This chapter was interesting, however I find it extremely ignorant of those who think that in America you should 'speak English'. First of all there is not official language in this country. There are 28 million people in this country who speak Spanish as their mother tongue. There are 2 million who speak Chinese, and about 2 million who speak French. And there is over 20 languages that are spoken in this country, so why so much emphasis on English? According to the chapter that people believe that using other language posses a threat to the dominance of English language. No one is trying to dominant English, however the population of SPanish speakers in this country is growing rapidly. Some people are just so ignorant, all we want is for all the students to have an equal education, and this means that some need more help than others. Especially those who have LEP.
Looking at all the the movements that took place, and all the acts that were passed, it seems as if the federal government cannot get it exactly right. Rather they get a litttttle bit closer each and every time.Hopefully, they will realize that the needs of these students are not fully being met, and that there are still changes that need to be made in order to assure their success. Without education, the students can not move onto college. With out college, many of the students end up working at jobs with no outlet, or 'dead-end jobs' as they say. Its a vicious cycle.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Communicating with Parents
Another topic that I wish to discuss is the importance of communicating with parents. This is obviously a necessary factor that plays an important role in the students education. The parents need to be involved and informed about what is taking place in their child's education, and if they are not informed how can they help the student with homework or projects that need to be completed outside of the classroom, etc?
Although with ESL students who have low English proficiency, it is most likely that the parents as well do not have a high level of English proficiency either. This complicates the communication process, since one ESL teacher can not know and be fluent in all of the home language of each of his/her students.
This Wednesday I am traveling to Little Village to be a translator for parent-teacher conferences. To me this is interesting and I am excited to see what it is going to be like, what the teachers are going to discuss with the parents, what the parents have to ask about their students learning, etc. I am really excited to use my Spanish as well obviously. The reason that I bring up this upcoming event, is because it is making me think about what it will be like if I have parent-teacher conferences with my ESL student's parents who have difficulties communicating in English. Very lucky are the students who's home language is Spanish because there is an abundance of ESL teachers who speak Spanish themselves. But what about the students who have parents that only speak Korean, or French, or Arabic, etc? It must be intimidating for the parents to come and talk with the teacher who does not know their language, whereas the Spanish speaking parents are comforted because there is a translator present, or the ESL teacher speaks is already an native speaker of the language.
Stay tuned to see what I discover on Wednesday when I make my trip....
Although with ESL students who have low English proficiency, it is most likely that the parents as well do not have a high level of English proficiency either. This complicates the communication process, since one ESL teacher can not know and be fluent in all of the home language of each of his/her students.
This Wednesday I am traveling to Little Village to be a translator for parent-teacher conferences. To me this is interesting and I am excited to see what it is going to be like, what the teachers are going to discuss with the parents, what the parents have to ask about their students learning, etc. I am really excited to use my Spanish as well obviously. The reason that I bring up this upcoming event, is because it is making me think about what it will be like if I have parent-teacher conferences with my ESL student's parents who have difficulties communicating in English. Very lucky are the students who's home language is Spanish because there is an abundance of ESL teachers who speak Spanish themselves. But what about the students who have parents that only speak Korean, or French, or Arabic, etc? It must be intimidating for the parents to come and talk with the teacher who does not know their language, whereas the Spanish speaking parents are comforted because there is a translator present, or the ESL teacher speaks is already an native speaker of the language.
Stay tuned to see what I discover on Wednesday when I make my trip....
Strategies: What I notice in the field-
Sorry for the late blogging! I've been really sick as of late, and it has taken a toll on me and drained me from my studies. But anyways:
I've been thinking about my practicum hours a lot lately, and I've really been focusing on all of the strategies that are being implemented in the classroom. I truly believe that all of these strategies are excellent and that the students will be able to apply them in the ESL class, but more importantly they will be able to really apply them when they get into their 'regular' classes. The only thing that I noticed is that the students have to do so on their own and they are not guided on how to use them in their other classes. Because obviously in the 'regular' classes, the teachers do not place the emphasis on using any given strategy to achieve the learning material, but rather they present the material and expect the children to find their own independent ways/strategies to contextualize it, learn it and apply it. I observe in the classroom of a "co-taught" science class, in which my co-op is present in the classroom and catering to the 6 ESL student's needs. To describe what I mean by 'catering to the ESL students needs', I mean that she is walking around the room making sure that they understand the task at hand, or making sure that they are caught up on their project that is due. However, I do not see the teacher making extra handouts with much needed vocabulary for them, or differentiating the worksheets/homework to make them more understandable to the students' low English proficiency. More importantly, and focusing on strategies, I do not see the ESL teacher providing examples of how to take the strategies which they learn in their ESL classroom and apply them to the science class. Therefore I question the effectiveness of the students learning such strategies, since they only learn how to apply them in their ESL classroom readings and activities. This means that the students need to take an independent role of deciding how to apply the strategies they learn to the material in their 'regular' classrooms.
Also, as we have discussed in class, just because a student is presented how to use a certain strategy, does not mean that the strategy works best for them. Rather, I believe the goal of implemented strategies is to expose the students to different ways of learning and understanding material. This means that the student has to make an independent decision on which strategies that they wish to use in their regular classrooms. For this reason, I believe that content-to-strategy is really effective because it provides the students with different content, new vocabulary, and an opportunity to choose which strategy they wish to apply to achieve the learning goal. Wherease strategy-to-content, they are forced to use the strategy that they are learned and apply it to the content. I believe that in the beginning, it is okay to teach using the strategy-to-content approach because you can make sure that the student understands completely how to apply the strategy correctly. However, I believe that once the students have established a solid base of knowledge about numerous strategies that the teaching approach should change to content-to-strategy so that the students can take a more independent role in deciding which strategy works best for the task at hand. I really liked the article that talked about the ESL class where they did science experiments and constructed paper planes, but they were constantly asked which strategy they thought was needed to be used while learning the material. I think that this is important because the students need to learn how to be independent in making choices about which strategy they should use, since they are not told which strategies to use in their 'regular' classroom. This is what I see in my clinical observations. The teacher teaches the strategy in the ESL classroom, but outside the classroom the students need to know how to use the strategies and which works best in x situation, etc on their own.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Chapter Eight
DISCLAIMER: there is a lot of things that I want to say, and it is all just pouring out in my blog because this Chapter made me ANGRY!
As I started to read this chapter during the half time of the Chicago Bears game, I found myself being more and more drawn into the reading than paying attention to the game! There is so much that I want to talk about this chapter, it really drove me kind of crazy. I found myself writing WRONG! next to many of the things that teachers said or thought about culture, continuing education in terms of learning new approaches, their ideas on differentiating or changing their approaches, and AHH just a million more things that they said that were completely WRONG!
First of all, I would just like to say that the majority of teachers at this school as well as the principal are BLIND and IN-DENIAL. I really like how Stern explains it is like sweeping it under the rug. First of all, the principal does not even know the accurate statistics that represents the population of LEP students in his own school, that he supposedly is in charge of. All of the teachers at this school believe that the school is fully integrated, and what is causing separation and division in the students is the students academic abilities and school activities. Do these teachers even know their students? I mean, when I become a teacher I plan to know whats going on in their lives, and if they can not bluntly see that the school is not functioning as "one big melting-pot" how teachers romanticize it to be, then they really must be blind. The teacher says, "No on even really notices color" (186). Uhhhh, hello! ya they do. The teachers say they dont, but I agree that it is just because they choose not to address it. Where as the students ABSOLUTELY DO NOTICE COLOR, it affects everything they do and feel and think at school, and if you can not realize that, then you should not be the principal. If you do not make it necessary that the teachers take training classes on how to differentiate instruction to make it understandable to the 1/4 LEP students in your school, then you should not be a principal.
It really bothers me that some of the teachers at this school do not believe that they need to receive training in order to serve better the new diversity at the high school for some of the following reasons:
-they have been teaching for a while and are offended that someone might tell them their techniques are not benefitting their students
-or they "feel it insults their years of experience" (182)
-they believe their "formulas and approaches they have used all along should be sufficient and appropriate fore all students now" (180)
-They believe that if some "students are not doing well now, something must be wrong with the students' attitudes, values or culture" (180)
-they believe that in should be voluntary to take such classes
-they believe that "they have to change what they are doing for those students" (182)
ALL of these reasons are completely wrong, and the teachers who said them are stuck up and have no passion for the education of their students. I don't know, but I feel like all of the people who are in classes with me that are going to be teachers share the same passion as I do to make a difference in each of my students education. If I notice that a students is not understanding something, then I would absolutely try my best to make the material understandable to them. I wouldn't just ignore them or stick them in the back of the class, just so they can "get by". If they had LEP then I would make sure that the material was understandable to them by making vocabulary handouts for them as an aid, or creating other aid, etc. Many of these teachers view adopting LEP approaches in their classroom as "extra work", but they need to get over it! Being a teacher is a non-stop job. Even in the summer you are working, even in the evenings when you should be relaxing you are working, even during the 20 minutes during the day when you have a lunch break you are working. This is what being a teacher is.
The teachers who believe that their methods and approaches that they have used during the "years of their experience" are failing to do one very important thing: EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THEIR TEACHING. Obviously something they are doing is not working for the student. Teachers should constantly be evaluating and reevaluating how they are teaching and how the students are taking the input they give them. If a student is not understanding something, then there may be something wrong with how the teacher presents the material, etc. Many of the teachers at Madison High seem to blame the reason for students failing as lack of motivation. Well part of being a teacher is making sure that you are captivating your students. There are many ways to change the material to make it appeal to the students identity and issues that are important to their lives. One of the parents of a students complained about the lack of an inclusive curriculum. Well, I do not blame the students for not being interested in the material of some old British guy who babbles on and on and uses very proper English. Although I am sure that the material in this class served some educational purpose, the students has a very good point that there should be material that the students can relate to.
Maybe the reason that the students are seperated by their academic abilities, is because many teachers look at the students who have LEP and say "If they cant read English well enough, they can't make it. I dont feel the least bit guilty about that. I think it's important we set standards and insist kids read well enough. (183)" Well part of this is that teachers at this school need to learn and be trained in how to help students learn literacy in a second language. It takes anywhere from 5-8 years to only become proficient in that language, and even longer to develop the skills to use that language academically. The principal at this school is resisting the creation of an ESL Department in the school, because he thinks that it will further create "seperation" and "labeling" of LEP students (186), yet he claims that the school is one big melting pot where everyone is equal. He even said, "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure there ought to be any classes taught in any language besides English, because after all this is America and we ought to speak English" (182) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my biggest pet peeve! I absolutely hate when people say this it is so ignorant. Obviously this teacher does not understand that the use of the students' first language can help them develop the academic skills they need to succeed in the class. And that instead of being pushed to the back of the class and ignored, they can gain knowledge in necessary subject matter, that can help them in other aspects of their life, even if they do not go onto college.
What these teachers should realize is that maybe their students are not doing well in class, or continuing to college not due to their culture, motivation, or whatever other excuse they say, but rather due to what the teachers are doing. Obviously, all the teachers praise the students who are getting straight A's and are college bound. But in my eyes, it's the students who are struggling in school who need the most attention. I do not understand why the "older/experienced" teachers do not want to "deal" with those students, those are the students that I have the most compassion for and feel that I can make a difference in. I think the "old" teachers have lost their passion for teaching, such as the one that I have. I really hope that my passion "fire" never goes out as theirs did, because that would be horrible and my students would suffer horribly. I just cant wait to get out there and start making a difference, because these are the students that I feel I can motivate and have an impact in their education!
As I started to read this chapter during the half time of the Chicago Bears game, I found myself being more and more drawn into the reading than paying attention to the game! There is so much that I want to talk about this chapter, it really drove me kind of crazy. I found myself writing WRONG! next to many of the things that teachers said or thought about culture, continuing education in terms of learning new approaches, their ideas on differentiating or changing their approaches, and AHH just a million more things that they said that were completely WRONG!
First of all, I would just like to say that the majority of teachers at this school as well as the principal are BLIND and IN-DENIAL. I really like how Stern explains it is like sweeping it under the rug. First of all, the principal does not even know the accurate statistics that represents the population of LEP students in his own school, that he supposedly is in charge of. All of the teachers at this school believe that the school is fully integrated, and what is causing separation and division in the students is the students academic abilities and school activities. Do these teachers even know their students? I mean, when I become a teacher I plan to know whats going on in their lives, and if they can not bluntly see that the school is not functioning as "one big melting-pot" how teachers romanticize it to be, then they really must be blind. The teacher says, "No on even really notices color" (186). Uhhhh, hello! ya they do. The teachers say they dont, but I agree that it is just because they choose not to address it. Where as the students ABSOLUTELY DO NOTICE COLOR, it affects everything they do and feel and think at school, and if you can not realize that, then you should not be the principal. If you do not make it necessary that the teachers take training classes on how to differentiate instruction to make it understandable to the 1/4 LEP students in your school, then you should not be a principal.
It really bothers me that some of the teachers at this school do not believe that they need to receive training in order to serve better the new diversity at the high school for some of the following reasons:
-they have been teaching for a while and are offended that someone might tell them their techniques are not benefitting their students
-or they "feel it insults their years of experience" (182)
-they believe their "formulas and approaches they have used all along should be sufficient and appropriate fore all students now" (180)
-They believe that if some "students are not doing well now, something must be wrong with the students' attitudes, values or culture" (180)
-they believe that in should be voluntary to take such classes
-they believe that "they have to change what they are doing for those students" (182)
ALL of these reasons are completely wrong, and the teachers who said them are stuck up and have no passion for the education of their students. I don't know, but I feel like all of the people who are in classes with me that are going to be teachers share the same passion as I do to make a difference in each of my students education. If I notice that a students is not understanding something, then I would absolutely try my best to make the material understandable to them. I wouldn't just ignore them or stick them in the back of the class, just so they can "get by". If they had LEP then I would make sure that the material was understandable to them by making vocabulary handouts for them as an aid, or creating other aid, etc. Many of these teachers view adopting LEP approaches in their classroom as "extra work", but they need to get over it! Being a teacher is a non-stop job. Even in the summer you are working, even in the evenings when you should be relaxing you are working, even during the 20 minutes during the day when you have a lunch break you are working. This is what being a teacher is.
The teachers who believe that their methods and approaches that they have used during the "years of their experience" are failing to do one very important thing: EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THEIR TEACHING. Obviously something they are doing is not working for the student. Teachers should constantly be evaluating and reevaluating how they are teaching and how the students are taking the input they give them. If a student is not understanding something, then there may be something wrong with how the teacher presents the material, etc. Many of the teachers at Madison High seem to blame the reason for students failing as lack of motivation. Well part of being a teacher is making sure that you are captivating your students. There are many ways to change the material to make it appeal to the students identity and issues that are important to their lives. One of the parents of a students complained about the lack of an inclusive curriculum. Well, I do not blame the students for not being interested in the material of some old British guy who babbles on and on and uses very proper English. Although I am sure that the material in this class served some educational purpose, the students has a very good point that there should be material that the students can relate to.
Maybe the reason that the students are seperated by their academic abilities, is because many teachers look at the students who have LEP and say "If they cant read English well enough, they can't make it. I dont feel the least bit guilty about that. I think it's important we set standards and insist kids read well enough. (183)" Well part of this is that teachers at this school need to learn and be trained in how to help students learn literacy in a second language. It takes anywhere from 5-8 years to only become proficient in that language, and even longer to develop the skills to use that language academically. The principal at this school is resisting the creation of an ESL Department in the school, because he thinks that it will further create "seperation" and "labeling" of LEP students (186), yet he claims that the school is one big melting pot where everyone is equal. He even said, "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure there ought to be any classes taught in any language besides English, because after all this is America and we ought to speak English" (182) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my biggest pet peeve! I absolutely hate when people say this it is so ignorant. Obviously this teacher does not understand that the use of the students' first language can help them develop the academic skills they need to succeed in the class. And that instead of being pushed to the back of the class and ignored, they can gain knowledge in necessary subject matter, that can help them in other aspects of their life, even if they do not go onto college.
What these teachers should realize is that maybe their students are not doing well in class, or continuing to college not due to their culture, motivation, or whatever other excuse they say, but rather due to what the teachers are doing. Obviously, all the teachers praise the students who are getting straight A's and are college bound. But in my eyes, it's the students who are struggling in school who need the most attention. I do not understand why the "older/experienced" teachers do not want to "deal" with those students, those are the students that I have the most compassion for and feel that I can make a difference in. I think the "old" teachers have lost their passion for teaching, such as the one that I have. I really hope that my passion "fire" never goes out as theirs did, because that would be horrible and my students would suffer horribly. I just cant wait to get out there and start making a difference, because these are the students that I feel I can motivate and have an impact in their education!
Monday, October 10, 2011
Chapter 7
I enjoyed this chapter, but what I want to talk about more is what I see in my practicum. Last week we decided that we should pay attention to the focus on literacy in our classrooms. Well in my classroom at Kingsley Junior High there is literacy everywhere! On the walls, in the texts books, in the 'bellringers' and just about everywhere else you can imagine. What is great about the literacy that is in their 'bellringer' activities is that a lot of times, it's literacy that they may need to know for everyday life. Such as there was a bellringer that had a newspaper add, and the students had to find the answers to the questions and create questions of their own by using the newspaper add. It's good because not only are they becoming competent in the language, they are also achieving competency in activities that may occur outside of the classroom.
More importantly, there are literacy activities that help the students become active readers, a skill that they will need for school. First the teacher introduces the reading strategy. Then the class reads together while the teacher models the strategy. Then the students take turns reading out loud while the teacher guides them with the strategy. And finally, the students complete the reading while using the strategy amoungst themselves. It's great and the students enjoy doing it. Although one thing I would have to say is that the text that the 6th, 7th and 8th graders were reading was a little easy in my opinion. This is bad because when it comes time to transition into highschool the students will not have a book with a ton of pictures and captions and small sections of text.
Next, an activity that I really liked, focused on literacy BUT also focused on teaching note-taking skills. It was awesome because they really need to know how to take notes. So the teacher talked out loud, giving her lecture using the smart board and guided them on how to fill out the first section. She then continued to talked and left it up to them to finish filling out the sheet of notes. Although some of them found it rather easy, there were many who struggled. This activity is key because it is teaching academic competence, so that the student can have the abilitiy to communicate and interact in an everyday classroom.
More importantly, there are literacy activities that help the students become active readers, a skill that they will need for school. First the teacher introduces the reading strategy. Then the class reads together while the teacher models the strategy. Then the students take turns reading out loud while the teacher guides them with the strategy. And finally, the students complete the reading while using the strategy amoungst themselves. It's great and the students enjoy doing it. Although one thing I would have to say is that the text that the 6th, 7th and 8th graders were reading was a little easy in my opinion. This is bad because when it comes time to transition into highschool the students will not have a book with a ton of pictures and captions and small sections of text.
Next, an activity that I really liked, focused on literacy BUT also focused on teaching note-taking skills. It was awesome because they really need to know how to take notes. So the teacher talked out loud, giving her lecture using the smart board and guided them on how to fill out the first section. She then continued to talked and left it up to them to finish filling out the sheet of notes. Although some of them found it rather easy, there were many who struggled. This activity is key because it is teaching academic competence, so that the student can have the abilitiy to communicate and interact in an everyday classroom.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Chapter 6
I found this chapter to be extremely interesting. I marked all over the pages with important information that I plan to use in my final paper. One of the issues discussed in this book is the struggle that many of the immigrants face in terms of identity. For these young girls, they struggle between becoming like the "American girls" and staying true to their religion, culture, and beliefs. In their eyes, the American girl is seen as one who is sexually active with other men. It does not always mean sex, but it means that they date a lot of guys, dress racy, and are able to kiss and hold their hands. For them this can be viewed as almost never happening. And yet so many of these young girls are so hooked on the American notion of falling in love that the temptation is almost to good to give in to. For many of the young girls, school is an escape from their strict home life in which they are either forced to work to provide for the family, or live in fear of being part of an arranged marriage. So many of them choose to date anyways and just lie to their parents about it. This causes them to feel shame because they do not like lying to their parents. I find it interesting the whole struggle that those face who are going through arranged marriages: they fear that they will lose everything they have to give in to the life of a man that they do not even know. They see school as a tool to be used to gain power in the relationship. Many wish to continue their education so that they can get a good job, and will not have to rely so much on the man to take care of them. They seek independence so that they can continue to be social and provide for themselves, instead of being locked inside the home caring for the husband and children while cleaning all day. For many of the girls, this life seems pointless to them, therefore they wish to find ways to become financially independent.
In this sense education does seem to be important to the young girls. For those who are the oldest of their siblings, they are often times sought to be the caretaker of the younger ones, working to help provide and cleaning and taking care of them. This is important, because for the oldest ones, school is not so significant. What is significant is taking care of the younger siblings so that they can succeed in school.
All these young girls want is to find love, but for them the American way of love means that they have to explore sexually with their significant other. Although this seems to be a stereotype that is not exactly true, they fear that they will betray their culture and religion, and even more importantly; the parents are worried that their immigrant children will "cross the line". For this reason, many of the girls are deported back to live with their family in their own culture, because the parents want the children to marry in their own race and not to mix. They want this so that their culture, language, and beliefs will be passed down to the next generation. They are so worried about keeping their identity that they do not want their children to experience dating, unless the end outcome is marriage with someone of their kind.
In this sense education does seem to be important to the young girls. For those who are the oldest of their siblings, they are often times sought to be the caretaker of the younger ones, working to help provide and cleaning and taking care of them. This is important, because for the oldest ones, school is not so significant. What is significant is taking care of the younger siblings so that they can succeed in school.
All these young girls want is to find love, but for them the American way of love means that they have to explore sexually with their significant other. Although this seems to be a stereotype that is not exactly true, they fear that they will betray their culture and religion, and even more importantly; the parents are worried that their immigrant children will "cross the line". For this reason, many of the girls are deported back to live with their family in their own culture, because the parents want the children to marry in their own race and not to mix. They want this so that their culture, language, and beliefs will be passed down to the next generation. They are so worried about keeping their identity that they do not want their children to experience dating, unless the end outcome is marriage with someone of their kind.
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