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.