Reflection 4: Lesson Planning

In the beginning stages of developing my lesson plan project, I have noticed how helpful all of the teaching methods and lesson planning techniques we have talked about in class have been in thinking about what to incorporate with second language students. In addition, the national standards video we were assigned to watch for the paper especially helped me in thinking what distinct components will assist students in learning a new language, while learning classroom content at the same time.

As I am sorting through different ideas about what topic to teach in my lesson plan project, and what specific techniques to pull out from what we have talked about, I noticed I don't feel as nervous about the possibility of integrating second language students in my future classroom. Eventually, I plan to teach high school English, and realize with the growing numbers of ESL students in schools, this will be a relevant and useful skill for all teachers. I am happy we have an opportunity to make a lesson plan with second language seconds in mind, because as future teachers, we can begin to think about what changes and accommodations will be important for these L2 learners.

With the various methods we have internalized, I am definitely finding which I prefer and find the most useful. Although I have preferences, the most important thing I have learned is the importance of picking strategies that work best with the specific audience of second language learners. I continually think of the quote from one of the first weeks of class, explaining that with second language learners, we must adapt, not adopt. That being said, using the lesson plan we develop in this class could potentially be useless in the future if it is not relevant for the particular student population.

With this project, I plan to find ways to engage students as active participants in the classroom by using relevant, meaningful information, allowing adequate practice time, and implementing group interaction. Also, more importantly, I plan to connect the students' cultural backgrounds, prior knowledge, and past experiences in order to being their learning to a new level of understanding.