Last Day w/ELL

Today was my last day visiting with my ELL buddy, it was a sad one for me.  First, we caught up by talking about her week and my visit during her ELL lab Math class. She should me a picture of her and her friend Angela that they took while they were at the movies last weekend.  She also thought it was funny to tell me a joke about her being pregnant which of course I only found funny after I found out it was a joke, then at the end of the meeting we played the same joke on Allison and her  little buddy who thought it was funny too.  Well so that no one thinks that we did not do any work we also worked on her geography, I helped explain what the assignment was about and gave clarification on the subject and the directions.  We also looked at some of her math grades and went over one of the handouts that she had failed and needed clarification on.

Well today the lesson went well.   This has been a rewarding experience for me.  I was able to utilize a lot of the strategies that I have learned throughout the semester.  Some of the things I used effectively was my reading to understand, how important rapport is when dealing with students and how to effectively engage and communicate with ELL.  As a proficent english spreaker I commend these students for there effort in learning a new language.  This kids want to learn and deserve an atmsophere that is learning friendly for them.  After interacting with my ELL this semester I have gained great insight for future dealings with my ELL learners.

In reflecting back on this experience, I must admit this was not something that I was looking forward to, but know after having done it I would not have passed up this experience for anything in the world.  I think this has made me a better person in so many ways and allows me the opportunity to use what I have learned in the future for when I deal with ELL students in my class. This has been more than experience this has been imbedded into the fabric of my ability to become an effective teacher.  thanks ELL buddy KA

Teaching w/my ELL

Today i had the opportunity to work with my ELL student on a lesson that was being taught in her geography class. the assignment required that she be able to read sections from the book and answer questions that pertained to the section. as we went through the lesson she read some and i read some of the sections. at the end of each section and also as i went through the material i answered and clarified any misunderstanding that she had. my little buddy was able to do a large amount of the work with minimal assistance. we made it through at least half of the lesson. she answered all the questions asked about the sections and we also did a recap of some of the things that was discussed in the preassessment portion of the assignment, she was much more at ease when answering these questions after reading some of the sections.

In this lesson I found myself using some of the the things that have been stressed through out the semester.  with my little buddy because she was absent the day the assignment was given out, it gave me the opportunity to really teach and her learn the material. she didn’t know much about the material so the pre assessment portion was a slow process but i didn’t push her because i didn’t want up to put up a filter on me because then we would have accomplished nothing instead we just moved on and worked on the parts that she was comfortable doing and did some reading which would help her better understand the material and as a wrap up i decided to go back to the pre assessment lesson and asked her to elaborate more on it now since she had read the material and we had talked about it, and this time she was at great ease and even asked some really good questions about the subject matter.

as a result of this lesson i was able to get a better feel of what working with an ELL student is like. of course there are things I would have done differently but over all it went well.  If i would have had more time i would have allowed for her to do more of the reading to help her with her speaking and reading, i will also in the future learn to speak more Bics which i think will greatly improve my relationship with my ELL students.   overall great experience

Preassessing ELL Language Proficiency

This week on Monday, I had pleasure of visiting with another colleagues ELL students because mines was absent. She started of by recapping on the conversation from the last meeting.  She asked each of them about what they had been up to since they last talked. She asked them how they thought they would do on the TAKS test which they were going to be taking in a couple of days. My colleague then went on to explain today what she was going to be working on with them today.  She explained to them she would be assessing their level of language proficiency during the session.  She explained to them that she would be talking to them about a family and at the end they would be making a family tree describing their own family.

My colleagued seemed to have a pretty good rapport with her little buddies, though these two girls may look at this as time to socialize.  She begin the lesson by reading the first passage and after doing so I was able to conclude that one of the girls was on the novice level and wasn’t as proficient with even BICs.  also that same girl seemed to be experiencing the affective filter which is something that was taught during Prof. Bond’s class.  The girl was quiet and then just didn’t want to participate at all.  The other girl seemed to be on an intermediate level, she was able to communicate much better than the other girl.  When asked to respond to the questions being asked both girls were really slow to respond if they responded at all.  Some of the questions had to be re-stated in order for the girls to understand.  When it came time for the girls to read one girl had no really problems she did it without hesitation where the other girl didn’t want to and even experienced that she didn’t want to read and that the intern should do the reading for her and once again the affective filter was put up.  Even when asked did they understand they said yes but I don’t think they really got the lesson.  The girls did not have a hard time creating a family tree about their family because at the beginning of the lesson we had already modeled one for them so they had to problem.  the modeling made this an easy task for the girls to complete.  I learned how to assess language but I’m not sure what they girls really gained from the experience.

This was a great experience for me, I learned a lot.  I learned that it is ok to have a good rapport with the students but is pointless if the kids don’t respect you or don’t see you as an authoritative figure, which these girls clearly did not.  It is important to make your role known up front on the first meeting which is something that has been stressed throughout the  (classroom management).  Also knowing which level of proficiency is important when trying to teach ELL students.  If this was my situation I would have handled it differently, I would have made it clear what there roles where and what mines was.

My First Encounter w/ My ELL Student

My first encounter with my Ell student was a rewarding experience,  I learned a lot about what she likes and dislikes, what her future goals are, why she came to the United States and she also told me about her family life including how many brothers and sisters she has who speaks fluent english already and even their ages.  She also told me a great deal about her parents and their reasons for bring the family to the states.  I found her to be very mature for her age even though she is only a 9th grader she was able to carry on a conversation with me in english very well.  she is a really sweet girl.  My meeting well exceptional well I gained so much from this.  I also understand more about working these types of students and also what types of things matter to these kids including how they feel about attending Akins.  This encounter will help to become more considerate of my ELL students and understand that they are just as interested in learning as another child who speaks english.  As a result, I as a teacher will do everything I can to enrich all of my students learning capablities. 

Experiencing a Blog

I’m not really sure what writing a blog will help me in doing as of now but I am sure that this will be a rewarding experience that develops from doing this.  I am really looking forward now into going into the classroom and working with cooperating teacher but I am not as sure about my ability to work with ELL students, that is something I was not looking for.  So I’m thinking that maybe by participating in this blog it will set me at more ease with working with ELL students because I gain a perpective from my fellow classmates.