Not having reviewed my notes, I will say that one issue I have with this course has been an issue I've encountered in other modules, too. It's probably a problem of only having a few days to cover a big subject: A lot of time is spent on the broad, theoretical, table of contents level, but not a whole lot on actual, usable strategies. Some, to be sure, but I think the balance is way off.
All the data about ELLs in the first day... it was good, but this group does not need to be convinced so thoroughly that ELLs have reading problems and need special instruction. It would be great if a lot more time could be spent on strategies and applications. There were so many bullet points that said "use many tools and strategies" but were not followed by examples.
The practical things we learned were useful, and I'm not saying that none of the overview and theory was useful -- it was. But tip the scales toward specific things we can use in practice.
The videos were interesting, for example, and I think we could have done more with them, in terms of designing activities around them -- treating them as case studies, perhaps. Seeing actual readers and thinking about actual practices is, at least for me, a much more effective way to internalize the broad stuff.
I found the subject matter of the course very interesting. Although all the acronyms became a little tiresome after a while, I do not see how that can be changed too much if they are used "in the trade".
Having little experience with ELLs myself, I do resonate to Ben's point above that more video follow up would have been especially helpful and, for me, more video of ELL classes where the students caused the teacher to have to adjust instruction to teach to EO and ELL students in the same room.
I agree with Ben too that there is much material here for such a short course.
What was most helpful was the different way of thinking about vocabulary. My mentor tends to pick out what I used to think of as the hardest words and now think about as the tier 3 words. The idea of spending more effort on the tier 2 words will improve our teaching.
Thinking specific language objectives for lessons also seems like a good idea but I'm less confident that I know how to go about doing this.
Regarding the "use many strategies" point, this is something that has come up in a couple classes I've taken and it seems that in some cases teachers assume that presenting something in several ways will help students when in fact using many strategies ends up reducing wait time and overwhelming students to the point where they can't get even one strategy well. Presenting material with redundancy is good, as long as it is done thoughtfully.
I appreciate how you acknowledged the less than optimal scheduling and made the best of the situation.
I appreciated the opportunity in the last two days to work within our content areas to work on designing instruction and assessment. That being said, I think I would have benefited from more concrete directions, suggestions, and scaffolding.
I feel like my group spent much of the time trying to figure out what to teach with the Dickens text, and as a result, did not get to spend as much time thinking specifically how to make the lesson accessible to ELL's. If we had been given less material and specific content, language and content goals to meet, or perhaps even an unmodified lesson to revise, I think that would have been a more productive activity for me.
On a smaller point, when referring to parts of the Echevarria and Graves in class, it would be helpful to cite specific pages or passages, so that we can go back to the text to look at those concrete examples. Ideally, we would all have a grasp of the reading, but given the pace of the class, it would be of help to highlight some of the useful examples for us, so that we can return to them later.
I agree with Ben. I feel that many of us came in open to the idea that ELLs would need additional assistance. I would have loved more concrete examples of what that assistance would look like.
Even though I found the Dickens exercise a little frustrating, the class overall made me think about my teaching in a completely new dimension. I've already seen how it influences my teaching; perhaps this direct effect is the result of taking a module like this once we've had some experience and are able to implement new ideas more quickly. I would suggest that instructors talk to the people who teach our module on learning for diverse abilities to make sure each course can be explicit about what we're getting from one and not from the other, since it seemed that we ended up talking a lot about the similarities between teaching for ELL's and teaching for all students.
I agree that we don't need as much explaining regarding why ELLs need more assistance. I did, however, appreciate the overview of theorists. I encountered some of those names in my Literacy & Linguistics class at the Univ. of Arkansas last year, but repetition of information helps me to remember it, so I didn't mind hearing about L1 & L2 theories. I agree that more could have been done with the videos. I also agree that teaching us strategies to use in the classroom is good--but I think the course did give us some strategies that, because they seemed so simple or "common sense" or "common to all learners" that they appeared not to be strategies. I think that even though the ideas presented are common both to struggling readers and ELLs, that is actually a good/great thing, because I can kill two birds with one stone in terms of planning my instruction based on these principles. I also think that, because these ideas are good for all students, they are easy to blow off as not specific enough but, when I actually looked at my own (or my mentor teacher's) instruction through the eyes of these strategies, I got a better idea that these things really are actual strategies -- such as my noticing that our classroom is not literacy-rich or noticing when my mentor or I did not provide wait time.
I also think that, given the lack of research I have been able to find on effective middle & high school instruction for ELLs, the course did a good job. I actually came into the course expecting it to be worse than I felt it was.
I think one really helpful thing would be to get the course text information out sooner so that people can have access to the readings if they are able to do them--my book did not arrive until Thursday, so that was frustrating. There were strategies outlined in the readings that I was able to do, but I think because many people either didn't have the text because it hadn't arrived or didn't read the text because of finals, they didn't realize that there were strategies--so maybe citing the text-given strategies on powerpoints would be helpful in that respect.
I knew that I was learning things from the course whenever I talked to my mentor teacher and when I began immediately noticing things she or I could change in instruction to better suit ELLs.
So, to end, I'm not totally clear on what people want when they ask for strategies, unless maybe they're wanting actual lesson plans, which is a different thing to want.
Things I took as strategies that I hope will inform my lesson/unit planning: --use multiple text forms (e.g. visual, written, oral)when giving instruction (which my classroom doesn't do enough, especially visual) --ask students to use multiple text forms in assignments (e.g. don't assess students only on reading or writing--which is mostly done in my ELA class; this is another thing we should think about rectifying) --create a text-rich classroom in terms of design (e.g. word walls) --give instructions in written and oral forms --repeat yourself both literally (using the same words you just said) and through paraphrase (both of which I know neither I nor my mentor do often enough) --summarize student-produced comments and ask them if you are accurate in repeating what they said --provide enough wait time --listen to students' comments; don't cut them off --prompt students to expound upon what they've said --teach cognates and morphological analysis when you do vocabulary instruction --if you're teaching cognates or morphological analysis, make it explicit that that's what you're doing; don't assume students will make the connection themselves --think about students' background knowledge when you pick texts and be ready to scaffold/provide cultural information they need to know to understand the text --give students multiple opportunities to talk --figure out ways for students to practice using vocabulary taught --teach vocabulary both for depth and breadth, not just breadth --try to incorporate both IC conversations and IRE, not only IRE --think about developing students' language ability, not only their content knowledge
People have made some great point already, so I’ll highlight a few that I particularly agree with. Not having the text in time was difficult and I felt like really threw me off for the week. I need to read, write, listen, and talk in order to understand even basic things (I benefit from ELL strategies most definitely), so beyond the handouts, I wasn’t able to read a whole lot. My book arrived Thursday as well, so I can now go back and catch up, which I think will solidify certain points for me that are now a little bit fuzzy. That being said, the exercises that asked us to analyze texts and those that asked us to create a lesson plan with ELLs in mind were the most useful part of the course for me. I have maintained a real appreciation for people learning a new language since I studied abroad in college, but this class helped me remember my successes and challenges more clearly and made me think much more about the many subtleties and challenges that are present in all languages. The group work in content areas was also very helpful. It made me realize things that science naturally has going for it and limitations that could be addressed. As for all of the acronyms, I really like the “Teaching English Language Learners: Acronyms, Theorists, Methods, Theories, etc.” handout, but I wonder if the list could be arrange sequentially in the order that the items will be presented in class? It could even be developed into a longer handout with lines next to each term for notes. I felt like I had to go back and forth a lot between the slides, my notebook, and this list during class, so at least having the terms in some kind of order would have helped. Thank you for a good week, Travis
I really liked Travis's suggestion that the handout with the compilation of methods and theories, were it sequentially organized to correspond with the course, could have been really helpful. It also might have been a useful and practical way to organize the course. The lesson planning activity was practically helpful, though like I think Aaron mentioned, I had a hard time thinking of a lesson to plan around David Copperfield especially since I was not familiar with him in the first place. In the future, (I don't know if this is feasible), but it might have been helpful to have us each bring in an old lesson plan. We would still get into our content area groups, but we would just pick one of our old lesson plans to re-work (much like the final assignment). In this way, we don't spend as much time coming up with a plan, and instead spend time on the part of lesson planning that the course is directly related to: the teaching of ELLs. Also to echo those above, watching learners try to learn on the video was very helpful in pushing me to examine what goes on in our learning minds from a meta-level. Finally, I thought that having us look back and think about how we learned languages was a helpful short exercise. It was also helpful and interesting to hear how my classmates' experiences as learners (and their respective learning styles) differed so much from my own. Not to call out Travis, (but I am calling out Travis), when he commented during the discussion on "Staying Fat..." that he was grateful for those first questions before jumping into the later ones, it was like a little lightbulb went on. I realized, belatedly, dumbly, yet again: Oh yeah! Everybody doesn't have the same comfort level as me, the same weaknesses or strengths. I hadn't even been couching the activity as being an "English" activity until he brought up that point. Were we discussing a Science article, however, I might have realized I felt the same way.
I found the course in itself to be quite helpful considering my lack of teaching experience and my lack of ELL exposure. The various vocabulary strategies were helpful also and I'm sure the final assessment will give me the opportunity to better incorporate ELLs into my lesson plans.
I would just like to know how I can learn how to speak Spanish outside of taking a course since I really don't have the time right now. I would like to be a bilingual teacher some day. I love attempting to communicate with my students in their L1.
Overall, I feel that this course raised my level of awareness and challenged me to consider my priorities. If urban youth and ELLs do not have the same vocabulary as suburban youth, then I should naturally be spending more time on explicit vocabulary instruction. More generally, I wonder about how to instill a love of reading in my ELL students. What sort of texts might make the difference to them? As Political Pearl wrote, I also want to know how I can improve my Spanish after already taking it in a classroom setting, both in college and high school. Where can I practice it? I am certainly too embarrassed to speak in front of my kids except for isolated words.
Most of what needs to be said has been done already. However, I would like to add that I found the writing of a group lesson plan to be a good idea, but was frustrated with the materials we were given to use. That being said, I would recommend having us bring in a text book or something of that nature to look at and discuss in our small groups. This way, we as a group can decide what the most pressing issue is with our certain text and how we could help our ELL students through those lessons.
I appreciated the class and the chance to complicate my understanding of the students who sit in front of me every day. While working on my final, I have been delighted to discover how many of sheltered instruction's basic techniques seem likely to enhance learning for all students.
I do still have questions about becoming ELL certified. In the future, as long as TEP students are required to take an ELL module, why not make it a little longer and orchestrate the additional certification? It would, I think, be especially appreciated by us humanities types who aren't always in demand solely on the basis of our subject area proficiencies.
I find any class that requires me to think through the individual needs of my students and adapt my practice accordingly incredibly useful. I feel that even for my native-speakers I have begun to think through the more logical order of learning material or introducing objectives so that it is accessible for all students. While I find myself confident that I can make modifications that benefit ELLs, I am not as certain when these modifications are beneficial for native-speakers or when I have sidelined them. Of course they will go along with the lesson but if the pacing/momentum of the lesson feels slow or overly drawn out for them, we also have a problem. I agree with Matt that I am slightly perplexed by a course that seems to skim the surface in a week and doesn't exactly pave the road to certification. Truly a week of a course adds up in my mind to the equivalent of reading a chapter of a textbook.
This class has made me really think about how I can deliver my lessons in a way that ALL my students can benefit from them. And it has occurred to me that I haven't been lesson planning in consideration of my ELL students. They make up at least one quarter of my classroom, and my mentor teacher and I never had a discussion about how to help these students. The texts that we deal with in my class are very difficult to access, and I've come to see that good instruction that takes ELL students into account could only help my regular students to perform better as well. The final assignment, for example, showed me that there are so many ways to help ELL students and my native-English-speaking students to get the most out of each lesson.
First of all, thanks Jean for posting the strategies you learned. They were really helpful. Maybe that could be a new post for next year's class. Overall, the class did change the way I viewed my use of text in the classroom. I now have a much greater appreciation for the difficulty of some of our research and news-article related assignments for ELL students. I also have acquired one more reason to encourage more pairs and group work in my classroom and provide structures and tasks that encourage equal participation among all group members.
I echo many of the suggestions noted above. I agree with Ben and others that a greater emphasis on praxis would have been more helpful. Maybe Prof. White could have given us each a piece of text and modeled for us the types of outlining/summarizing strategies we should be teaching our students. Second, as Travis said, I enjoyed the time in our content areas and the brainstorming session about the specific challenges and advantages to ELLs that our subject area presents. The difficulty of the text, however, was completely unrealistic and distracted from the activity. As Aaron said, we spent most of the time worrying about how to create a lesson, instead of how to modify it for ELL students. It would be extremely helpful if we could start with a lesson plan and grade level text and modify from there. It would also be very helpful to see examples of original lesson plans that have been effectively modified for ELL students. Analyzing the difference between the two would be highly beneficial for understanding the types of modifications I might want to incorporate into my own plans.
I'm just trying to see if this works.
ReplyDelete-Jen
I'm not seeing the problem other people were having. If you can't post here, just email me and Claire.
ReplyDelete-Jen
Not having reviewed my notes, I will say that one issue I have with this course has been an issue I've encountered in other modules, too. It's probably a problem of only having a few days to cover a big subject: A lot of time is spent on the broad, theoretical, table of contents level, but not a whole lot on actual, usable strategies. Some, to be sure, but I think the balance is way off.
ReplyDeleteAll the data about ELLs in the first day... it was good, but this group does not need to be convinced so thoroughly that ELLs have reading problems and need special instruction. It would be great if a lot more time could be spent on strategies and applications. There were so many bullet points that said "use many tools and strategies" but were not followed by examples.
The practical things we learned were useful, and I'm not saying that none of the overview and theory was useful -- it was. But tip the scales toward specific things we can use in practice.
The videos were interesting, for example, and I think we could have done more with them, in terms of designing activities around them -- treating them as case studies, perhaps. Seeing actual readers and thinking about actual practices is, at least for me, a much more effective way to internalize the broad stuff.
I found the subject matter of the course very interesting. Although all the acronyms became a little tiresome after a while, I do not see how that can be changed too much if they are used "in the trade".
ReplyDeleteHaving little experience with ELLs myself, I do resonate to Ben's point above that more video follow up would have been especially helpful and, for me, more video of ELL classes where the students caused the teacher to have to adjust instruction to teach to EO and ELL students in the same room.
I agree with Ben too that there is much material here for such a short course.
What was most helpful was the different way of thinking about vocabulary. My mentor tends to pick out what I used to think of as the hardest words and now think about as the tier 3 words. The idea of spending more effort on the tier 2 words will improve our teaching.
ReplyDeleteThinking specific language objectives for lessons also seems like a good idea but I'm less confident that I know how to go about doing this.
Regarding the "use many strategies" point, this is something that has come up in a couple classes I've taken and it seems that in some cases teachers assume that presenting something in several ways will help students when in fact using many strategies ends up reducing wait time and overwhelming students to the point where they can't get even one strategy well. Presenting material with redundancy is good, as long as it is done thoughtfully.
I appreciate how you acknowledged the less than optimal scheduling and made the best of the situation.
I appreciated the opportunity in the last two days to work within our content areas to work on designing instruction and assessment. That being said, I think I would have benefited from more concrete directions, suggestions, and scaffolding.
ReplyDeleteI feel like my group spent much of the time trying to figure out what to teach with the Dickens text, and as a result, did not get to spend as much time thinking specifically how to make the lesson accessible to ELL's. If we had been given less material and specific content, language and content goals to meet, or perhaps even an unmodified lesson to revise, I think that would have been a more productive activity for me.
On a smaller point, when referring to parts of the Echevarria and Graves in class, it would be helpful to cite specific pages or passages, so that we can go back to the text to look at those concrete examples. Ideally, we would all have a grasp of the reading, but given the pace of the class, it would be of help to highlight some of the useful examples for us, so that we can return to them later.
I agree with Ben. I feel that many of us came in open to the idea that ELLs would need additional assistance. I would have loved more concrete examples of what that assistance would look like.
ReplyDeleteEven though I found the Dickens exercise a little frustrating, the class overall made me think about my teaching in a completely new dimension. I've already seen how it influences my teaching; perhaps this direct effect is the result of taking a module like this once we've had some experience and are able to implement new ideas more quickly. I would suggest that instructors talk to the people who teach our module on learning for diverse abilities to make sure each course can be explicit about what we're getting from one and not from the other, since it seemed that we ended up talking a lot about the similarities between teaching for ELL's and teaching for all students.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we don't need as much explaining regarding why ELLs need more assistance. I did, however, appreciate the overview of theorists. I encountered some of those names in my Literacy & Linguistics class at the Univ. of Arkansas last year, but repetition of information helps me to remember it, so I didn't mind hearing about L1 & L2 theories. I agree that more could have been done with the videos. I also agree that teaching us strategies to use in the classroom is good--but I think the course did give us some strategies that, because they seemed so simple or "common sense" or "common to all learners" that they appeared not to be strategies. I think that even though the ideas presented are common both to struggling readers and ELLs, that is actually a good/great thing, because I can kill two birds with one stone in terms of planning my instruction based on these principles. I also think that, because these ideas are good for all students, they are easy to blow off as not specific enough but, when I actually looked at my own (or my mentor teacher's) instruction through the eyes of these strategies, I got a better idea that these things really are actual strategies -- such as my noticing that our classroom is not literacy-rich or noticing when my mentor or I did not provide wait time.
ReplyDeleteI also think that, given the lack of research I have been able to find on effective middle & high school instruction for ELLs, the course did a good job. I actually came into the course expecting it to be worse than I felt it was.
I think one really helpful thing would be to get the course text information out sooner so that people can have access to the readings if they are able to do them--my book did not arrive until Thursday, so that was frustrating. There were strategies outlined in the readings that I was able to do, but I think because many people either didn't have the text because it hadn't arrived or didn't read the text because of finals, they didn't realize that there were strategies--so maybe citing the text-given strategies on powerpoints would be helpful in that respect.
I knew that I was learning things from the course whenever I talked to my mentor teacher and when I began immediately noticing things she or I could change in instruction to better suit ELLs.
So, to end, I'm not totally clear on what people want when they ask for strategies, unless maybe they're wanting actual lesson plans, which is a different thing to want.
Things I took as strategies that I hope will inform my lesson/unit planning:
--use multiple text forms (e.g. visual, written, oral)when giving instruction (which my classroom doesn't do enough, especially visual)
--ask students to use multiple text forms in assignments (e.g. don't assess students only on reading or writing--which is mostly done in my ELA class; this is another thing we should think about rectifying)
--create a text-rich classroom in terms of design (e.g. word walls)
--give instructions in written and oral forms
--repeat yourself both literally (using the same words you just said) and through paraphrase (both of which I know neither I nor my mentor do often enough)
--summarize student-produced comments and ask them if you are accurate in repeating what they said
--provide enough wait time
--listen to students' comments; don't cut them off
--prompt students to expound upon what they've said
--teach cognates and morphological analysis when you do vocabulary instruction
--if you're teaching cognates or morphological analysis, make it explicit that that's what you're doing; don't assume students will make the connection themselves
--think about students' background knowledge when you pick texts and be ready to scaffold/provide cultural information they need to know to understand the text
--give students multiple opportunities to talk
--figure out ways for students to practice using vocabulary taught
--teach vocabulary both for depth and breadth, not just breadth
--try to incorporate both IC conversations and IRE, not only IRE
--think about developing students' language ability, not only their content knowledge
People have made some great point already, so I’ll highlight a few that I particularly agree with. Not having the text in time was difficult and I felt like really threw me off for the week. I need to read, write, listen, and talk in order to understand even basic things (I benefit from ELL strategies most definitely), so beyond the handouts, I wasn’t able to read a whole lot. My book arrived Thursday as well, so I can now go back and catch up, which I think will solidify certain points for me that are now a little bit fuzzy. That being said, the exercises that asked us to analyze texts and those that asked us to create a lesson plan with ELLs in mind were the most useful part of the course for me. I have maintained a real appreciation for people learning a new language since I studied abroad in college, but this class helped me remember my successes and challenges more clearly and made me think much more about the many subtleties and challenges that are present in all languages. The group work in content areas was also very helpful. It made me realize things that science naturally has going for it and limitations that could be addressed. As for all of the acronyms, I really like the “Teaching English Language Learners: Acronyms, Theorists, Methods, Theories, etc.” handout, but I wonder if the list could be arrange sequentially in the order that the items will be presented in class? It could even be developed into a longer handout with lines next to each term for notes. I felt like I had to go back and forth a lot between the slides, my notebook, and this list during class, so at least having the terms in some kind of order would have helped. Thank you for a good week, Travis
ReplyDeleteI really liked Travis's suggestion that the handout with the compilation of methods and theories, were it sequentially organized to correspond with the course, could have been really helpful. It also might have been a useful and practical way to organize the course. The lesson planning activity was practically helpful, though like I think Aaron mentioned, I had a hard time thinking of a lesson to plan around David Copperfield especially since I was not familiar with him in the first place. In the future, (I don't know if this is feasible), but it might have been helpful to have us each bring in an old lesson plan. We would still get into our content area groups, but we would just pick one of our old lesson plans to re-work (much like the final assignment). In this way, we don't spend as much time coming up with a plan, and instead spend time on the part of lesson planning that the course is directly related to: the teaching of ELLs. Also to echo those above, watching learners try to learn on the video was very helpful in pushing me to examine what goes on in our learning minds from a meta-level. Finally, I thought that having us look back and think about how we learned languages was a helpful short exercise. It was also helpful and interesting to hear how my classmates' experiences as learners (and their respective learning styles) differed so much from my own. Not to call out Travis, (but I am calling out Travis), when he commented during the discussion on "Staying Fat..." that he was grateful for those first questions before jumping into the later ones, it was like a little lightbulb went on. I realized, belatedly, dumbly, yet again: Oh yeah! Everybody doesn't have the same comfort level as me, the same weaknesses or strengths. I hadn't even been couching the activity as being an "English" activity until he brought up that point. Were we discussing a Science article, however, I might have realized I felt the same way.
ReplyDeleteI found the course in itself to be quite helpful considering my lack of teaching experience and my lack of ELL exposure. The various vocabulary strategies were helpful also and I'm sure the final assessment will give me the opportunity to better incorporate ELLs into my lesson plans.
ReplyDeleteI would just like to know how I can learn how to speak Spanish outside of taking a course since I really don't have the time right now. I would like to be a bilingual teacher some day. I love attempting to communicate with my students in their L1.
Overall, I feel that this course raised my level of awareness and challenged me to consider my priorities. If urban youth and ELLs do not have the same vocabulary as suburban youth, then I should naturally be spending more time on explicit vocabulary instruction. More generally, I wonder about how to instill a love of reading in my ELL students. What sort of texts might make the difference to them? As Political Pearl wrote, I also want to know how I can improve my Spanish after already taking it in a classroom setting, both in college and high school. Where can I practice it? I am certainly too embarrassed to speak in front of my kids except for isolated words.
ReplyDeleteMost of what needs to be said has been done already. However, I would like to add that I found the writing of a group lesson plan to be a good idea, but was frustrated with the materials we were given to use. That being said, I would recommend having us bring in a text book or something of that nature to look at and discuss in our small groups. This way, we as a group can decide what the most pressing issue is with our certain text and how we could help our ELL students through those lessons.
ReplyDeleteBetsy
I appreciated the class and the chance to complicate my understanding of the students who sit in front of me every day. While working on my final, I have been delighted to discover how many of sheltered instruction's basic techniques seem likely to enhance learning for all students.
ReplyDeleteI do still have questions about becoming ELL certified. In the future, as long as TEP students are required to take an ELL module, why not make it a little longer and orchestrate the additional certification? It would, I think, be especially appreciated by us humanities types who aren't always in demand solely on the basis of our subject area proficiencies.
Matt
I find any class that requires me to think through the individual needs of my students and adapt my practice accordingly incredibly useful. I feel that even for my native-speakers I have begun to think through the more logical order of learning material or introducing objectives so that it is accessible for all students. While I find myself confident that I can make modifications that benefit ELLs, I am not as certain when these modifications are beneficial for native-speakers or when I have sidelined them. Of course they will go along with the lesson but if the pacing/momentum of the lesson feels slow or overly drawn out for them, we also have a problem. I agree with Matt that I am slightly perplexed by a course that seems to skim the surface in a week and doesn't exactly pave the road to certification. Truly a week of a course adds up in my mind to the equivalent of reading a chapter of a textbook.
ReplyDeleteThis class has made me really think about how I can deliver my lessons in a way that ALL my students can benefit from them. And it has occurred to me that I haven't been lesson planning in consideration of my ELL students. They make up at least one quarter of my classroom, and my mentor teacher and I never had a discussion about how to help these students. The texts that we deal with in my class are very difficult to access, and I've come to see that good instruction that takes ELL students into account could only help my regular students to perform better as well. The final assignment, for example, showed me that there are so many ways to help ELL students and my native-English-speaking students to get the most out of each lesson.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks Jean for posting the strategies you learned. They were really helpful. Maybe that could be a new post for next year's class. Overall, the class did change the way I viewed my use of text in the classroom. I now have a much greater appreciation for the difficulty of some of our research and news-article related assignments for ELL students. I also have acquired one more reason to encourage more pairs and group work in my classroom and provide structures and tasks that encourage equal participation among all group members.
ReplyDeleteI echo many of the suggestions noted above. I agree with Ben and others that a greater emphasis on praxis would have been more helpful. Maybe Prof. White could have given us each a piece of text and modeled for us the types of outlining/summarizing strategies we should be teaching our students. Second, as Travis said, I enjoyed the time in our content areas and the brainstorming session about the specific challenges and advantages to ELLs that our subject area presents. The difficulty of the text, however, was completely unrealistic and distracted from the activity. As Aaron said, we spent most of the time worrying about how to create a lesson, instead of how to modify it for ELL students. It would be extremely helpful if we could start with a lesson plan and grade level text and modify from there. It would also be very helpful to see examples of original lesson plans that have been effectively modified for ELL students. Analyzing the difference between the two would be highly beneficial for understanding the types of modifications I might want to incorporate into my own plans.