided a lovely party room and great refreshments with a huge congratulatory sheet cake, and all of us -- students and student teachers - were all dressed up and we cheered as our students received their Diplomas of Completion for this program.
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(Click on it to make it larger!)
For many of our students who had come to the U.S. with minimal education, this was a really important day and many brought their spouses and children to witness this!
The second song is what I sang at our own student party. Mary and David were our teachers who instructed us in the morning and evaluated us as we taught our students each afternoon. It references some of the teaching methods we studied and the two part evaluation forms they filled out as they observed us teaching.
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(Click on it to make it larger!)
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