Entry 1: Introduction
Greetings, my name is Tametria Jefferson and I am happy to be a senior at the University of Houston. I will be happier to graduate this upcoming year with a Bachelors of Science in Teaching and Learning. I love children and truly believe they are the future.
I am a little anxious taking this class because I have never truly interacted with ELL students. I believe this class will be preparation for when I have the opportunity to teach ELL students. I grew up within a household with English as the predominant language. With that being said, I am looking forward to brightening up my classroom once I become a teacher helping and reaching each student. Knowing that language can often create barriers as an educator it is my passion to decrease these impediments and extend opportunities to learn, "ELL [students] can learn and reach the highest levels of academic achievement" (p.24, 2015). I have always been a team player, understanding that community is important and strengthening the community includes learning about its diversity. My personal transition from student to teacher has taught me that no student learn the same. Individuality is to important to forget about because students come from a wide range of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds (p.17, 2015).
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
One of the main challenges you will encounter is that in theory individuality sounds great but when you have a group of more than 20 students and not enough time to cover every learning objective, you will tend to do one activity for the group and there is no time or energy to personalize teaching. However, as Wright (2015) suggests, you can take turns using students' background information to develop lessons that include their culture, provide examples where you use information about their places of origin, etc. It is not easy to teach diverse populations but there are many strategies that you can use to make your classroom less mainstream and more inclusive.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that including diversity with main stream tactics would require adaptations other wise individual lesson plans would constrain our time. I like to think that as education grows we must utilize all of the tools at our disposal. I like how Wright explain theories and how over time parts have sustained and others have been built upon. I would have like to known what Krashen would have thought seeing The input (comprehension) hypothesis being built upon itself. However such a theory is an example how creative minds can take a pre-existing theory and built upon it. Maybe speech and writing are not simply acquired once master is attained, but this oversite I would ponder is a result of changing times as I remember having to take speech and writing classes even after I spoke the English language. I would not think it different for an ELL student, everyone needs a guiding hand. Instead of discarding these away when testing the input hypothesis maybe include references for student to compare what words are similar to their own languages and then build upon them to highlight the differences in sentence structures between their own languages and others, verbs before noun or predicates before subjects for example.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelpia, PA: Caslon 2015. Print Second Edition.
Tametria, I like how you were not afraid to admit your anxiousness from the lack of interactions with ELL students. You made a great point when you mentioned that not all students learn the same. With that being said, how could you approach your students with these differences? Would you accommodate as a whole-group or small-group instruction? Wright suggested, “…materials for use in the classroom such as bilingual (or bilingual pictures) dictionaries and fiction and nonfiction books in the students’ home languages, including, if appropriate, bilingual versions with English and another language” (Wright, 24). Although having dictionaries and books are great resources, do you have any recommendations or additional resources you would provide for your students to adjust to the classroom environment?
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
Thank you for your kind words, I do really worry about engaging a classroom of students of which I cannot understand. Granted this situation is unlike but I can seem nightmarish in the wrong perspective. My solution to avoid such anxiety is to embrace such a fear. I would not want to become trapped in thinking that language is a problem. I would utilize my students diversity if I could by encouraging the use of their native language. I really like the idea of using translanguaging as a mini lesson. The idea is to start with something that the students are familiar with, its also a great opportunity to have students share in their native language or a language they would like to research. Scaffolding works well here as students can switch between the desired languages as the mini lessons rotate as well as allow students to switch languages with peers. The medium used in this mini lesson can range from story telling to reciting rules, or modified with something concrete like journals or worksheets tailor to address the content you wish the students to learn.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelpia, PA: Caslon 2015. Print Second Edition.
Hi, Tametria. I can understand that the schools your student taught at had a smaller population of English Language Learner. Did you think that affected your learning of differentiation? It’s really cool that those schools were meant to accommodate to hearing. According to Wright, “experience leads to expertise,” so after teaching for a while I think that you will gather some useful experience that will help lessen your anxiety about dealing with ELL. I appreciate your determination for helping ELL, and not letting your lack of knowledge on how to teach them get in the way. Teachers cannot let their own lack of knowledge, experience, or personal bias get in the way of teaching (Wright, 17).
ReplyDeleteI like the point you made that experience is fluid not rigid, and thank you for the comment. Yes, learning with limited exposure can create a narrow view point. As far as teaching it helps in realizing what I was missing and where I can fill those gaps for students. It was math that help me with differentiation, differentiation among people though go against my own moral beliefs. I like the idea that Kant explains when it comes to how people interact and learn from each other. Its biased on the idea that we are all on large community. Students make speak different languages but as many bilingual teachers have explained to me, language is a two way streak. As much as we take from learning one language, that same can be gained from the verse. Wright puts it as, conversations and activities involving all off student's languages or dialects are in and of themselves legitimate forms of communication to advance learning. To cover my fears I plan to flow the personal approach process with emphasis on responding to learner's difficulties and building upon them.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelpia, PA: Caslon 2015. Print Second Edition.
Hi Tametria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing a little bit about yourself! I think it’s very interesting that you haven’t had much interaction with ELL/ESL students after completing two semesters of student teaching. Last semester I had two classes with ESL students and this semester I have none! I’m grateful that I’ve been able to see ESL students as well as native English speaking students because it has really shed some light on the similarities and differences of how they learn as well as their backgrounds. I’m looking forward to learning more about ELLs in this course, and something interesting I took away from this course so far were the myths and facts that were in the powerpoint. The most surprising fact, to me, was that, “Only about 1/3 of children immigrants are classified as English Language Learners” (Wright, 2015).
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
I can resonate with on statistic. I always imagined my surroundings to be the norm. It was when I had to develop my own norm that I realized how different and diverse such a thing can be. I also realized how history has had a crucial role in sustaining that fact. Just as Wright suggest, until recent there simply has been waves of set back under fear of disenfranchisement from culture.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelpia, PA: Caslon 2015. Print Second Edition.
ReplyDeleteHello Tametria, I really want to say that I love your video, and I feel like we have the same views as we both have not encountered much with ELL students. I completely agree with you with what wright says about each student does not learn the same and we cannot forget about individuality. Being dyslexia really put my mind in a different place than others, so no one learns the same. There are many different ways to solve an issue and there are many different ways to teach a child. Write even states “Invisible meaning that is based on certain assumptions and expectations compose serious challenges to ELLs who do not share the same assumptions and expectations of Standard English-speaking students and teachers” (37, wright) we cannot except them to do the exact same, no child is the same.
Thank you for the comment, I full heartedly resonate on the importance of placing no child separate categories when it comes to building a foundation for college and career readiness because each student most gain control … to convey meaning effectively. This push on will reach all students, and having a prepared set of tool tailored to raise the bar is important so that each students has the foundation needed to succeed.
DeleteI can resonate with on statistic. I always imagined my surroundings to be the norm. It was when I had to develop my own norm that I realized how different and diverse such a thing can be. I also realized how history has had a crucial role in sustaining that fact. Just as Wright suggest, until recent there simply has been waves of set back under fear of disenfranchisement from culture.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelpia, PA: Caslon 2015. Print Second Edition.