https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-YgXnCvfm0&t=38s
Hello I posted the link to my blog #3. I hope you enjoy!
In this video I interview my mentor teacher Ms. Elder. Ms. Elder has been teaching for 13 years in a first grade class. When I asked her in what area do she see ELL students struggle the most, she mention in writing. That they struggle writing English more then they do in reading and speaking their new language. I also asked her if she had ever had a students that did not know any English. She mention that a couple of years age she had a student that only spoke Mandarin, that she would have to speak a lot with her hands in order to communicate with that students. She also said she would label the whole classroom in both English and the student native language. That was a way to motivate the student to learn and like we had read in Ortega that is "important in boosting motivation" (Ortega, 2013) .
Hello Karen Rivas, it’s nice to meet you. You and your teacher did a great job with the interview. I too have seen many young ESL students struggle with reading and writing. Writing is especially hard for 1st grade ESL students, because during this grade everyone monolingual and bilingual are digging into learning how to read. What helps these young ESL students is the motivation they receive from their family, friends, and such. Teachers who partner their struggling students with their advanced students will see an improvement in their struggling students, as the struggling students scaffolds off of the advanced student. Ortega mentions how social support from significant others (including parents, siblings, peers and teachers) boosts motivation in learning a new language (Ortega, pg. 172). Social support is the strongest support in motivation for learning a new language.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Selena, I appreciate you taking the time to watch and commend on my interview. I strongly believe is important what you said that teachers needs to partner up with struggling students specially ELLs, in order to help them be successful. A way that Ortega mention that we can help our ELLs is by “Simply put, some individuals report experiencing intense feelings of apprehension, tension, and even fear, when they think of foreign languages” (Ortega, 2013). Many ELLs feel shy and scared on practicing their new language, and if we work together with them we are able to help them over come their fears.
DeleteHi Karen! I really enjoyed watching your interview with your mentor teacher. I really like how your mentor teacher used multiple way to her ELL student feel welcomed by using hand gestures and labels in the students first language. I bet that made the student a little less scared and confused about his environment. We want students to feel confident and comfortable when they come to school. Ortega states, "Many language teachers and students believe the provision of negative feedback by the teacher in speaking and writing is a staple of good classroom instruction. And, at least logically, negative feedback would be the single most relevant way for L2 learners to figure out what is not possible in the target language" (Ortega, 2013, 72).
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Jordin, thank you for taking the time to watch and comment on my interview. I agree with you in how important is for teacher who are working with English Language Learners to use hands gestures and labels to help students understand what they are trying to say. Doing that helps create a welcoming environment for ELLs to learn. Like Ortega mention a number of environmental…and socio-affective factors…may mutually interact and become important predictors of success at earlier as well as later starting ages” (Ortega, 2013)
DeleteHi Karen! I really enjoyed your interview! I also interviewed my mentor teacher and she said similar things. My students also struggle with writing because they are in dual language right now, so they are speaking Spanish half of the day and English during the other half!
ReplyDeleteI like that your teacher used a lot of hand gestures with her previous student. Using that probably really helped her visualize what the teacher was saying. My teacher does something similar when teaching. She always adds something visual next to a sentence or a word so that the students can visualize what we are doing if they don't 100% understand it by only reading it.
Hello Emily, thank you for your commend. Using visual is very important to use for ELLs specially your beginner ELLs. That is great you are in a dual language class, I am sure you are learning a lot in how to work with ELLs. Like we have learned "bilingual speakers switch and alternate between their two (or more) languages, depending on a range of communicative needs and desires” (Ortega, 2013).
ReplyDelete