Reflection #3

I really enjoyed watching the SIOP videos in class.  I think they really helped me to get a better understanding of the features of each category listed.  Although all of the teachers and their lessons were great, the SIOP video I enjoyed watching the most was the review/assessment SIOP feature.  This was the video of the female teacher who taught her students a math lesson of addition and subtraction using a number of methods.  She had a comprehensive review of key vocabulary and of content concepts.  At the beginning of the lesson, she went over the math vocabulary, such as plus, minus, and equals, so that her students could effectively use the correct terms for the context.  She also played a review game with the kids to test their knowledge and comprehension of the lesson.  She constantly provided feedback to the students on their output by walking around the classroom and applauding the students individually on their effort.  She also assessed her students comprehension and learning of all lesson objectives by making sure each student can read a math sentence out loud, and had them point to the equal and plus sign so she knew they comprehended the word with the symbol.  Overall, I liked her entire style of teaching.  She was very friendly and sweet, yet she got her points across and made sure that everyone was in line and staying on task.  She had a great way of speaking with her students, and seemed to truly care about their learning and comprehension for their own good.  She also seemed very into the lesson she was teaching and showed compassion. I would definitely like to develop this teachers attitude and teaching techniques, as well as use this SIOP feature in my future classroom.  I would alter the material in this lesson and use it for my kids.  Making sure they comprehend the material is very important, as long as checking for their understanding and reviewing key concepts.  This method is a great way to ensure students will fully comprehend a lesson by the end.

Reflection 3

I did not really realize what  second language learning could do for me and what I really want to do until I watched a video. When I was 19 years old I started an organization to help raise awareness and funds for victims of sex trafficking.. A lot of the time when I am in a classroom, I have a difficult time trying to find what I could use from that class. This can be discouraging to me, because I know exactly what I want to do, but there is no degree that I can get for it. I chose to go into teaching, because I know that it has the most classes that I could probably relate to when working with raising awareness as well as working with victims. I chose to go into TESOL originally because I thought it would give me a leg up on other teachers, but now that I do not want to be a teacher, I had a hard time coming into this class. It wasn't until I watched a video about a girl who was trafficked across the Mexican border that I realized that learning about how I can relate to immigrants and second language learners does tie directly into what I want to do for the rest of my life.  There are abou 17,000 human beings trafficked through international borders through the United States every year. These people are going to be rescued. Because of my training in TESOL, I will have skills to be able to work with these men and women and children. For that, I know that I will be forever grateful. This class has restored my hope in why I am at MSU. So often, I can be discouraged by the thought that I am wasting so much money and getting a degree that I will never use. But it is in times like these that I know that God is in control and is using this time for me to be here and to learn before He uses me in other ways. Thank you for helping me connect my passion to the classroom. 

LLT Reflection #3

I thought the article that we read in class today was very interesting.  Even though it didn't directly relate to ELL students, it could be applied to any type of classroom.  I think what struck me the most was the influence that the community as a whole had on education.  For example, in Roadsville the entire community taught the children to simply read a text and not pick it apart any further.  I would be incredibly intimidated to teach in this type of community because you would be teaching against the grain of the entire community.  You would not just be dealing with students, but you would be dealing with social norms and parents as well.    In an ELL classroom this could also be the case.  If you are teaching overseas, for example, the type of community that you may teach in will most likely be very different from the community you, as a learner grew up in.  I think trying to find a balance between teaching in a way that make the students feel motivated and encouraged, while also trying to teach them new content or ways of learning will be challenging.

This also connects to the presentation that was shown today.  If students are used to being taught reading in a certain way they may have difficulty learning another way in your classroom.  Also, it could be difficult to pick which way to teach reading to a class that you have never taught before.  Different strategies may work for different classes and different students and it is up to the teacher to figure out what best way that might be.  It could also be different if you are going to teach overseas because as a community those students may learn a different way than students in the US.  Again, it will be a matter of adapting content and reading methods to each individual class, and each individual student.  I am excited to try and put these reading methods into practice because there is so much debate about which method works best.  I would like to try the methods and see for myself.

Reflection #3

          More than anything, this class has continued to increase my motivation and excitement for teaching abroad.  The more we watch videos in class the more I get excited about teaching as well as learning a new language myself.  I see how beneficial it is to these kids and how they seem to be excited about learning and interacting with people who are different than them and nothing makes me happier.  I truly believe that this is a fundamental skill to have in order to be not only successful in one's career, but also in one's social life.  With this belief, I am becoming even more excited to teach in my future classroom, wherever that may be.  One activity that got me really excited for this was the Discussion Leader Activity.
          Teaching lessons is a major part of being a teacher and something that I have always been most worried about.  The assignment, however, showed me how much fun lesson planning can be when you are excited about the material you are teaching.  It does not always have to be a powerpoint or lecture; activities and things that you find fun and engaging are also a great way to get your students motivated and engaged in learning the material as well!  It is my goal to teach material in fun and new ways so as to keep the students' attention and open them up to different perspectives on how to view the world, each other, and themselves.  I think that the SIOP models have demonstrated this view and shown how to teach materials in fun and interactive ways.  I hope to one day include these standards and objectives in my future classroom.

     The more we learn about different languages in the classroom, whether it is L1 or L2, I can't help but think about my experience at Averill Elementary last Spring. For one of my classes I was assigned a 2-3 grade split Spanish Immersion classroom to observe. being that I am a Spanish minor I was so excited to see what immersion was all about. After observing once a week for a couple of months I decided that I have mixed feelings about the program.
   
     For the most part, I loved Spanish Immersion! A classroom setting where I can use my Spanish, but still teach the core area content is right up my ally. I have always been interested in Spanish, but I thought to teach it I would have to be a Spanish teacher in a pull-out classroom like I had in elementary school. I loved the broken Spanglish that the students spoke and how well some of them understood what the teacher was saying even though they are so young. I also loved that since there is only one Spanish Immersion class in the school, these kids had been together since Kindergarten and were comfortable speaking in front of one another.

     There were some things I didn't like though. The teacher seemed too laid back for my liking. She often spoke in English which made the students aware that they had their L1 to fall back on if necessary. Like we saw in the video in class, it is much better if the students only think that you understand the target language. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of extra activities for students to do. As we learned in Lesson Planning, it is a good idea to have back up things for students to do if they finish in time and every time I went into the classroom some students were working while others were playing with toys, talking, coloring, or just sitting there bored.

     If done correctly, I think that Spanish Immersion can be an extremely valuable way to learn a language while acquiring knowledge in core content areas.

Teacher reflection 10/30

 This time, I want to share my experience about learning(teaching) literature. This semester, I took a Chinese class that focuses on teaching literature in L2, this is a Chinese class, so it is all about teaching Chinese literature. I think the teacher is using a really reformational way, which is called literature circle. I have never heard this teaching method before, but it is really fun to me. In literature circle, students do a lot of group discussion, and the preparation require us to read an article in Chinese, and each of us has a role(discussion director, connector, culture expert). When we are having class, the discussion director asks us  a few questions that related to the article we read at home, and the connector talks about what him/her thought about after he/she reading the article, it could be a movie or a book. After that, the culture expert will state some similarities and  differences between Chinese culture and American culture. I think literature circle is a great way to learn literature as well as the target language, since it could make students to read, write, listen, speak at the same time. But, it required  a higher level of proficiency in the L2, so it can only be used in advanced level students. I am considering use literature circle in my own teaching in the future.

Ariana Terebelo Reflection 3

     There are some concepts that I have been learning in my TE 150 class that I think could be very applicable to this class, and my future as an ESL teacher. First, we learned about Statistical Learning. This is when you learn something based on the frequency in which you see it, hear it or are told it. It is a process of learning that does not require thinking. In other words, it is a “dumb process”. I think that when teaching an ESL class, especially younger grades, this could be utilized. When teaching something that may be hard for students to grasp on to, it may be beneficial to, throughout a period of time, keep repeating the main points, keep showing them things relating to it, and exposing them to the information without them thinking that they are learning it. This type of learning happens through repetition, therefore, by repeating things to the class, they may unintentionally learn the information. 

     Second, we recently discussed the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic learning. Pretty much, intrinsic learning is when the student learns for themselves. They do something because they find it interesting, beneficial to them or because they like it. Extrinsic learning is when the student learns something for a reward. For example, they only study for the test to get a good grade, or they only do their homework to get a sticker. It is best for students to learn intrinsically because they will remember the information more and are doing it for their own benefit. I think that when teaching an ESL class, it is very important to try and promote this type of learning. I think that to do this, it is important for the teacher to have a clear understanding of the student’s interests, background, etc. Therefore, they will be able to incorporate these things into lessons that may otherwise seem boring. This will allow the ESL students to really grasp the information and learn in a more efficient way.

     Lastly, we talked about embodied cognition. In this, knowing is linked to moving through and seeing the physical world. We learn better when we are exposed to things. For an ESL class, many of them have never been exposed to many of the things that may be taught or talked about in the classroom, and many of them may know very little english, and be new to America. Therefore, I think that it is very important to take field trips, watch videos, do activities, etc. that will expose the students to things an allow them to actively participate and understand. According to embodied cognition, by doing this, learning and knowledge will come more easily. In TE 150 there are many learning and teaching ideas and concepts that could be effectively utilized in an ESL classroom. 

Blog post 10/30

Recently I recalled an experience I had in high school. My teacher for French was going to be absent for the first time in the history of her teaching career. She asked me if I would teach the class the new vocabulary if she taught it to me ahead of time. At first I said no! I was terrified to teach my peers. I still wanted to be a midwife, and being a teacher had never crossed my mind. Eventually, she persuaded me with extra credit and the general fact that she was nice.

It wasn't a great experience on the enjoyment level. I was shaking, I was nervous and even though I had dressed up nicely, I knew my peers would not take me seriously. I spoke too quietly when introducing the vocab, I didn't know where to stand, and I could hear some girls whispering about how I was the teacher's pet.

I did not choose to teach, and I wouldn't teach in a high school classroom (as a high schooler!) again. But, it taught me something valuable. It is much more difficult to teach one's peers. I've never had a 4 year old tell me that I was teaching because my boss liked me more than the other teachers.

So how does one teach one's peers? If I someday end up teaching students who are even older than I...what will I do? How does this make a teacher act differently?

These are questions that I, or my colleagues, may someday have to face. I think I would be much more prepared now than I was as a first semester, second year french student.

Danielle Cowper - Adapting

This whole class has been one big adaptation for me. I have never once thought about teaching ELL students and never had any ELL's in my classes growing up. From all the different lectures, presentations, and readings throughout the course of this semester, however, I have started to see that the way in which material should be presented to ELL's should carry over to general classroom education. By this I mean that why should the teacher speak at a rapid pace, move through lessons quickly, and not repeat directions over again in multiple ways? Sure, the teacher in a general setting isn't going to have to worry about language barriers, but what about cultural barriers, disability barriers, or just plain not paying attention. The way in which teachers of ELL's are taught to engage the students isn't something that should be foreign to teachers of speakers of the same language. There is little difference, in my opinion, between students who speak different languages than their peers than students who are visual learners when the majority of the classroom are audio learners. The teacher should still find ways to present the material in a way that all students can understand, despite what the difference in understanding may be.

Though I don't plan on teaching ELL's and was skeptical at first as to what I would be able to take away from this class, I have enjoyed watching the SIOP model, discussing experiences with working with ELL students, and reading the texts about different strategies and ideas about teaching language learners. I plan on taking some of these ideas and incorporating them into my teaching of English speakers.

Reflection #3

Reflection 3 – Noelle Reardon This course has taught me how beneficial visual aids are when teaching. I have seen firsthand how useful visual aids are when incorporated into the classroom. Visual aids not only benefit second language learners, but benefit all students in general. I am currently working in a 5th grade classroom. There are no second language learners in the classroom, but the teacher of the class is constantly using visuals when teaching. One visual in particular that the teacher is constantly using is a smart board. When the teacher wants the students to take notes she writes them step by step on the board. The students are able to listen to the instructions and look up at the board for any clarification. This helps the students focus on the task in front of them and prevents the students from having to ask the teacher to repeat herself. The notes that the students take in class are used as a resource when they are doing in class assignments, as well as homework. The teacher has seen great improvement in the students, since forcing the students to take notes. Instead of constantly relying on the teacher to answer questions, they have become independent learners. The students know that if they fail to take notes than it is their job to get the notes from another classmate. If the students are still struggling after they have referred back to their notes, than they can ask the teacher for clarification. When the students are not paying attention or taking notes, the teacher will remind the class the importance of taking notes. The teacher explains to the class that when they move on to middle school that note taking will be an expectation. She also explains to the students how teachers will not have any sympathy for students that don’t pay attention. I think it is important for students to understand the purpose or benefits of doing things a particular way. When I was taking math classes in high school, it was hard for me to be engaged in learning math formulas when I had no idea how to apply them in the real world. It was hard for me to apply myself when I did not see how something would benefit me in the long run. When the teacher explained the reason behind their logic, my attitude towards learning drastically changed. After watching different SIOP videos I have learned that explaining the goal of a lesson also helps keep students on task. I have also observed my mentor teacher using the smart board to play instructional music videos. One example is an instructional math music video. This particular math video is on decimals. In the video there are four cartoon characters that sing a math song and as they sing there are visuals that go along with the song. The students absolutely love the video. When it’s time for math the students constantly ask the teacher to play the video to review. The students sing and dance along with the video. When the students are stuck on a particular math problem or trying to remember the next step to do, I sometimes hear the students quietly singing different parts of the song. If a teacher doesn't have a smart board they can make songs and cut out their own visual aids to go along with the songs. When I was learning Spanish in high school my teacher would teach us songs and have the class do movement to go along with the words. I can only recall a small amount of Spanish, but I can remember almost every song that my teacher taught. When I am able to connect information back to something, the chances of me retaining that information is much greater. Before working in the 5th grade classroom I had never thought of using songs for anything other than learning a second language. It may be more time consuming at first for the teachers to find songs and to make visual aids, but I think that in the end they will see how beneficial it is for their students. If students are able to retain information at a faster rate, than teachers will have to spend less time reviewing information.

ESL Teacher Reflection #3

Although there are no ELL students in my placement, I am learning a lot about adaptations and changes for students with different needs.  There are a few students in my class that are considered special needs or ADHD and have a hard time staying focused and on task.  I spend a lot of time working with these students one-on-one and trying to find ways that I can help them with the task at hand to make it easier for them to understand or to complete. 

Getting this type of practice will go a long way in helping me with my own teaching, and learning how to work better with ELL students.  Some of the strategies I implement and come up with while working with these other students can translate over to the ELL students I may have in my class someday and possibly work for them too.  I know that the strategies and adaptations I use won’t work perfectly with ELL students just because they work with these special needs students, but most of these strategies have a lot of the same ideas and themes behind them.  Even just getting the practice of having to adapt a lesson or provide extra help is something that will go a long way in my teacher development.

I have already been able to implement some of ideas we have talked about in class, such as repeating directions, speaking slower, having students work with a partner, and using pictures or models to demonstrate the task.  Having this opportunity to work with these kids is letting me practice how to speak to and work with students who need extra help and have different needs than most of the rest of the students in the class.  Even though I am not getting the chance to work specifically with ELL students, I am using the opportunities I do have to become a better ELL teacher, as well as develop my overall teaching ability to accommodate all students.

SIOP Model in the classroom

In class we have been putting a lot of focus on the SIOP model. After watching the various lessons taught using this model I tried to think about whether or not this model is used in classroom that I have been in. Although I have never been in a classroom that had all ESL learners in it I have been in classrooms that had a few children learning English. In these classrooms I realized there is very little modification in the actual classroom that is designed to help these students succeed. Although they often get pulled out for extra help the assignments they must undergo throughout regular class must be very difficult for them to follow. We learned about having students use as many language skills as possible while doing assignments. For instance students should speak, write, and have visuals in order to help them fully understand the concept. Often times in regular classrooms things are not repeated enough times and are said very quickly this would be very difficult on English language learners. In my future classroom I want to implement aspects of the SIOP model so that if I have any students with a language barrier they will still be able to succeed. I am very interested in going into a ESL classroom and observing. I would love to see if the aspects that we discuss in this class are being implemented well into the classroom. It would also be great to see which methods work well rather than just discussing the pros and cons of them in class. 

Reflection #3

During my first experience teaching ESL at Red Cedar Elementary School this semester, we planned an activity with the kids in which they picked an action word that started with the same letter as their first name and an action to go along with it. I, for example, was "jogging Jenna". The purpose of this activity was to get to know the names of the children in our group and to have them get to know each other as well as to teach them about verbs and letters of the alphabet. While playing the game, there were several things that I took notice of.

To start, although there seemed to be a pretty wide variety of age ranges within our group, when we asked the students who knew what a verb was, none of the students said anything. This could be interpreted in two ways- either the children truly did not have knowledge of what a verb was or forgot what it was, or the students were just feeling uncomfortable in a new situation. Either way, we took this opportunity to explain what a verb was and to use terms that they could understand in order to help them to define it.

When we were playing the game, it was obvious that there were still students who were not entirely sure about the concept of verbs. There were students who needed help coming up with a word. They understood that they were supposed to come up with an action, but something was stopping them from being able to produce or come up with a word.

One student in particular struggled with the concept of the verb starting with the first letter of his name and what a verb was in general. His name started with an S, but he kept saying "karate". It was clear that he enjoyed karate, but "karate" itself is not a verb, nor does it start with the letter "s". We were running out of time, but had we had more time, we would have taken more time to correct the boy's mistake.

ESL Reflection #3 - Sarah Miller

Last week, I had an interesting interaction while volunteering at an elementary school. I go into a kindergarten class at Forest View Elementary School once a week for three to four hours. The population of this school is moderately diverse, but does not have very many linguistically diverse students. I know there are some that speak Spanish to some extent (I'm not exactly sure how much) at home, but all students can speak and interact in English, at least in the classroom I work in.

I didn't really think about home languages of these students until I was working with a student on writing his name and he mentioned something about his mom being able to speak Spanish and how he knows a few things too. Since I'm minoring in Spanish, I thought it would be interesting to tell him (or even demonstrate) that I could speak a little Spanish too. When I did, he seemed very surprised that I could speak Spanish, and kept saying things like "I didn't know you could do that!"  It wasn't a huge deal, but it did make me see how some kids appreciate hearing a language spoken at home in the school environment.

Later on that same day, another student asked me if I could say something in Spanish (it's possible the previously mentioned student had told them I could). There was a group of around 4 students with me at the time. It was a simple word, and so I easily told them what it was. I don't know if the students have a special language class or not, but they were all suddenly intrigued and interested by this foreign language's presence. They asked if I knew a couple other words, which I did and relayed to them as well. It seemed to be something that didn't happen that often - to have an authority figure speaking different language, but they all seemed to love it.

This led me to think about how enthusiastic kids would likely be for a program set up in the form of something like the two-way immersion model, where two languages are focused on and used for learning purposes. If they can get so excited about just a couple words that I said, think how much they would love to learn their own words in a different language. I think the hesitation in creating two-way immersion programs comes from the adult perspectives, not the children's. If we were to take on their point of view, we could see that learning another language is not only stretching for the mind, but also fun and exciting for young children. If they start early, then this state of mind could be kept fresh throughout their education and support bilingualism, which I think is a very beneficial thing to have.

ESL Teacher Reflection #3

            For my TE 401 class, I was placed in a 6^th grade classroom.  Last Friday, I had the opportunity of helping an ESL student write a one-page essay.  The teacher told me that he had an essay written already, but needed help editing it to make sense.  Before we started writing, he told me that he moved to the United States from Africa two years ago and that his family speaks little English.  I instantly connected with him and I loved how comfortable he was with me right away.   

            He told me that his essay was about, “what he was going to do for work” because his sister recently told him that he needs to start thinking about what he is going to do to make money.  So we decided that we would write an essay about what he wanted to be when he grows up.  We talked about all the different types of jobs that you could have and what interested him.  He said that his first pick would be to become a professional soccer player and secondly, he wanted to work with cars because, “Cars are cool!”  He seemed excited to have someone work with him on his essay.  He asked me how write things so they made more sense in his writing, and occasionally asked me how to spell words.  He was not distracted in any way and finished his essay very quickly.

            When I helped other students in the class with their essays, they seemed not to care as much about their assignment.  The other students that I worked with could not think of topics to write about, got distracted very easily, did not ask for my help often, and took a long time to write their one-page essay.  I found this very interesting.

            I loved how eager this ESL student was to write his paper and how determined he was to turn it in to his teacher in a way that she would understand what he had written.  Compared to the other students, I was amazed on the work that he had done as well as the short amount of time that he took to complete it.

            Overall, I learned yet again something from ESL students.  It is important to keep in mind that each student is different and that all students have a different learning style.  The other students may have been bored with this assignment, however the ESL student thoroughly enjoyed it.  When planning lessons it is extremely important to keep this is mind.  I also really enjoyed pulling out this ESL student from the class and working with him in one-on-one setting.  When I did this, I learned how smart he was and how well he is able to tell me what the wants to write.  It was easier for me to recognize his proficiency level working with him one-on-one, which in turn made it easier for me to scaffold him.  I enjoyed working with this ESL student, and I am excited to watch him grow as the year goes on. 

Teacher Reflection

As I have previously mentioned in a past blog post I wrote I am doing my TE 401 placement at a Chinese Immersion school. I recently was given the opportunity to sit in a kindergarten Chinese classroom and observe the teacher and students. While I was observing in the classroom it was their portion of the class where they sit on the carpet and practice their chinese by singing songs, playing games, and other interactive activities. The student's enthusiasm for learning was incredible to see!

Kindergarten is the first year at Post Oak that the students begin to learn Chinese so the teacher was using a mixture of Chinese and English to instruct the students. For the most part anything she said in Chinese she would repeat again in English. The teacher used a lot of visuals and hand motions in order to assure that the students were all understanding what she was saying. They started off their carpet time by playing a game that they were very familiar with because they play it in their English class. They sat in circle with a bunch of a little saucers face down in the middle of the circle. One by one each student would flip over a saucer and say what number they flipped over. The objective of the game was to find the numbers in order starting with one. The game not only helped them to practice saying numbers in chinese but it also made them use their memory to the best of their ability. Next, they all stood up and sang a song along with doing hand motions to the words. Although I didn't know what they were singing I was able to get an idea of what they were singing about by watching their motions.

I really enjoyed being in the Chinese classroom to observe. I was able to compare a Chinese classroom here to a classroom actually located in China, which were very similar but did have some very apparent differences. The classrooms in China seemed to be a little more structured and disciplined. I like how in Chinese classrooms teachers tend to guide the students to answers and new information rather than simply lecturing students. I think teachers in American could really learn a lot from observing a Chinese classroom. I really hope to integrate ideas I have gotten from sitting in on different Chinese classrooms into my future classroom.

ESL Teacher Reflection 3

I spend a few hours a week in an ESL classroom at a school in Okemos. I find a lot of my mentor teacher’s methods to be very interesting, and correlates with what we’ve learned about how to teach in this class and in my te494 class. One standard that I’ve learned about in my te494 class that constantly enters my mind as we move closer to creating a lesson plan is that according to MIELP (which is a group of standards that are used to help guide ESL teachers), one of four Principles of Second Language Acquisition is making sure that language acquisition that occurs through meaningful use and interaction.

Language acquisition that occurs through meaningful use and interaction is the idea that students who are learning English must have many authentic chances to exercise language use, interact and communicate with other students who are engaging in a similar type of content that is challenging, and they must receive feedback about how they are doing with their language use. Teachers who want their ELL’s to succeed must be prepared to create a classroom that is filled with either a top-notch ESL program, or a bilingual program. Either program needs to make sense to the students where assignments fall in line together, and the program must have a purpose (not just making activities to make them). Teachers who teach English language learners should be prepared professionally to concur the difficulties that are faced in an ELL class.

My mentor teacher creates her assignments around what the interests of her students. Last week she had students reading a story and answering questions on it. Instead of just using any random story, a few classes before that she asked each of her students what their interests were. Whenever my mentor teacher has the opportunity to engage student’s interests and things that apply to their age level, she does. This principle also has the component of feedback. My mentor teacher always gives students feedback so they know how they are doing. My mentor teachers teaching habits exhibit a place where learning is both authentic and meaningful in its use and interaction.

When it comes to my own teaching I will make sure to enact this principle. I would instruct my English students as well as my ELL to interact with each other as much as possible. When group work is done in the classroom I would pair those students who have English as a first language and English as a second language together, this is so that the ELL students could have authentic conversations with other students. Through this interaction ELL’s will also have the opportunity to have unsolicited and real communication in English. By doing this students will not only receive meaningful and authentic communication with English speakers, but they will also have the opportunity to work on the class content together with peers that speak English. This is in hopes to also build on the students’ academic language use, and their understanding of the academic language.

            In order to give the English language learners in my classroom the chance to have authentic opportunities that are meaningful, I will make sure to make my assignments meaningful and purposeful when it is possible. Since it is not realistic to make every assignment meaningful (because certain things that need to be covered will not always be meaningful), at every opportunity I get I would like to make my assignments geared towards my students. If my lessons are on topics that my students have interest in or enjoy learning about, this will make the interaction and discussion much more purposeful to my ELL students. Learning becomes much easier for students to be engaged in and interact with when they like what they are learning about, and when their personal interests are intertwined. For example, if I had a lot of students who were ELL’s from Korea in my class I would have them take a survey on the things they like and then try to use those interests within my lessons.

            Lastly I would enact this principle of making language acquisition that occurs through meaningful use and interaction in my ESL teaching by always making sure to give my students feedback. This feedback would be in the form of either telling them when they did a good job, or showing them what they did wrong along with how to fix it, or any other feedback that students respond well to. By giving my students feedback, they will better understand where they are struggling, and they will have a better chance to succeed if they know what they need to fix (or even if they are doing a great job already). Overall, I think it is very important for ESL teachers to enact the idea that language acquisition that occurs through meaningful use and interaction, because through meaningful use and interaction students will find connections in their English learning to their lives that will help them succeed.

Reflection 3: Applying the SIOP Model

Since I am participating in the extra credit assignment, taking part in a tutoring placement, I have noticed how useful many of the lessons in the SIOP model video are within a classroom. First of all, I find it extremely important when tutoring the students to have various methods to help them with something they are having trouble understanding. When they have trouble with math, for example , using hands on methods (using counters, or fingers) can make a huge difference. In addition, I have found myself modeling they way I read to students, allowing them to see how to engage in reading, and understand the text they are reading. I show them how I look at the questions I am expected to answer before I read, and make little notes on the text while reading. Also, putting the students in groups who have the same homework assignments has been incredible. The students are able to help each other, and if they still cannot get the answer, they can ask me. Overall, the tutoring has been a great experience, and learning the different teaching methods and strategies in class has helped me get through some of the tough days. Applying the SIOP model strategies has made my tutoring experience more beneficial for the students and myself. I am able to make meaningful activities allowing the students to have a better understanding of the material they are unsure about.

Reflection 3 - Kevin Bartz

As we have been reviewing the SIOP and other classroom models in class, I have been interested to see how second language classes in America can be run.  ESL classrooms are not something that I encountered or thought about during my experience as a student in public schools.  The idea that my parents could have (most likely in a different city) placed me into a Chinese language immersion program lets my imagination run wild.  How different would my upbringing have been if that was the path my parents chose for me?  Would I have been better suited than I am now, or would my personal life be so different that it would not have been worth the moderate isolation that likely would have come from such a different upbringing?  It also gives me a lot to think about as I grow older and move closer to starting a family of my own.  Not only do I realize that these foreign language programs are available in certain communities, but it really opens my eyes to the sheer variety of education programs and styles in general that are out there.  Obviously there are public and private schools.  Yet, within these, there may be a variety of choices for how to learn.  I hope to one day become a professor at an undergraduate university or a law school, but there are so many other non-traditional programs at all levels to consider as well.

- Kevin Bartz

ESL Teacher Reflection 3

In both my LLT 346 class and this class we discussed modal verbs and how they are not found in every language.  In my LLT 346 class we also talked about how articles were not used in every language or were used differently than in English.  I never realized this and it made me think how those two things could make learning English very difficult.  One of my best friends was adopted from Russia and moved here when she was 14 and started 7^th grade knowing no English.  We’ve been friends for four years now and I’ve never asked her about her experiences learning English, but my LLT classes made me interested in this and I talked to her about when I was home last weekend.  I knew becoming fluent in English was very difficult especially at that age, but I was surprised when she told me that even after eight years in the United States she is still learning more everyday.  She said she came here with a few friends and one was a couple years younger than her so she picked up the language much faster than the rest of them because of her age.  For my friend, she said the best way she learned was just by hanging out with some girls at school, even though she could not speak English, she just listened to their conversations and would repeat what they would say to help her learn.  At home, she would label everything and just practice repeating words.  She said after you would here it enough times you could catch on.  Thinking of the Chinese immersion school video we watched where some of the students knew no Chinese and were placed in classes taught in all Chinese, I asked her how it was the first days of class when all she knew was Russian and the teachers and everyone around her were speaking English.  She said it was very difficult at first, especially in her English class.  She told me Math was easiest subject to learn because there were English terms to learn, but math is the same everywhere.  For one class a day, she would go to an ESL class where they helped her with English and work from all her classes.  I told her after watching videos and reading about content based learning I thought it would be difficult for learning new material and English at the same time, but she told me it is not as hard as it seems, it actually makes learning English easier because it is being applied in a useful context.  She explained that modals, articles, and the number of words we have to mean the same thing were most difficult for her.  A lot of times when I text her she will forget articles like a and the, but after talking to her and learning how articles are different in every language it made a lot more sense to me.  She said she actually has to think about it and make a conscious effort when writing to include articles, where as they come naturally for native English speakers.  I thought it was funny when she told she didn’t understand how we could have so many words to mean the same thing.  She was like in Russian a dog is a dog.  Here a dog could be dog, puppy, canine, mutt, or pooch; it’s hard to keep up with.  I never realized how many words we have to mean the same thing and how difficult it would be for someone learning English.  It was enlightening to hear about her experiences learning English because she came here as a teenager and could remember very clearly.  It made me notice things about the English language and what makes it difficult to learn that I never saw before and took for granted.   

ESL Teacher Reflection 10/30

While my placement for TE 401 does not have any English language learners in the class, I have been thinking about how the classroom dynamic would be different if ELLs were present in the class. With the strict schedule that my mentor teacher must abide by, it is often difficult for her to teach her native speakers all of the content that needs to be learned. If ELLs were thrown into the mix, I know that it would be even more difficult for her to incorporate more time into her lesson to account for the language barrier, and/or to include extra help that the ELLs may need during instruction. This worries me in my future teaching context, as I will not always have strictly native English speakers in my classroom.

I believe that in accounting for the ELLs that may be present, it would be important to use group work during many tasks and assignments completed inside the classroom. In my third grade placement, my mentor teacher often uses group work for math assignments, and especially uses groups during reading to account for the various levels that the students are at. By including group work, the students can be separated by the level at which they are at for each individual subject, which would also help the ELLs if they were struggling. Depending on the various English proficiency and fluency level they were at, they could either help one another, or seek the help of a more advanced native speaker in their assigned group.

With that said, I believe that having only a few ELLs in the classroom environment would be even more difficult than having an entire class of ELLs. In an entire class of ELLs, the teacher can adjust the instruction to their own levels. However, in a class where only a few ELLs make up the class number, it would be difficult for teachers to alter their instruction without halting the other native speakers development. While I do not have a correct answer of how to make this work now, I hope to gain a greater insight into the ways in which I can alter my instruction so that all of my students can continue developing their skills throughout this year, and into my internship next year. I believe that including authenticity in the content that I teach will not only be beneficial for the ELLs, it will also be important to expose the native speakers to authentic material. It is important for the students to see how what they are learning inside the classroom can be applied to the outside world, as that allows them to become effective citizens in society. 

In my future teaching context, I would like to use the ELLs as a bridge to authentic material in their own culture. It will be important for me to introduce my class to the culture of my future ELL students, as that will not only be a way to get to know them better, but it will hopefully make them feel more comfortable in the classroom. Also, it serves as a way to incorporate authenticity into the content of the instruction, which is a goal I want to fulfill as a future teacher. 

Reflection 3

I have been learning a lot about how immigrants learn in my TE 352 class. The different kinds of ESL classes that they take and the sheltered instruction amaze me. Recently, we read about a study that focused on two young girls. They both lived in the same community for the entire time that the study was being conducted and attended the same middle school. Therefore they were receiving the same ESL teaching. However, the girls had two very different experiences.

 The first girl is Lillian. Lillian was 12 when she came to the United States from a small town outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. She had a pretty good proficiency in her L1 (Spanish) with reading and writing, because she had been a student in Mexico. Still, she was at a “level zero” when it came to being proficient in English, meaning she could understand and speak very limited amounts. Lillian is one out of six children in her family. When her family moved here, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment with two other families. The crowd at home added to the tension on her parent’s marriage and therefore neither parent was able to be involved in Lillian’s education. She started at seventh grade at Garden Middle School.

Garden was in a community that was experiencing rapid immigrant population growth at the time. Because this change was so sudden, the school was not prepared with a set ESL program to host so many children. Sometimes, a single classroom would hold 30-40 ESL students at one time. While the school did develop a program to test the student’s profiecency, it was often not taken, because so many of them were coming in at one time. Therefore, the majority of the students would start out in beginners ESL classes and it was very hard for them to move into intermediate ESL, advanced ESL and mainstream classes. The classes were very sheltered and students spent little-to-no time speaking English at school, because they had no interaction with their native English-speaking peers. This caused many of the students to fall behind and eventually drop out of school.

The second girl that was focused on in the study was Elisa. Elisa was 13 when she came to the U.S from a very small village in Honduras. She had about the same level of proficiency in writing as Lillian, but excelled in reading in her L1. Elisa was placed into the same track as Lillian when she arrived at Garden Middle School, but was quickly advanced into intermediate ESL due to her very hard work and extra help from her mother who had been in America for eight years.

What I found so interesting about this article was that although both girls had very different pats, it was the lack of responsibility that their teachers took, that ultimately held both of them back in school. So many of the teachers at their school refused to work with ESL students, because they thought that it would threaten the academia of their other students and/or they felt unqualified to teach them. This gives me hope that I can feel better prepared through my TESOL training, and therefore not let MY fears get in the way of a students future and willingness to succeed. 

Reflection 3

Last week, I had my very first experience working with and teaching an ESL class at Red Cedar Elementary School. From my first day, I picked up several observations. Through the activity that we did, it was clear to me that many of these ELL and ESL students do not have a strong concept of the parts of speech and grammar when it comes to speaking the English language. It was also clear to me that I needed to work on my skills with accomodating different levels of learning, because while some kids caught on faster than others during our activity, there were still students even at the end that struggled to understand the concept of what we were trying to get across to them. It was frustrating, but it made me more motivated to be better prepared in the future. Overall, I really enjoyed working with the students on the first day and I look forward to implementing some of the things that we have learned in class as I continue to work at this job.

Christina Mancini's Reflection #3

The “Speaking in Tongues” video has been on my mind all week. I keep trying to decide if I would be for or against my child attending an immersion school. The video keeps putting this type of school in a glamorous light, but I struggle with agreeing with it. Am I just being closed minded or would it actually give my child a disadvantage? I decided to talk about it with the elementary special education teacher that I am working with this semester. After telling her about immersion schools, she said that it is definitely a good idea, but may be difficult for all students. Typically developing students would benefit from this type of instruction; they would be able to read and write and two languages. Students with disabilities may struggle with having to differentiate between two languages. This video staged the immersion school to seem like a dream come true, or that all schools should be taught like this. After weighing the options, I realize that if all schools were immersion schools, students with disabilities would be at a disadvantage. What if a student wanted to go to school with their peers, but was struggling in the immersion school at both their L1 and at the new L2? Students would have the choice to attend a regular school or immersion school, but struggling in the immersion setting and being forced to attend a regular school would be unfair.

I understand that the video did not say that all schools should be come immersion schools, but it would in fact be unfair to all students if they could not attend the “new trendy” school due to ability level. I am not seeking a right or wrong answer to immersion schools, but more, discussing immersion schools and acquiring other’s opinions; I had never been asked to think about students with severe to minor disabilities before. Overall, I find immersion schools to be fascinating and successful for some students, but probably would not be the best option for all students.