Teacher Reflection #2- Tori Howe

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Last week we watched a video in class on immersion schools, which I had never heard of before.  The specific school in the video was a Chinese immersion school, and I was really surprised when I learned how they were run!  I realize that it is easier to develop a second language if you start learning and practicing it at a young age, so I think immersion schools are a great idea.  For part of the day, these schools immerse their students into classes that are instructed in English, and for the rest of the day the classes are instructed in Chinese, their L2.  I remember a specific scene when the teacher was trying to tell a student to pack up his things to leave because his parents arrived and were ready to pick him up.  The student looked so confused and did not oblige until the teacher walked over and motioned to him that it was time to leave.  This scene reminded me of a very similar situation I was once in during my TE 250 class. 

It was a normal day of class until an unfamiliar woman walked in and my professor said that this woman was going to give us a short lesson today for her student teaching.  It didn’t faze me at all that this class was going to be different then normal until she started speaking in a different language!  I was so confused and had no clue what to think.  I did not even know what gestures to give after she explained something except for confusion and nerves.  Then she had us take a short quiz, and I was terrified!  I could barely understand that she told us to take out a piece of paper and a pencil until she used hand gestures to demonstrate, and then she started listing off questions.  I did the best as I could to answer them, but really I had no clue what was going on and completely failed the quiz.  After the lesson, she started speaking English and told us that she was speaking Swahili, and her whole lesson was about the colors of the rainbow.  I never felt so discouraged and was shocked that I completely misunderstood such a simple lesson on colors.  I learned a lot that day in terms of how frustrating and scary it can be as an ESL student.  I literally felt like an alien who could not comprehend the simplest of things.  This was a great experience for me as a future teacher because I now have a first hand experience to feel what it is like to be an ESL student, and how difficult directions alone can be.  This experience has really helped me grow as a teacher and I can’t imagine feeling the way I felt that day in class, everyday of the school year.  It is so important to be as helpful and patient as possible when working with ESL students.