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.
Kristie,
ReplyDeleteI had the a lot of the same thoughts and realizations that you did after our first day at Brigham. I was very surprised to see those students you had mentioned so confused and out of sorts during our game. After seeing the translation between the boys, I also made the assumption that one of them didn’t speak any English at all. However, I also wondered if he spoke a little English when the teacher told that same little boy to “listen” in Spanish during our scientist activity and he followed those instructions right away. Like you had mentioned, it made me wonder if he was choosing not to listen or if he truly was incapable of comprehending our English instruction.
I also completely agree with you when you said that you didn’t know how to effectively instruct the ELL students because you don’t speak their language. I know very little Spanish from my high school years, and it surely isn’t enough to carry on a full conversation with native Spanish speakers. I definitely love the idea about sending a letter home to the parents about their native languages. I think that’s a great way to get an idea of the different cultures represented in the classroom for that school year. Without background knowledge from the family, it can be difficult to know what different languages to incorporate. I feel as if our experience in the classroom last Thursday opened my eyes to a lot of challenges that I wasn’t previously aware of. When we are doing group activities, how am I going to make sure that every student knows not only how to play–but make sure they are on task enough to understand the content of the activity as well. Hopefully through this experience you and I will get a better idea of how to effectively communicate with our ELL students even though we aren’t fluent Spanish speakers.
Kristie,
ReplyDeleteYou make some great points that I can completely relate to. When we were first playing our game, I felt good because most students were able to understand us and responding, even though they were repeating answers of their peers. But then, when we got to the one student who had to have his friend translate for him, my stomach dropped. I kept thinking "Shoot, I know absolutely NO Spanish, how am I going to communicate?" I think your ideas about how the student must understand some because he responded well when the teacher said "listen" is a great start and I think if we can be in tight communication with the teacher we will be on a good path for success. Not knowing any Spanish or other languages, has always been a fear of mine and one of my overall personal goals is to take a basic Spanish course at the local community college (Heartland). I also spent time after being in the classroom also reflecting on my goals and thinking about how I could do better at differentiating my instruction and my communication skills with these students. I also have one ELL student in my clinical placement and he goes out of the room everyday to get some ELL support services but I also met his family and they speak English. I have a variety of languages in my classroom and so far in conversations with my CT, I have discovered that she acknowledges them and tries to learn about them but doesn't really have anything in the classroom to show it. I love your ideas about translating the papers, this is something I too, have on my list of accommodations to implement if faced with this situation. I can't wait to continue working together with these students and seeing how we all improve in our own ways.
Kristie,
ReplyDeleteI was also shocked, when we enter the preschool room, to discover that some of the students did not speak any English. Originally learning to better communicate with the English Language Learners students was not one of my goals. After seeing this classroom however I feel that I should add this as one of my goals. It is critical for us to be able to communicate with all of the students in the classroom otherwise there is no way for us to be sure if they are understanding the information we are trying to teach them. In our future visits to the preschool classroom I hope to make steps toward this new goal as well as the goals I have already planned for myself.
In my future classroom I would like to incorporate the native languages of all of my students. I do not feel that it is fair to ask a student to stop speaking their native language all together. By including other languages in the classroom I will also be helping the rest of the class by giving them a small glimpse of other languages beside the one(s) they are familiar with. This will help the students to be able to better communicate with more individuals who speak other languages. I also noticed that in my classroom there are some signs that display words in more than one language to label things, however considering the students cannot read yet I’m not quite sure how that helps them. My teacher also does not include the oral aspect of other languages.
Kristie,
ReplyDeleteJust like you, I was also shocked when we went into the preschool classroom. I wasn't expecting to see an ELL student in the classroom. I wish we would have known about this, so we could have prepared for that a little bit more. I would have liked to observe the teacher teach the class for a little bit. I think this would have helped us get a better feel for how the classroom is run, and how she accommodates her ELL students. Like you mentioned, I also don't really feel like I got to know the students in the classroom all that well, because many of them either didn't talk, or were very quiet. I hope that we can get to know them better over the course of the semester. I look forward to getting to know the kindergarten classroom in the weeks coming up, especially since we implement our lesson in that classroom. It will be interesting to see what their class is like!
I also plan on using sign language in my future classroom. I think this will be a great way to help break down that communication barrier. I like how you talked about sending home a survey to the parents, to see what languages are spoken at home so that you can accommodate all of your students, and incorporate their native language into your classroom. I think this is a great way to get to know your students and to help make them feel at home.
Kristie,
ReplyDeleteBeing in the preschool classroom with you last week, I can understand the frustration and confusion. It was difficult for us to get the students to talk to at all, especially during the “explain your scientist” part of the lesson. Being in charge of this section of the lesson was nerve-wracking because the students would not talk and I didn’t know what to do. I wish the classroom teacher would have given us more direction or jumped in a little to help get the students talking. Since we are switching back and forth between preschool and kindergarten every other week, it is going to be extremely difficult to form relationships with these students. The students are seeing 5-6 teachers at a time for 30 minutes once a week, and each time there are different teachers. If I were their age, there is no way I would be able to remember who all these people are. I think it is good experience being in ELL classrooms, but I think our dreams of forming relationships with the students are kind of a lost cause.
I like how you talked about incorporating ASL because that is something I am definitely looking to do too. In my blog I shared an example of a teacher singing a “good morning” song in English and Spanish all while doing ASL. If we had more time with the preschool and kindergarten classes that is something I think would be awesome to incorporate or teach the classroom teachers. I think you have great ideas on how to work with ELL students and parents and I also loved how you shared your own clinical experience.