Vlog #4: What I Have Learned
In the course, I learned a lot about how a second language learner learns and grows in a classroom. One of the most important things I have learned is that it is extremely important for teachers to understand a student's culture and their home life. (Wright, 2015, p.213) This is a perfect example of how teachers must teach the whole child by making sure his emotional, mental and physical safeties are met so students can learn at maximum capacity. Students can more comfortably and easily learn as a second language if they know their teacher cares enough about them and their education to be aware and knowledgeable in non-academic areas of their life.
This course has changed the way that I will run my classroom, solely based on the fact that I will be armed with so many new, exciting and research-backed ideas to better help my students learn. I hope that I can run my classroom via acculturation, allowing “immigrant and their children to adapt to the new language and culture without having to sacrifice their own.” (Wright, 2015, p.20). This means encouraging my students to learn English to make their lives easier here in America, but also maintain ties to their culture as to not lose their native tongue. This means supporting students and making them feel like they’re culture matters, this will ultimately help students in feeling safe enough to learn English and developed English language fluency.
I think it would be really informative and helpful to have an assignment where we come up with a summary and example for different practices ELL teachers can use to help their students learn. It could be a weekly assignment that in the end is tied up by compiling all of our strategies into a binder. Later, we would have an easily accessible binder or folder to search for ideas and strategies we can use in our own classroom. This would be a great resource to have as we go into our first year of teaching. It will also help to solidify all of his strategies as we would be reviewing them and rewording them into our own words.
This class really helped to reinforce the part of my teaching philosophy that believes it’s my responsibility to teach every child as a “whole” child. According to Wright, it is necessary for “teachers to be able to answer basic questions about their student to provide effective instruction.” This means being aware of the student's life outside of academics and how it could possibly affect their learning. I think by doing this, you're giving your student the confidence to learn in your classroom. They say knowledge is power, so the more information about your students that you know, the easier it will be for you to avoid making generalizations or allowing stereotypes to affect your teaching. Overall, this class has been extremely beneficial to me and my future ELL students. It has given me the information and confidence that I will be able to help my students reach their full potential.
Hello Vivianne! I also learned a lot of things in the course and I am also excited about all of the amazing ideas I will be able to implement in my future classroom. I also completely agree with having the students maintaining their cultural ties and teaching them that their culture matters. Wright states that English should be viewed as an additional language rather than a replacement for their home language (Wright, 2015, p. 22). Our job as educators is to help our students succeed. Helping to teach ELLs English and providing accommodations does just that, and I also believe that having the students remember where they or their families might have come from and being proud of it, is also a success.
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
Zoey! I’m glad you pointed out that English languished should be used as an addition to a students language experience rather than a replacement to their native language. (Wright, 2015, p.22) When teachers do this they are automatically helping to make a student feel comfortable and like we care about truly teaching. When we make it clear that their culture is important, we make it clear that THEY are important which is a huge part of learning.
DeleteHey Vivianne! I appreciate your great reflection upon our class and completely agree with several of your statements. I agree with the fact that teachers must make sure their students emotional, mental and physical safeties are met so students can learn at their maximum capacity. These factors play a huge role in they way students feel motivated to participate in class and even at home. I like how you mentioned an assignment that would be helpful for future teachers. It would be a great idea to create a summary and examples of different practices ELL teachers can use in order to help their students learn. This would come in handy in the future for those teachers who need an idea of what they can use in their own classroom.
ReplyDeleteNicole! You are totally right. I think a few examples that the textbook gave us to help our students feel welcomed into the ELL experience is connecting them with other students, allowing for student to student interaction and acknowledging their culture and how important it truly is. (Wright, 2015) I love that we are all aware that it’s importantto make our students feel safe and comfortable in our classroom so they can get to their full potential!
DeleteHello Vivianne! I enjoyed reading your blog! I agree, this class has definitely helped me gain perspective on our ELLs and will influence the way I teach in my future classroom. In your blog you stated that it is important for us as teachers' to understand a students' home life and culture. I absolutely agree! As we have learned in this course, there are "381 different languages" spoken in homes in the U.S, as well as, different types and proficiency levels of ELLs (Wright, 2015, p.8). Bottom line, our ELLs' are immensely diverse and this course has really brought that into perspective. I wholeheartedly believe as teachers we need to teach the whole-child and part of the whole child includes their home life and culture.
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caston, Second Edition.
Amanda! It makes my heart so happy that we all have a “teach to he whole-child” mindset. It makes me feel confident that we are a group of future educators that want to make a diffrence in students lives. I truly believe our textbook was the perfect mixture of methods and theories to support the emotional and educational needs of our future students!
DeleteHello Viv! It was great to hear your thoughts on this semester. Teaching to the whole child is probably the most important thing a teacher needs to do, no matter the child or their background. Creating a safe environment where the students feel like they truly belong is so very important. Finding what students enjoy learning about and different books and activities to get the students engaged in the classroom. Also, knowing the different languages, the different types of bilinguals, and how you best teach all of these different students (Wright, 2015). I really enjoyed your idea for this class, I think that would really help all of us in our first few years of teaching.
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
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DeleteTobi, you are so right in saying that we must KNOW our children, their learning styles and their languages. We have learned in our textbook that their are over 381 languages that we will potential come into contact with and we have to be aware of them all to halo serve our students (Wright, 2015, p.22) Even if we don’t know the language our bilingual students do I believe that this class equipped us wit the necessary knowledge on how to help ALL bilingual students.
DeleteHi Vivianne! I like the way that you interpreted the material in this course. I agree that it is so important to understand a student’s culture and their home life, and that is definitely something that comes into play in the classroom. I also think that it is great that you are taking what you learned from this course and are planning to use it in your own classroom practices. Teaching the child as a “whole” is also a great philosophy to live by, and I think that it is great that it helped you to reinforce that idea. I am so excited for you to share the different ways that you have actually enforced these practices in your future classroom!
ReplyDeleteNoor! Thank you for your kind and encouraging words. I can’t wait to put everything we’ve learned in this class into practice! I think the easiest thing for me to implement in my classroom will be to make sure to hone in on my student student’s interests and help them learn using the things that keep them interested and motivated. When students enjoy what their learning ABOUT, they are more keen on focusing and staying attentive. (Wright,2015)
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ReplyDeleteHello there Vivianne! I loved reading your post about what you have learned this semester in our class. I noticed many of us had some of the same major ideas we took from this class and the biggest I have seen is us understanding our student’s backgrounds. I think this is crucial for knowing how to get through to our students since “ELLs come from a wide range of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds” (Wright. 2015. 24). This is so important for forming a relationship with our kids and keeping them engaged in the learning that we want going on in our classrooms!
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