The goals that I want to accomplish this semester in the Brigham
classrooms are to learn how to incorporate English language learners' native
languages into the classroom as well as learn about these students' backgrounds
and how they are different from mine. My first day in the preschool room was
not what I was expecting it to be. I was surprised to see that some students
could not communicate at all in English. From my observations, it appears that
there are two students who do not speak any English, and one or two other
students who may speak Spanish as their native language. When we played our get
to know you game, one boy had to translate for another boy who did not speak
any English. Some of the students who did not speak English had a hard time
following directions because I do not think they understood everything we were
saying. I did not know how to go about this situation because I do
not know how to effectively communicate with these students. I do not want to
change the goals that I have already set, but after being in the classroom for
one day, I realized that I also need to learn how to better communicate with
these students who do not speak English at all. Kira has taught us a lot about
using sign language, so I plan on incorporating ASL into my future classroom to
help communication barriers. When the teacher in the classroom saw that the
student did not understand our instructions, she told him “listen” in English,
and he started to listen to us again. This made me wonder if was not listening
because he could not understand us or if he just did not want to pay attention
to us.
As for the goals that I originally set, I did not see any examples of the teacher incorporating the students’ native languages into the classroom. This could be because we were the only ones teaching at the time. Next time I am in the preschool room, I want to look around the room to see if the teacher has labeled objects in the classroom in more than just English. This is something I plan on doing in my future classroom. We have learned through the modules that there are many other languages spoken in our country than just English and Spanish, so I want to send out a survey to the parents at the beginning of the year to ask if their child speaks another language and what that language is. This way I can incorporate these languages into the classroom. In addition to just observing the classroom environment, I also want to ask the teachers in both the kindergarten and preschool rooms if they do anything to incorporate their student’s native languages. I was not able to learn much about these students’ backgrounds while I was in the classroom for the first time. I could not understand some of the preschoolers when I talked to them, and some of them did not talk at all or were very quiet. An example of this was when we asked each student to explain his or her scientist. Many of the students shared about their scientists, but it was hard to understand what they were talking about. I hope that I will be able to learn more about the kindergartener’s backgrounds from having conversations with them. I would love to find out if these students speak English at home or just their native language. I would also like to find out if their parents can speak English. This information will be especially helpful when I have my own classroom so I can effectively communicate with my students’ parents. For example, if a student’s parents only spoke Spanish at home, I would have to translate all of the papers that got sent home with the student into Spanish so the student’s parents could read it.
In my clinical classroom, we have two students that get pulled out of the classroom for ELL services. To me, both of these students speak clear English. I can understand them very well, and I believe they will not be getting pulled out much longer. From what I have seen, my CT does not do much to incorporate their languages into the classroom. I had the opportunity to meet both students’ parents on Curriculum Night at the school, so I know that they do speak English. However, I am not sure what language they speak at home. I would like to talk to my CT about this to see if she does anything to differentiate instruction for her ELL students. I am excited to learn more about the English language learners in my clinical classroom as well as at Brigham!
Exceeds: I went over the word limit and I included information about the ELL students in my clinical classroom.
