The Importance of Mulitmodality
Comments(1) Wednesdays class really struck a chord with me with the importance of using Multi-modality in the classroom. This is not done only to help ELL students but also to help engage all students!
Chelsey brought in a teacher from California to lecture us on different strategies on how to help teach ELL students. She works in classes that are comprised of at least 50% ELL students. We went through an exercise with vocabulary that made us write the word, give the definition of it, try, draw it and then use it as an example in a sentence. She also gave us sentence structure worksheets and shared stories with us from her classroom experiences so far. What I was most impressed with was that the majority of her strategies that she has used so far have been self taught.
Over the past couple months we have been been completing our readings, most of us hopefully, and giving presentations on what we have read. I know, for myself personally, that although I do obtain knowledge when I read, I tend to learn better when it is being explained our exampled and then letting me try and exercise to fully understand the concept. The book that has been assigned, although very knowledgeable, I find has been dry and after reading for a certain period of time I lose focus and interest. This occurred to me during this class. While the exercises Chelsey’s guest brought were simple they were effective. They kept me engaged and interested and also challenged me to think about past knowledge we have learned in the class. It also made me think about how I want to teach. I am a thirty year old man who possibly after an hour of reading needs to take a good break because I know that by that time I will have lost my focus. Now I have to put myself in a teenagers shoes who has been bouncing around from subject to subject, sitting for hours in seats and getting at best five minutes break between some classes. Even if I believe that the subject matter that I am teaching to the kids is interesting they may have already walked into my class completely disengaged. It is up to me, as with every teacher, to implement as many learning strategies as I can in each lesson to help students focus on what is being presented and help them absorb the knowledge and have fun while doing it.
In the end, if I am an adult who needs to break after an hour or so of learning and then expect a teenager to be doing the same thing without changing up my tactics, what business do I have teaching these kids in the first place?
I too, was quite struck by our guest and the insights she had to offer into the complex world of supporting our ELL students. The simplicity and accessibility of all the exercises she shared with us acted as a valuable reminder to me that “multi-modality” doesn’t have to be defined “using the most expensive and complex pieces of technology currently available.” Multi-modality can be achieved by an activity such as the four-square vocabulary exercise, or a worksheet. When a classroom resource is simple, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t an effective tool for learning.
I also agree that it is our responsibility as teachers to find new ways to keep our students engaged – no matter what their learning styles. One of the key ideas I’ve heard several times during these past months of the B’Ed, is that we cannot truly learn a concept until we “see it on the page, hear it orally, and then use it in context.” However, I think the unspoken lesson of this gem, is that some students will need to see something several times, and others will need oral repetition, while a third sect will need to experience the concept more than once before grasping an understanding. It is the role of the teacher to figure out who needs what – and provide lesson plans and activities that support these needs. Utilizing variety, (in my experience), plays a key part in student engagement. If a classroom establishes too much of a routine, students will be able to attend class physically and “go through the motions” without really being mentally and emotionally present. While I do think that some structure is necessary – there is something to be said for throwing a new class activity or worksheet at students to shake them up and bring their focus back into the classroom!