Teacher Reflection Post 1

Last summer when I went to Israel I had the opportunity to sit in an ESL kindergarten class in Haifa where the children were learning to speak English. The children in this housing development were originally from Ethiopia, then flew over to Israel (due to the issues in the country with those who are Jewish), and now were living in Israel and learning English as well as Hebrew. The teacher did a lot of repetition, by saying things in Hebrew and then in English, followed by having the children repeat the word she said. The teacher had also used a lot of blown up pictures; this helped the children see what they were saying. Lastly the teacher tried to teach the children English by using a lot of “known” artifacts, things they would understand. This included things such as Mickey Mouse and other popular media animals.

            I think using pictures and “known” artifacts seemed to work really well for these young children. It was hard enough as if for them to try and learn English, using artifacts that they would know seemed to make their first steps a bit easier. After the lesson the children went around the school the rest of the day saying the new words they learned in English, they obviously liked the method of repetition and had some sort of understanding that in order to retain the information they had to keep saying it.

Even though English is required to learn for young kids in school in Israel, the methods were very simplistic for young children and the teachers didn’t really seem to have much enthusiasm to teach English. I think for the teaching to be improved the teachers need to have more enthusiasm, and they needed more creative ways to bring the lessons to life for the children.