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.
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I thought you brought up an interesting point, that not all ESOL students speak Spanish. But I feel that all these strategies work for every student. Choral reading is something I used in my internship, and I thought it was very effective. It has each student participating, and it also models reading English for the ESOL student.
ReplyDeleteWhat I took out of this experience, was seeing all the strategies put into practice and succeed. I worked a lot with collaborative grouping and was able to reflect on it and get feedback from my peers. I enjoyed my internship and it has definately prepared me for teaching ESOL students. I am also sad, that it has come to an end.
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI totally understand how comprehension would be hard for an ESOL student because my classroom was full of on-level students and comprehension was hard for them. We used a lot of graphic organizers to aide them in remembering the material. I did not have the chance to use choral reading and wish I would have tried it out to see how my students would have done with it. That's something I'll have to try next semester. I also am sad that my internship is over and I am going to miss my kids so much, but I guess we have to go on so we can get to GRADUATION!!! :)