Reflection #5

I can't believe the semester is already over. Looking back, I've really benefited from this class and feel that all teachers should take this course; even if they are not planning to teach an L2. Over the last two class periods, everyone had been sharing their activities/ lesson plans. This aspect of the class has really solidified everything we're learned into one tangible unit for me. Getting to see real life examples, implementing techniques we have learned in LLT, really helped me connect this class to my future. A few of my favorite activities were: the months of the year song/ activity, the To Kill a Mockingbird activity, and the weather meter activity.

Each activity was different in its own way, had a different target population, and taught a variety of different subjects, but still focused on SIOP methods and other ESL teaching techniques. It was great to see so many different ways this class can be implemented into an actual classroom setting. In the future I want to use some of these other activities in my classroom. I want to teach in an elementary/ middle school special education classroom; where students will need additional help learning English, even if it is their L1. Using hands on art activities (like the weather meter activity) would really help students with special needs. The songs from the “months of the year” song would also be a great way to teach my students the months of the year; in a novel way! The “To Kill a Mockingbird” activity would be good to build off of and adapt for students with disabilities. Content and language should come first when teaching a lesson; which was explicitly incorporated into all of the example activities.

Next class period, I’m going to write down the class’s sample activities, so I can use them as a future reference. 

Blog #5

I think this class so far has been helping me to decide a lot of things. The first is that I am excited to teach in general, but I'm still in a flurry of deciding where.
I've always said I will take a job wherever I would get one. Now I think, through this class and another TE class this semester, I've started to decide where I really want to be.
When I was in China, we toured an international school. The children were all parents of one or more American passport holder, but they were still extremely diverse. And last week, in my class, we interviewed a woman who teaches in the UAE in an international school.
I am fascinated with the idea of being surrounded in a culture very different from my own, but still having the comfort of a mostly American school. I've always wanted to teach in a different country, but I don't think I have ever wanted to teach in a school that was run by that country. I will be looking into these schools and hopefully begin looking at the pros and cons of different countries since 'where' is still up for debate.

ESL Reflection #5

            I really enjoyed Betsy Lavolette’s technology workshop last Tuesday.  My personal favorite was the Jeopardy game.  The website was very user-friendly and I can definitely see myself using it in the future.  I think having technology in the classroom, as well as being knowledgeable about technology your self, is very important.  Our technology workshop made me think about a class (CEP 416) I took this past summer.  CEP 416 is a class dedicated to learning about technology in the classroom.  At first, I was very intimidated by the class.  When I found out that we had to make our own websites, and explore new technologies, I was a little nervous.  I had never made a website before and I had no idea where to begin! Although I own many gadgets- iPhone, iPod, Kindle, MacBook Pro, etc. it seems like I am never quite up to date on all the possibilities these tools have to offer.  Basically, I am not the most tech-savvy person. 

During CEP 416, we were asked to make two websites.  For the first website, we were asked to create an “About Me” website.  For example, mine had a brief summary of myself that included my family, friends, pets, and hobbies.  I also posted my teaching philosophy, my resume, and a lesson I created that involved technology.  For the second website we were asked to design a website for your future classroom.  My website included a place for parents and/or students to contact me, a homework page where the assignments were posted, a drop box, classroom polls, jokes, class votes, games, a student showcase of artwork and an arts and crafts section where students could find craft ideas to do at home or in the classroom.  I created both of these websites from a site called Weebly.  Weebly was extremely helpful and is why I was able to contribute so many items to my websites.  The CEP 416 instructor gave very detailed directions and sometimes even uploaded videos of him doing the tasks himself.  He also provided examples from past students and always made sure to give us a lot of feedback.  If this class was done any other way, I do not think I would have gotten near as much out of it.  I think I would have still been intimidated by the assignments and my work would have reflected that.

With that being said, I think if you do incorporate technology into your classroom (which you should!) it should be in a way that students feel comfortable with.  Students should know your classroom is an environment where asking questions are encouraged, and aware that they made be learning from something they may have never seen/used before.  Like me, other students may be intimidated by technology at first, but if you give them explicit directions and walk through the steps, technology can be very beneficial and easy to work with.

 I also believe that exposing children to technology at an early age will help them greatly.  By exposing technology to your students in the classroom (in elementary grades) they will be more comfortable with technology, something that is a necessity in today’s society.  I will definitely be incorporating technology into my classroom and my lesson plans, and I liked getting more ideas of tools to use from Betsy!

Response #5

In reflecting upon my ELL encounters, I have one in particular that has helped me to understand how some ELL students may feel when learning in their second language.  Last fall semester I was taking a TE course in which I had field placement two hours a week with a single student.  This student was in fourth grade and his second language was English, his first being Spanish.  When I was first introduced to the student the school told me that I may have a very difficult time getting him to speak to me.  I took this challenge and decided to try and understand why he may be so quiet. The school was right as this young boy was very hesitant to communicate with me, but I showed him that I was there to help him and that I wanted to be somewhat like a friend figure to him while we would be working together throughout the semester.  As sessions went on and we progressed through the semester he was opening up to me more and more.  He had told me that he was new to school that year and that this school was much different from the school he used to go to, for the school he was currently did not have any other Hispanic students beside him in the classroom, whereas his last school had several.  His English proficiency was very good, as he was able to hold an entire conversation with me with little or no errors present.  Reading however, was more of a challenge for him and that is what I was helping him with.  I could tell that he felt embarrassed because he could not read as well as his other peers, but I would often times remind him that it is difficult to read in a language that is not your first language.  Around the holidays I would ask him about what him and his family would do and how they would celebrate and he was hesitant to answer and he finally told me that they did things differently then American families did, and I expressed how great I thought that was, but he expressed how he was different from all of the other students and seemed a bit ashamed by this as if he was embarrassed.  He also told me that he did not like to read aloud in the classroom because he didn't like to make mistakes in front of his peers.  As I evaluated this student throughout the semester I realized on how hard it would be to be expressive about something such as language, traditions, and heritages when they differ from your peers and they do not quite understand them.  With this being said I am going to make sure that when I become a teacher I will explain cultural differences and how important and unique they are so that all of my students will feel excepted and be proud of their cultural background.

ESL Teacher Reflection #5

Even though I wasn’t able to attend the technology workshop with Betsy Lavolette, I did have some time to look at the websites on the handout that she provided.  I thought some of her technologies were really interesting and something that could be incorporated into a regular or ESL classroom to help students learn and get them more engaged.  I really love the idea of integrating technology into all classrooms, and I think that it provides so many learning opportunities that can strengthen any lesson.  Right now, I am taking an online class that is helping me develop an online classroom website, while also getting me to explore and analyze several different technologies available for the classroom, whether they be products or online programs.  I have learned a LOT about technology and ever since the beginning of the semester, my interest in educational technology has been growing.

Just recently in my placement in a kindergarten class, I saw that my mentor teacher was using a website called Starfall.  The students were playing with it during one of their literacy center rotations and I was very interested in it.  The site includes a ton of literacy resources for learning letters, letter sounds, and words, and also is a great way to practice reading.  It is very interactive and one of the activities has the students click on letters to hear their sounds, and then sort capital and lowercase letters.  Other activities deal with reading certain words or certain sound-letter combinations.  There are also a lot of great print outs for teachers so that students can practice writing and spelling letters and words.  The site also has some fun games for students to practice certain grammar aspects like adjectives and action verbs.  The website also includes a new kindergarten curriculum that teachers can look through and get ideas for how to structure their teaching throughout the year.  There are tons and tons of fun things to do on this website and I think all students would enjoy it.  Just by watching a few of the students in my placement I could tell that they were very excited about it and couldn’t wait until it was their turn to play.

I think websites like this would be perfect for ELL students because they can go at their own pace through things and could even practice literacy concepts at home.  It is a good resource for students who may be struggling or are behind, or even learning English as a second language and this is a less distracting way to let them do an activity that is different than what the rest of the class is doing.  Websites like this are also great to use if you have a Smartboard in the classroom and then you could teach lessons to the whole class while allowing students to interact and take part in the clicking and moving of items.  Overall, I think using technology in the classroom provides a much wider range of activities that will help get students engaged and keep them interested so they are learning as much as possible.  Not only is it fun for the students, but also fun for the teacher as well!

LLT Reflection

I’ve been envisioning lately what type of school setting I would like to work in when I graduate.  I hear from a lot of people that going to Japan or an Asian country would be a good idea because there is a large demand for English teachers and the pay is reasonable.  I’ve also heard of options within America, where you teach in an area that is heavily populated with international students that do not know how to speak English well.  I think initially I would love to go overseas and teach because of the wide range of opportunities and to experience a new culture.  I wouldn’t really mind where I went, but I would love to go somewhere in Europe.  I would even travel to Africa if an opportunity arose.  

I do, however, have some apprehension about teaching English as a second language.  First off, what if I’m a bad teacher?  What if I know all the material back to front but am lousy at conveying the points to the students?  We have all had bad language teachers, but we’ve also all had good ones.  I think it will be important, once I’m in the teaching field, to look back on the teachers that I had and reflect on what teaching strategies worked best and worst in the classroom.  I am also apprehensive about cultural differences.  Moving to Japan to teach English would be a much greater culture shock than moving to England or somewhere else in the United States.  Not only would I be adjusting to teaching for the first time, but I would be adjusting to a whole new way of life.  That would be super cool, but also scary.  Along with cultural differences come differences in the classroom.  My cousin teaches English in Bahrain and she finds that men do not respect her as a teacher because they do not respect women in that position in their culture.  How do you deal with these cultural differences while trying to exceed at your job as well?  I think it would be an interesting, but intellectual challenge that I’m excited to experience. 

Post #5

This week, I decided to reflect back on my Spanish as a foreign language education. I began to think about the things that my teachers did that worked really well for me in developing a skill, as well as methods that did not work.
In my first year of Spanish, I had a teacher that often had us translate simple texts containing the days key vocabulary into English. Before we translated the story, we read the story out loud as a class. By having us translate texts into English, I was able to develop strategies of using context clues in order to figure out other words in a sentence that I did not know. It also helped me to retain the new vocabulary because I was able to hear it spoken out loud and read it on paper, and by translating the vocabulary, it further ingrained it into my memory.
I also had a teacher who taught us vocabulary by playing the "fly-swatter game". She would say one of our vocabulary words out loud and the students would try to be the first to swat the corresponding picture with the fly swatter. This helped us to retain vocabulary because we were having fun while reviewing key concepts.
In my phonetics and pronunciation class, throughout the semester, our professor had us complete an ongoing assignment where we recorded ourselves saying certain spanish words and phrases. We would then review our recordings and find our mistakes in pronunciation and say why it was incorrect. This was extremely helpful because it helped me to become cognizant of my pronunciation and the specific sound that each letter makes and how it is made.

On the other hand, I also had some experiences that did not work well for me. I had a teacher who taught mostly through worksheets. We would complete a worksheet individually and then go over the answers as a class. There was not much discussion or other chance to practice using the language, and the lessons were redundant and sometimes difficult to understand because the teacher offered little guidance.
I also had a teacher who taught directly from the book. Everyday, she scanned pages from the book and projected them onto the screen and read directly off of the page. She did not offer us any additional insight or means of understanding, so I found that my ability to learn to best capability was hindered.
I think that the main issue that these two teachers had was a lack of variety. They did not teach for a multitude of learning styles and did not make the lesson relatable in any way. Had they incorporated these things sometimes but used additional techniques as well, I may have been able to gain more from their classes.