Insights

My 4th grade class for my block 4 internship was a very special and amazing group of kids. I had two ELL students who were Spanish speakers. I had other students who were fluent in both languages. The majority of students in my class had a documented learning or physical disability (including the ELL's) and were reading at a second grade level. I learned so much from these kids.

First, I learned I could NOT get their attention to my lessons unless it was engaging, group work, involved technology or involved asking questions. I learned this very quickly and actually used my group ESOL strategy quite a bit because all of the students in my class enjoyed and learned better when I incorporated it. The best lesson I did was a unit on mollusks. I used all kinds of technology such as movies, power points, and visuals. The students seemed to really enjoy seeing what they were learning about. I even got different kids of shells for them to classify. The students were classifying them and even telling why they thought it was what they said. We went to the shell museum as a field trip and I was so impressed with my students answering the questions from the tour guides and even from other students! They learned so much by doing engaging things rather than traditional paper, pencil, lecture and notes. The ESOL strategies I used helped the other students learn as well.

Next, I learned something that a lot of people seem to not know. My students were low leveled, and there were ELL students in the classroom; but that never stopped them from learning. No one should be fooled by their AR level, SES, or language barriers. They always express interest in learning and love to participate in the lessons. I have had kids tell me that they want to learn, and I have had kids get made fun of because of their disabilities. The class always stuck together. One day at P.E, a girl from my class with Cerbral Palsy was getting made fun of for her drooling and the WHOLE class surrounded her and defended her against the child from the other class. That moment was when I realized that these kids are very ahead of their time. Where other kids are still making fun of others because of their disabilities, my students are over all of that and are able to accept everyone for who they are. I am so proud of these kids for pushing through their disabilities and giving 110%.

Insights from Interning

My internship has just ended and it has been such an amazing experience. In my specific internship classroom I had no ESOL students, but I took the opportunity to alternate with another intern in the same grade as me. Her classroom had sixteen students who are in fourth grade and are reading at a second grade level. Most of these students are ESOL students and one of them is monolingual in Spanish. Switching into her classroom was a complete shock for me, which leads me into my first insight I learned from my internship.

1. Students who are monolingual can communicate in different ways. I have also thought it would be impossible to teach a student who couldn't speak any English, but I was wrong! This student seemed very shy at first and didn't want to communicate with me in any way. She would talk to the student who sits next to her and have her translate because she was very self conscious about her English speaking skills. After I was in the classroom for a couple of days she started opening up to me. One day we were packing up to go home and I said something to her in Spanish and her eyes lit up. She then asked me if I spoke Spanish and I told "pequito" and she started laughing so hard. Ever since that day she seemed to gravitate towards me. Just by making her feel comfortable I had opened a line of communication that I had figured would never be opened.

2. You don't have to have ESOL students in your classroom to use ESOL strategies. In the previous classes we have taken it seemed that it was always stressed to use these strategies with ESOL students and we never talked about how they would benefit English proficient students as well. Since my classroom only had one LY student who spoke perfect English I was hesitant in the beginning when I had to use the Jigsaw strategy for my video, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made for my class. The Jigsaw strategy worked wonderfully for them and gave them a sense of ownership over the material. I have really learned that I can use these strategies to help my students with comprehension. They really are wonderful tools!

Overall my internship has taught me way too many things for me to list here and I have gained a sense of what it's like to be in a classroom day in and day out. Each student has made an impact on my heart and my future teaching styles and I will miss them dearly. I cannot wait to find out what awaits me for Block 5!

Insights learned through interning...

I just finished my internship in a second grade classroom. I learned so much from the experience. I had a few ESOL students so I got to experience what it is like to teach an ESOL student. Although I learned a lot, here are the main ideas of what I learned:

1. Not all ESOL students speak Spanish as their native language (even in Florida). I already knew this, but we seem to focus on Spanish speakers in class most often. One of my ESOL students was from Russia. However, many of the strategies that we learned about in class still apply.

2. Comprehension skills were hard for one of my ESOL students in particular. He was a word caller but couldn't comprehend anything. I found that having him fill out graphic organizers as we read and asking comprehension questions throughout was a useful strategy to use with him. A really good website where I got most of the organizers from is: http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/.

3. I also think that echo reading and choral reading are excellent strategies to use with ESOL students. Before teaching, I thought that those strategies would be too repetitive and that the students would get bored. However, after implementing the strategies in the classroom I found them to be very effective. They were good strategies for all of my students. Most of the students needed the extra practice themselves so it wasn't boring for them either.

All in all, I learned a lot from my internship and I'm sad that it has to end. I got to implement a lot of ESOL strategies in my class and found several that I really like to use. I plan on implementing them in my block five internship as well as in my future teaching career.

Insights on Teaching ELLs

I have learned many strategies during my block 4 internship. I taught 3rd grade science and social studies. I found an interesting article that discusses insights on teaching science to ELL students. It talked about one strategy that is important is to allow group work and communication. I did a lot of collaborative groups with science in my lessons and my students were constantly talking and learning from each other. During each lesson I also provided graphic organizers and questions to ask the students to check for comprehension of the subject.

Another insight that was important was building on background knowledge. I felt this was important while teaching science to ELLs. Before each lesson I provided review and asked questions that got students talking to me about what they already knew. I had them talk with partners, complete concept webs before I taught new terms. I felt these methods were very successful in the classroom. If you would like to read more about teaching science, please visit the article

ESOL Insights

Writing and Reading

Teaching ELL’s writing: Here is a great resource where I was able to find many ideas and strategies for the writing process. My favorite strategy was guided writing; this process involves the teacher working with small groups of students and these students are applying what they are reading in the text. Students then share what they are learning in groups with varying teacher support and guidance. The teacher will begin the lesson by having students read an aspect of text. As they are reading they are looking at the grammar, punctuation, and spelling on their text. Next they use that piece to generate there our writing; based off that main idea or purpose of the text. The article also outlines the four ages of writing. This was interesting for me to read and it helped me learn how as a society we viewed and taught the writing process to our students. Personally for me it was interesting to see how the views of writing have changed over the years and how teachers’ conceptions of writing have changed, so have their teaching practices.
1960s Age of writing as production or encoding
1970s Age of writing as creativity
1980s Age of writing as a process
1990s Age of writing as social purpose
If you would like to learn more about the different writing processes taught here is my resource: http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/targeting.htm

Links from last post

Here is the link from my last article that I got to work

Oral Language

Here is the powerpoint to go along with my article

Oral Language Strategies for ELLs

Concepts for Reading and Writing

When teaching reading and writing to ELL students it is important to teach comprehension. When you read, you need pre reading, reading, and post reading activities. You can do this by doing picture walks, making predictions, or introducing challenging words. This helps the ELL develop meaning from the text as well as teaches them to think and predict. When it comes to writing, you can incorporate it into reading. My article talked about working with recipes. Recipes are a procedural text and it is a great way to introduce writing. Another simple way an ELL can write is keeping a journal. After a weekend, have them free write about thier weekend; the key is to make it meaningful to them.

If you would like more information you can visit the article at
Teaching ELL: Reading and Writing Strategies

Written Language

Concepts for written language

The concepts I found was about helping ELL's organize their thoughts prior to writing. Strategies that I found included creating a topic board that the teacher and students use sticky notes to write about discussion and writing topics throughout the day or few days. This is a new strategy that I would really like to learn more about.
Another one is, allow for peer and tacher to student discussion before engaging in writing. Students start by discussing thir topic one on one with each other and then extending the conversation through whole group discussion by writing key words on the board. This strategy helps students reherse and try out new English words and topics.
The final one was encouraging illustratons. Believe it or not, drawing is a fantastic way of organizing thoughts for ELLs. Drawing is a good way to engage in additional conversation between teachers and students as well. This discussion can also extend in conversation between writer and audience.

http://esl-programs-lessons.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_scaffold_esl_students_writing

Another good strategy for writing I found was to keep an "error log" When teachers correct papers by non-native speakers, it can be very useful to help the students identify patterns in their writing, instead of just correcting errors, but not knowing it is a reoccuring problem. Students should keep a list or journal of recurring errors and review it before turning in each paper. The teacher can also have a block of time to give activities and practices to help correct the errors that are frequent to try and fix them.

http://www.case.edu/artsci/engl/writing/pedagogy/esl.html

Reading and Writing for ELL Students

Reading Rockets
Tips for Teaching ELLs to Write