This past Thursday, I finally had a chance to go
back into the preschool room. I had been in this room the first day we were at
Brigham, but I had not been back since. This time when I was in the room, I was
not doing any of the teaching, so I had more opportunities to observe the
classroom environment. While Brittany and Laine were teaching the
preschoolers about sight, I spent time looking around the classroom. One thing
I noticed was that there was a poster with all of the letters of the alphabet
towards the ceiling at the front of the room, but when I looked at the poster, I
was confused by the pictures that corresponded with the letters. For example,
under the letter “E” was a star, and under the letter “P” was a fish. At first,
I had no idea why this was so backwards because clearly star starts with “s,”
not “e,” but then I began to think that maybe the Spanish word for star starts
with “e.” When I got home, I looked up the Spanish word for star and found that
it is estrella. I also looked up the Spanish word for fish, which is pescado.
Now this alphabet poster makes much more sense to me! Along with the alphabet
poster, the teacher also had a big book story displayed on an easel that was in
Spanish. Another thing I noticed was that there was a calendar and color words
in Spanish displayed in the classroom.
I think
this is great that the teacher is incorporating so much of the students’ native
language in the room. According to our module for this week (Module 7) including
native language makes the teacher more culturally responsive. Being a
culturally responsive teacher is important because it shows that the teacher is
interested in getting to know each child individually by learning more about
his or her culture. It is clear that the preschool teacher does this by how
much Spanish she incorporates into the classroom. While I was looking around, I
also noticed “About Me” posters. Many of these were written in Spanish as well.
This is a way to involve families in the classroom because the student can
learn more about his or her family and culture by completing this assignment with
his or her parents. The only thing I am still wondering about after being in
the preschool classroom is how much Spanish does the teacher speak with the
students? Does she do any large group instruction in Spanish? I am wondering
this because it appears that there are some students in the room who are not
native Spanish speakers. It would have been beneficial for me to ask the
preschool teacher about this. This is different than the kindergarten room
because all of those students are ELL students who speak Spanish as their first
language.
After these past few weeks at Brigham, I am
definitely advancing towards my goals of learning how to incorporate Spanish
into the classroom. The kindergarten teacher and the preschool teacher both
show evidence that they incorporate the students’ native language into their
daily instruction. I am also progressing towards my goal of learning more about
ELL students’ backgrounds. When I am in the classrooms at Brigham, I enjoy
asking the students about different Spanish words, and they love to teach me
new words. In addition to learning about ELL students’ back grounds at Brigham,
I am also learning more about my students at my PDS placement. I have two
students in my classroom who are Indian. One of them celebrates Diwali, which is
a holiday I have never heard of. I loved learning more about it from him and
other people at my PDS site. Another student is leaving this week to go to
India for her brother’s wedding. I am excited to ask her about her trip when
she gets back! Learning about the students’ backgrounds shows them that you really care about who they are as a
person.
EXCEEDS: I went over the word limit. I related my goals to my PDS site. I looked up some Spanish words.
