Today I finished my last summer class and it's also my last class of my program. It's bittersweet. I enjoyed attending so many of my classes these two years. It's refreshing to be with other classmates discussing many education issues and events. I also learned so much from them too. Now I will share a few reflections from the Second Language Methodology throughout this term:
Q: Why are we learning about historical language methodologies? How could your knowledge and understanding of these methods impact your teaching?
Learning about historical language methodologies are helpful because we need to know what worked or didn't worked. Reflecting over old methods provide us with people's original thoughts on how best to teach language. Each method has some value in promoting language learning. From our brainstorming on how to use each method in our teaching practice, I know I am able to use these methods in my practice. For example, I see myself in using community language(CLT) teaching since language requires interaction between people. With the CLT method, it provides my students a place to practice language. Language can be acquire when it is actively used.
Q:Choose one current methodology that you would like incorporate in your practice more regularly. Why did you choose that methodology? How can your students' language development benefit from that approach?
I chose community language learning (CLL) because this approach gives students the time to practice their language use orally. Of course I would incorporate content-based instruction to support students in learning academic English since many ELL students would not get much practice outside of school. Both approaches would benefit the students because they would be using academic language while gaining content knowledge. The more students have the chance to practice, the easier for them to acquire the academic English that is needed to succeed in school. When they gain the academic English proficiency, they would be able to communicate successfully in their professional careers and actually gain good financial situations.
Q:What were the highlights of your observations in the K and 4/5 classrooms on Monday? (On Monday, we had a field trip at a summer school serving ELL students.) What methodologies were the teachers using? What did you learn?
Kinder Classroom Highlights
*The teacher have a good management skills to get students to stay on-task for learning.
*Very interactive language learning with many opportunities with pair-share between students
*Lesson is clear and easy to follow
*Lesson delivery appropriate to students' age/cognitive level
*The teacher seemed to be using traditional teacher-directed mini lessons and community learning methods.
*I learned that being a language teacher to kindergarten students requires strong management skills, simple mini lessons, plenty of interaction for students to practice between themselves, clear communication and excitement of language learning.
4th Grade Classroom Hightlights:
*Students get to practice their persuasive writing skills.
*The teacher would monitor students as they work independantly.
*Majority of the students seemed to be engaged with their writing prompt.
*The teacher used the teacher-directed and silent writing methods.
*I learned that some students lost focus when they worked given a choice of how best brainstorm their ideas before writing the persuasive piece. It's important for students to think-pair-share for brainstorming ideas and reviewing over previous lessons or vocabulary. After the silent writing, students should get to have a few minutes to pair-share so peers can assist with checking if they hit the writing objective for the day. The next day lesson the students can do a compare and contract of what they did well or didn't do well. Since the teacher has seen each individual work and assess them, she can figure out where the students can improve on while sharing the positives.
