Blog #2 Problem Identification and Reflection

Teaching Issues:

I observed an ELL reading class for this assignment. The teacher had a book on the projector from a website called starfall.com. The teacher started out with the title page displayed. One problem I noticed was the large number of students in the classroom. There were thirty-two students in a fairly small classroom. Even though the classroom was small I noticed some of the students in the back straining to see the screen. The teacher would ask questions about the title and illustrations on the title page to build background knowledge and have students make predictions. When the teacher ask a question and students would raise their hands (about four or five students per question), the teacher would then call on a student that did not have their hand raised every time. I wonder if the teacher is doing this for a academic reason or a behavior modification reason? The seating arrangement for this classroom was in groups of four. Most of the students were sitting with their own ethnic groups, although there were a couple of mixed groups. Most of the girls were sitting up front and the boys were sitting in the back. The teacher used repetition many times in the lesson. The main characters were a boy and his father and the teacher repeatedly asked who the characters were and talked about character traits. One problem the teacher had with this class being so large is keeping all the student's attention. Several students were talking, drawing, or passing around paper during the lesson. Several times the students would just call out an answer to a question posed by the teacher, some times the teacher would admonish the students for this and at other times the teacher would not say anything. I think the students are getting a mixed message about what the procedure for answering questions is.

Second Language Acquisition:

I observed a lot of repetition in the lesson, especially with academic vocabulary such as character, setting, conflict and solution. The teacher also explained many of the words in the story or asked the students questions about the words to ensure their understanding of the story. The teacher also asked some students to explain the meaning of some words to other students in their native language. As the students read the story in a whole class read aloud, they were filling out a story web graphic organizer. As they read the story the teacher provided scaffolding to the students by telling them which part of the story web to fill in at certain times in the lesson after they had talked about that particular part of the story, such as character or setting. For example the teacher would tell them to list a certain character then to write an adjective to describe that character. I noticed that the teacher would only give them about a minute to fill in the answer. Is that adequate time to fill in an answer for this level of ELL or would more time been better for processing the material and vocabulary? As stated earlier the story was projected onto a screen by a projector and some of the students had to strain to see it. Perhaps it would have been better and more engaging for all students to give each of them a copy of the story to read along with. They could also have taken it home or used it again in class to re-read, thereby gaining fluency with practice.

Ethnographic Perspective:

This class was very diverse with several first languages present. From a surface glance there were Karen, Spanish, Nepali, and Arabic speakers. There was a fairly large range of English proficiency in the classroom as well. A teacher should know the range of proficiency or ELL level of the students in the classroom to best meet their needs. Knowing some of the student's background history is also very beneficial in helping the students acquire the skills necessary to succeed in an American school. The teacher would speak to the Arabic speaking students in their native language as the teacher speaks Arabic as a first language. The teacher also had a Nepali students that has a higher level of English proficiency that other students to translate some words into Nepali. This creates a learning bridge between the students native language and English. One problem I noticed is that the Karen (Burmese) and the Spanish speaking students were not told to do this or given any encouragement by the teacher to do this and were therefore somewhat left on their own without the benefit of any translation. There was not a clear picture of any particular culture being integrated into this particular lesson although the story the teacher was using was based on a myth. There would be many opportunities to incorporate other cultures into a unit using myths from other cultures.

MTSU Honor Statement:

This assignment/assessment was solely written by me. In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use. I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/or appropriate legal action being taken against me.

Sirci Stinson

9-22-10

Blog #1 Classroom Observation

I observed an ELL sheltered Social Studies class on Monday September 13, 2010. This class was taught by my mentor teacher, a gifted ELL teacher. The students in this class are classified as ELL level 3 or 4, my the MNPS classification system. This system is based on the student's ELDA score or language testing at the ELL offices.

Teaching:

The purpose of this lesson was to review vocabulary words that pertained to the unit on Prehistoric Times the students had been studying the past week. The students had a sheet of paper in front of them with three columns across. The first column had the words, the second column had a brief definition, and the last column was blank. The teacher told the students that as they went over the words they were to draw a picture that would represent what that word means. While the teacher went over the words, she also drew pictures on the board. In this way the students were making their own picture dictionary of vocabulary words. The teacher would first write a word on the board, then she would ask the students to say the word with her. She would repeat the word word several times with them. She would then ask them what the word means. Several times the students would not answer without prompting. Several times I observed her saying to students "What is this work in Nepali" or Spanish depending on which student she was taking to. She would then explain the words meaning to them in greater detail after one or more students gave a brief answer for "what is this" or "what does this mean".  For example, the teacher had written archaeologist on the board. After the students said this word twice the teacher read the definition on their papers as they read along. Then she said "What do they find?" What do they look for?" "Do they look for Dinosaur bones?" Students say yes. They she said "What do bones become sometimes?" A student said "fossils" . The teacher then talked about fossils, another of their vocabulary words. Then she said "Who finds fossils?". The students then answered "archaeologists". The students were very excited when they got the answer right. They were also very excited to say the words in their language. I wondered if this made them more interested in the lesson, it seemed that this was the case.

Community:

The evidence of community was not at first evident as I observed. I began to see the communities however when the teacher began asking the student how to say words in their languages. I observed small learning communities within the classroom. Whenever the Nepali language was brought up the answers came from the front right of the room. The Spanish language came from the middle, the Burmese from the back right, and the Arabic language from the left of the room. It seemed the small learning communities has congealed around language. I would like to ask if the students have assigned seats, if so did the teacher seat them according to language on purpose, or did the students themselves segregate themselves into these groups? The desk were arranged in pairs and I noticed that boys and girls did not sit together in the pairs. Even thought there is some separation in the classroom based on language and gender the students all worked together to help one another answer questions and critique each others drawings. The members of this classroom like to talk and often shout out answers and questions without any prompting. The fact that this is a sheltered ELL social studies class without any native English speakers in it gives the students a sense of security to speak freely, accents and all without being conscience of speaking the word "wrong". In other words I do not feel that they are concerned with their accents like they would be in an inclusion classroom. There was one student that was trying to get attention by "cutting up" in class, saying inappropriate things and playing around. The other students as well as the teacher as a cohesive group simply ignored this student and continued with their lesson. At one point the teacher told this student to stop talking out loud and the lesson progressed. The students had either already come to a spoken or unspoken agreement about how to handle this particular student.

Ethnographic Perspective:

To an outside observer, especially one that has never been in an ELL classroom this class would look like chaos. The students are answering questions with raising their hands, several are calling out answers at once, and some are taking to each other. Yet, this chaos is actually an active leaning environment for these students. They were all, except one, very engaged in the lesson and very intent on speaking the words correctly. This class is very diverse, but the students enjoyed hearing how the vocabulary words were said in other languages. There was not any competition visible in the classroom, only students working together towards a common goal of learning the vocabulary words in English. From what I observed, if a newcomer came into this classroom community they would be incorporated into the group with support from the other students. The new student may think they are being overwhelmed with all the talking for a while, but I would think after the initial shock they would begin to feel at home in a short amount of time. Even though this group of students are diverse, there is a feeling of a classroom community, security, and purpose that overcomes all the prejudices and shyness that often comes when diverse groups are together.

MTSU  Honor Statement:
This assignment/assessment was solely written by me. In no way have I plagiarized (represented the work of another as my own) or otherwise violated the copyright laws and academic conventions of fair use. I know that violations of this policy may result in my being dismissed from Middle Tennessee State University and/or appropriate legal action being taken against me.
Signed
Sirci Stinson
9-15-10

It's me Sirci and I am setting up my first ever blog. Here is a little information about me. I teach 6th grade reading/language arts at McMurray Middle School in Antioch, TN. I love teaching. In previous lives (a few years ago) I was in advertising and owned a car lot. I finally decided, after another one of those I kinda wish I would wreak my car so I don't have to go to work mornings, to follow my heart and not my head about my career choice. I went back to MTSU to complete my degree and here I am four years into my teaching career working on my masters. My motto is stolen from the "life is good" company. Love what you do and do what you love. This is how I feel about teaching. I am also lucky enough to be married to a great guy and I have three wonderful kids. The two boys are 21 and 15, and my little girl is 12 ( not so little anymore). We live in a log cabin in Nolensville with three horses, a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a fish, and several species of wildlife. Well, I am off to learn more about this blogging stuff. Here's to a happy life, Sirci.