Calendar

photo by Joe Lanman

Primary Scenario Objectives – What Clients Should Learn

(This particular scenario will be most helpful to your client if practiced after he or she is familiar with the “Numbers” scenario that can also be accessed through the COAR volunteer resources page.)

How to pronounce the names of the week and the months of the year
How to recognize this information on a calendar
How to pronounce dates using the appropriate number words (“first” rather than “one,” etc.)
How to inquire about the day and date, and how to reply to such inquiries

How to read and write dates, names of the week and months of the year (only for more advanced clients – the last exercise below addresses this objective)

From the Refugee Perspective – Cultural Norms

Please show your client that Sunday is usually the first day of the week on calendars written in English.
To clients who will be writing, explain that the days of the week and months of the year are capitalized.
If the client was educated in a refugee camp, he or she may be familiar with the British date system. This system puts the day before the month (1 November, for instance) and pronounces the number like a regular number rather than like a date (one instead of first).

Norms should not be represented as “correct,” but merely as common procedure in the U.S.

Scenario Activities:

Weeks & Months

Items needed to complete activity: regular-size current calendar, some 3 × 5 notecards, pen or pencil

Write out the names of the days of the week and months of the year in English, one per notecard.
Practice reading and pronouncing the words on the cards with your client, then open the calendar and show your client where the words you are practicing appear.
As a numbers refresher, point to each number in one month in the calendar while your client pronounces the name of the number to which you point.
Once your client seems comfortable with recognizing and pronouncing the names for the numbers and words in the calendar, (for now, just state the dates as numbers, such as one, two three, etc., because the changes in how numbers are stated when used as dates are addressed in the exercise below), ask him or her to flip through the calendar to locate random dates that you announce.
He or she should state the date out loud as well.

If you have two or more child clients and two or more calendars, you may want to ask the children if they want to see who can find the most dates the fastest.

Numbers as Dates on the Calendar

Items needed to complete activity: regular-size current calendar, five 3 × 5 notecards, paper, pen or pencil

Write the following words on the notecards, one per card: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth, thirty-first.
Explain to your client, while referring back to the calendar as a visual aid, that rather than saying “one” to describe the first day of the month, Americans use the word “first,” instead. Explain how the numbers one through 5, when spoken of as dates, are transformed in this way. Perhaps you can write out some brief bullet points summarizing these shifts on a piece of paper that your client can keep to study.
Now, using the calendar as a reference point, show your client how the first through fifth pattern is repeated from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth, and the thirty-first.
Explain how the rest of the dates use the “-th” ending, as in eleventh, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty-eighth, thirtieth, etc.

Practice pronouncing the dates, while utilizing the calendar and notecards, until your client is comfortable with them.

Create a Calendar

Items needed to complete activity: may vary depending on volunteer’s style and preference- at least 12 sheets of paper, a ruler, and a pencil will be needed (only required if the calendar grid will be hand-made – the volunteer may also choose to make photocopies from a grid on a calendar of their own, or perhaps even craft a grid using a computer program such as Microsoft Excel)- the volunteer may also include construction paper, photographs, pictures downloaded from the internet, (images may even represent a calendar theme that the client specifies), a current calendar to use as a guide, glue, scissors, misc. art supplies as needed

Give your client time to peruse a calendar if he or she has not already done so, explain the U.S. calendar system while he or she flips through the calendar pages.
Go ahead and create a calendar with your client. Let him or her write out the days of the week, months of the year, and dates if he or she is comfortable with that, but if your client is not ready to start writing, you can do it.
Ask your client to recite the order of the days of the week and the months of the year while you work together.
Mark special dates on the calendars, including days that COAR volunteers visit, special events, (check the COAR calendar, as well as the COAR calendar of Free and Low-Cost Events for special events), birthdays, anniversaries, holidays in your client’s home country, and U.S. holidays (may refer to the “Holidays” scenario for excercises to help your client understand the significance of such days). Also please explain to your client that the calendar is also a good place to write down upcoming appointments.

This activity may need to be completed over a couple weeks or more due to the possibly time-consuming nature of creating a calendar from scratch. Of course it will take less time if the calendar grids are prepared using photocopies or a computer program.

Day/Date Question and Response

No items are required for this activity, unless you want to write down the few new phrases that will be introduced here for your client to keep and study

Please explain to your client that one asks what day it is, or what day something takes place, by asking “What day is it?”
Please explain to your client that one asks what date it is, or what date something takes place, by asking “What is the date?” or “When is it?”
Also please explain that one may reply to a day inquiry with “It is…” and to a date inquiry with “It is…” or “It’s on….”

Practice role-playing with your client. Ask him or her questions such as “When is your birthday?” or “What is the date next Monday?” and make sure that he or she replies correctly. Then switch roles.

Writing Practice

Items required to complete this activity: paper and pen or pencil

Simply state days, months, dates, and years singularly and in combination with each other (as in “Monday, September 19th, 2007”) and ask your client to write out the information that you state.

Show your client some of the alternative ways that days are represented in writing, such as 08/19/07 and 08-19-07, and ask him or her to practice writing out those forms too.

Essential Vocabulary

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
first
second
third
fourth
fifth
twentieth
twenty-first
thirtieth
thirty-first
today
day
week
month
year