Entry #4- Class Reflection

Blog Entry #4- Class Reflection

Hi everyone! Thank you for visiting my Blog Entry #4. It has been a very short and fast summer but in the midst of everything I have learned so much that I will definitely use with my future students. First and most importantly that the students come first, and it is crucial that we as teachers must understand that what we expect out of them is not going to be easy for them. For the students to understand and learn from us, we first must learn and understand them. According to the text, “information about the student’s ethnicity and culture may help explain some of the student’s behaviors in class and suggest things the teacher can do to be sensitive to his or her culture and incorporate aspects of that culture into the classroom” (Wright, 2015, p. 24). After learning about their background, we must make sure we provide the right ELL program for the students because although each program has the same goal, they each have a different method for learning.

I honestly never knew how many different programs the educational system has for ELL learners and that were the best part of my learning experience from this class. It was great to see that it was not just basic ESL and bilingual classes offered for students. I have also learned that the way teachers observe and assess any ELL students has a lot to do with what we think they know or do not know. For example, if teachers do an assessment too early to an ELL student they can possibly be in the midst of an ELL student’s silent period. According to the text, “during the silent period, learners are developing their receptive listening skills as they acquire bits and pieces of the language and process the input for meaning” (Wright, 2015, p. 155).  Before reading the textbook, I honestly did not know that there was such a thing as a silent period. Before I would assume that those students were just scared and did not want to speak. Reading that part in the book was that moment I realized why this class was so important for me to take.

I enjoyed this class and enjoyed reading everyone’s’ blog entries. The blogs showed me the different beliefs each of my classmates had and about their future teaching styles. Seeing all the blogs really opened my eyes to different teaching methods and beliefs. Having this method of communicating through blogs is that we learn from each other. I had some knowledge about ELL students and what they have to go through but I never fully understood until I did the ELL interview with my best friend. Getting to hear what my friend had to go through and the ways she struggled sometimes opened my mind to be more understanding for my future students. I believe this class would be great to any teacher to help understand and be compassionate of their background and the new life they have to endure.

Reference

Wright, Wayne. (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research,

Theory, Policy, and Practice (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Caslon.

Entry #3- Interview with a Teacher

Entry Blog #3- Teacher Interview

Hi everyone! For my Blog Entry #3, I interviewed a teacher that works at the school with me. Her name is Cynthia Aguilar and teaches a Bilingual PreK 3 class. She is a very young teacher but she knows what she is doing and how to interact with any new ESL students that come her way. I am very happy that I have been able to get to know her these past 3 years.

Click Here to watch my Teacher Interview!

I asked Ms. Aguilar a few questions on her methods and teaching activities in her classroom. She stated that there was not like a set schedule through out each day where it would specifically designed for only Spanish or only English. In any time of lesson or activity during day like the morning calendar or when the students check in, she likes to include some Spanish vocabulary or songs and she does a little bit everyday and throughout the day. According to the text, "songs can also help students master the proper intonation of words and phrases, and chants, or raps can help make learning new vocabulary and language structures easier" (Wright, 2015, p. 169). When asked about the assessment process when she had an ESL student, since the students are so young she likes to observe them first interacting with other students and then she will continue with testing vocabulary and language comprehension. This type of assessment that she does is an Informal observation. Those types of observations can be jotting down quick notes on things you observe the student doing (Wright, 2015, p. 139). After the video we talked a little but more on what happens when she has an ESL student coming in. She stated that their English vocabulary and understanding improves so much when they interact with other English-speaking children as opposed to just one on one time with her.

Towards the end of the interview, I did ask her how her experiences with being in a dual language program herself has helped her with her owns students. She says that she knows what they are going through and that is why she tries to incorporate as much both English and Spanish into the daily activities so that the children won’t have such a hard time with either language later on.  Her belief is that it is best for children to learn both languages at the same time.

Wright, W.E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy and practice. (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Calson. 

Blog Entry #2- Interview

Entry 2: Interview with ELL student

Hi everyone! For my Blog entry #2, I decided to do a phone interview with my best friend Sandy who was brought over to the states very young. I wish I could of done a face-to-face interview with her, but she works at a hospital and is on call most of her days. But she made time to talk to me about her experiences with learning English as a second language in school.  

Click here to watch my video!

Reflection

It was great to actually hear from my friends’ personal experience that she was grateful to have a teacher who took the time to understand her background and culture. Even though Sandy knew she had to learn English, she definitely remembers the impact of learning when her teacher understood her backgrounds and needs as a young student.  She mentioned that her class was basically like a dual language program. That they would do the majority of the day in English including the times periods with the extra curricular activities and then they would have a hour to two hour session in Spanish. This type of method of teaching is the Content-Based Instruction.  According to Wright “ESL teachers used content areas such as math, science, and social studies as vehicles for language instruction, though their instructional and assessment focus on English language development rather than content (Wright, 2015, p.62).  Now that she has the personal experience of learning English as a second language, she bases her decisions about learning a new language with her daughter now. She knows that she will always have English at school, so she uses the time at home to speak to her in Spanish. She does not want the experience and nerves of learning a new language for her daughter. It is almost as if she wants her to not realize that she is learning something different. The acquisition-learning theory hypothesis states that this would be a subconscious process in the brain. According to the text, “we are not aware that it is happening, and we are not even aware that we possess any new knowledge that is subconsciously stored in our brains” (Wright, 2015, p. 51). 

Wright, W.E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy and practice. (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Calson. 

Entry #1- Introduction

Entry Blog #1

Click here to watch my video!

We have to take into consideration what it is like for those individuals that are ELL and how they live day by day slowly learning a completely new language. And those that only speak one language and they come across someone that is learning different languages. It is becoming very common to see students that are bilingual and it important for future and current teacher to understand when you have a bilingual student in the classroom. Just as they are learning a different language from us, we are learning about their background and cultures. According to Wright (2015), "some schools in the past, ELLs were typically assigned to English as a second language (ESL) teachers or specialists who either pulled students out of their classrooms or went into their classrooms a few hours a week to provide instruction and support, or who taught self-contained ESL classes all day or for one or more periods a day". It benefits the students and teachers because it gives the teachers a chance to learn about the students’ cultural background and it gives the student the feeling that their teachers care about where they come from. Taking these students out of the classroom also affects their education because it takes so much time out from their learning time from their classroom. Although ELL students' knowledge and understanding are no less than the students who only know one language,  pulling them out of the class causes a misunderstanding from those who are not ELL. Those who are not ELL begin to think that ESL students need more help or not smart enough for regular teaching methods, which is not the case. According to Wright (2015), "ELLs are entitled to equal access to educational opportunities. This means they are entitled to (1) high-quality language instruction to develop proficiency in English and (2) high-quality academic instruction across the content areas". I am fluent in both English and Spanish, but I did learn Spanish as a second language. So I am very confident that I will provide the necessary materials and knowledge for my ELL students.

Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners:
Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second
Edition.