Abstract
This assignment includes several tasks that are related to my practicum experience. Much attention will be paid to such activities as SIOP lessons, tutoring, and observation of a teacher’s instructional strategies. This paper will throw light on the major lessons that can be derived from these teaching activities.
Observation Reflection
I have recently had an opportunity to interview a teacher, Mrs. T. who works with second-grade students. In particular, she often supports the needs of English language learners. She believes that it is critical for educators to ensure the inclusion of such students. For instance, she lays stress on the necessity to involve such learners in classroom discussions. In many cases, they are reluctant to express their views because, in their opinion, they can make grammatical or phonetic errors.
However, this reluctance eventually prevents them from improving their linguistic skills or acquiring new knowledge. This is why Mrs. T. uses various strategies that can make them less isolated. In some cases, it is necessary for a teacher to change the questions that he/she asks. Furthermore, in many cases, the use of visual aids can be beneficial. To a great extent, the observation of Mrs. T. has been of great value to me, because I will be able to adopt these techniques in the future.
Overall, this interview helped me better appreciate the needs of ELLs. In particular, I have been able to see that these students can be marginalized because they find it more difficult to express their views or understand learning materials. Moreover, the lack of language proficiency can eventually impair their academic achievement. This is the major pitfall that educators should avoid. Secondly, teachers may need to develop assignments that can prompt such students to use and elaborate their linguistic skills since they are critical for achieving various educational goals.
Reflection on ELL Reader Tutoring
One-on-one tutoring differs (to a great) extent from teaching a group of learners. This was a valuable experience for me as I learned more about the individual characteristics of the learner. This experience will help me be a more effective teacher for both individual learners and groups of students as know what challenges an individual may face.
My learner, Jesus, is a second-grader and an ELL student. The boy is very intelligent and has a significant thirst for knowledge. My student’s motivation made the lesson really effective for both of us. Jesus learned a number of new words and phrases; he also acquired some techniques of text comprehension. I also learned a lot as I witnessed the student’s reluctance to discuss the reading due to lack of vocabulary. This was quite a surprise for me as my student was quite relaxed, talkative, and active. He was not shy though when he had no words to describe something he stopped talking. I had to ask questions which helped him discuss the reading. Jesus also liked the activity with pictures.
He loved drawing his vision of the ending of the story. I had another illustration of the role drawing plays during reading classes, especially when it comes to ELL students. This is the way to discuss the story as the teacher can help students find words for expressing their opinions. Hence, now I understand that motivated and bright students also have difficulties which can be diminished with the help of numerous tools, e.g. drawing.
SIOP Lesson Plan
Unit/Theme: topic and concluding sentence.
Standards: Students are able to express their opinion about a book or story in written form (California Department of Education, 2011, p. 9). They are able to identify the topic and use examples to back up their arguments. They can describe the actions and ideas of other people.
Content Objective(s): The student should understand what the topic and concluding sentences are. The learners should know how to use these sentences within a paragraph
Language Objective(s): The learners can effectively express their opinions in written form by using topic and concluding sentences in a proper way.
Essay
Teaching experiences can promote the professional and personal development of a student in several ways. For example, they can help him/her better understand the challenges that he/she will face in the future. In many cases, this activity is important for identifying areas that need improvement. More importantly, it can enable students to elaborate on their professional competencies and learn more about various instructional methods. To a great extent, my practicum experiences assisted me in understanding the roles that I will need to perform as an educator. More importantly, I was able to see how theoretical models can be applied to meet the needs of students. These are the main issues that should be discussed more closely.
Overall, the SIOP lesson that I conducted proved to be the most critical learning experience for me. It enabled me to elaborate on several of my skills. First of all, I had the opportunity to introduce concepts that were previously unfamiliar to students. My intention was to help them understand the peculiarities of the topic and concluding sentences. This is the main content objective that had to be achieved. Furthermore, students had to learn how to construct well-developed paragraphs in order to express their views in written form. This skill is important for their linguistic proficiency. Apart from that, this ability is critical for academic performance in other subjects such as literature or history.
Additionally, I have been able to use various tools that support students with various learning styles. For instance, I can mention the use of visual aids that can better illustrate the structure of a paragraph. Additionally, it is important to remember the content adaptation because this method is of great benefit to learners who are not native speakers of English. The readings that were provided to these students were abridged.
I particular, I substituted the words or phrases that could hinder their understanding of the text. Furthermore, while presenting the examples of paragraphs, I highlighted both topic and concluding sentences so that learners could be able to locate them. Moreover, I needed to divide learners into several groups so that they could discuss their readings. English language learners were present in each of these groups. This approach facilitated their inclusion in classroom activities.
The assessment method was based on such aspects as observations, conversations, and products. or tangible materials. For instance, I relied on the results of a short test that the students had to take. In particular, they were asked to identify correct concluding sentences that best fitted a particular paragraph. Secondly, I examined the paragraphs that they wrote while responding to the short readings. These are the most important criteria that I relied on.
Additionally, my evaluation was partly based on the questions that I asked them during the guided practice. They were aimed at determining whether they understood the structure of a paragraph. Furthermore, I paid close attention to the questions that they could ask me during their guided and independent practice. In this way, I was able to identify the specific issues that I needed to explain in greater detail. Judging from the results of the assessment, I can say that learners gained a better idea about the topic and concluding sentences. They were able to identify both topics and concluding sentences that best fitted specific paragraphs.
However, I believe that I should have allocated more time to the writing activities of learners. They needed this time in order to write opinion pieces but I had to spend a great part of the lesson in order to explain the topic. Additionally, the paragraphs that they wrote were responses to their readings. However, learners did not have an opportunity to write on the topics that seemed most interesting to them.
These are some of the limitations that should not be overlooked. To a great extent, this lesson showed me that time-management is a critical skill that a teacher should possess. Apart from that, I had to revise some elements of the initial SIOP plan. In particular, I need to find ways of making the lesson more engaging. Moreover, it was critical for me to incorporate the background knowledge of students.
To a great extent, this SIOP lesson has enabled me to understand how instructional methods can support the needs of students. Additionally, this lesson has demonstrated to me how important it is to motivate students. For instance, they may not be motivated to learn about abstract notions such as a paragraph and a topic sentence. This is why a teacher should be able to demonstrate the need to gain new knowledge or skills; otherwise, even well-developed instructional methods may not be effective. This is another aspect that I can distinguish.
To a great extent, my instructional methods were based on cognitivism which is very helpful for understanding the way in which people generate knowledge. According to this approach, learning is composed of several mental processes such as recognition, analysis, the use of new knowledge, and so forth (Robinson, 2013, p. 587). Furthermore, this learning theory shows how the activities of students should be integrated with their background knowledge (Robinson, 2013, p. 587).
This model has been chosen because it is useful for the development of instructional methods that are widely used by teachers. Furthermore, my instructional strategies were premised on the assumption that teachers should meet the needs of students with various learning styles. For instance, I can speak about auditory and visual learners who expect teachers to present information in different ways.
There are other important aspects that can be identified. For example, I can speak about my observation of another teacher’s instructional strategies. This opportunity enabled me to see how English language learners can be effectively integrated into classroom activities. I have been able to observe how teachers can vary their instructional strategies to make sure that these students can understand the material and acquire new knowledge. In my opinion, this task is critical for modern educators who should eliminate the barriers to effective learning. This observation has helped me see how teachers can promote the inclusion of these learners.
Apart from that, my tutoring experiences gave me an opportunity to gain a better idea of the reading activities of English language learners. In particular, this activity has demonstrated to me that a teacher should be able to anticipate the challenges that can be faced by these students during their work in the classroom. Furthermore, it is important to identify the specific problems that a student has to address and design exercises that will enable them to improve their reading skills. It should be kept in mind that in many cases, their specific challenges can be explained by the influence of their own language.
This argument is particularly relevant if one speaks about pronunciation or finding correspondence between letters and phonemes. Therefore, a teacher should design tasks that can best fit the needs of this child. Thus, this tutoring experience has also been of great value to me.
On the whole, I can argue that my practicum experience will help me become a better teacher. The SIOP lesson, observation of another teacher, and tutoring showcased the diversity of instructional techniques that can facilitate the learning activities of students. Additionally, I will feel more confident in the classes that include students with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Each of these aspects is critical for my professional growth. More importantly, I will know how to incorporate various theoretical models into instructional design. These are the main arguments that can be put forward.
Reference List
California Department of Education. (2011). Second Grade in California Public Schools. Web.
Robinson, P. (2013). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Second Language Acquisition. New York, NY: Routledge.