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