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.