Response to “Language Objectives” and my Practicum
Comments(1) What if the school itself is the driving force between me and my language curriculum? In Himmel’s article “Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners,” it really did provide me with view that truly sees the benefits to implementing academic language in the classrooms for not only ELL learners but also other students. Exercising students speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension is of course beneficial into every class, but what if it seems to difficult to implement in a “manageable elective”. This term “manageable elective” has been coined at my practicum school. It stands to represent courses such as drama, physical education, and art, which are, to quote “programs designed to allow students an opportunity to succeed”. This idea of success in a classroom, has been watered-down to pretty much mean, an non academically challenging class. I also understand why this stigma exists. In my school there is a very high percent of at risk youth. One of the greatest challenges my school faces is attendance. Some of the students at my school have some of the highest suspensions in the whole of BC. So of course, my school wants to provide opportunities for those kids to succeed by offering them classes that are encouraging in the chance that they could thrive in a specific interest. So my predicament lies in the fact that i do want to create an environment where my students can thrive and succeed, but I also want them to feel challenged and learn something. If i start implementing readings, and writing into my class i will not only be met with heavy opposition from the class but also from the school itself. How can i build my students language when these ideas are met with much animosity?
It seems that you’re in a challenging situation, one that doesn’t have an easy or obvious solution. It serves as an excellent reminder that the things we learn from the textbook might not be so easily applicable in the real world. I think, however, that perhaps the key lies in stepping back from the language aspect (which is counterintuitive to be posting on the LLED 360 blog), and focus on the basics first. You could try starting at step one, the relationship with the students, and scaffolding your own practices up and around that. I’m not sure how long you’ll be with the particular class you were talking about, or perhaps it is all of them. The way I would approach it though is to get to know your students – by name, by their interests, by anything that makes them feel a connection to you. Hopefully once they feel they have a relationship with you in this class, their attendance will improve. Simultaneously, try and do multiple different types of activities so that everybody feels they can be good at something at some point. Once they feel more comfortable with you and your class, it may be easier to work in some more challenging language or ideas. If you start somehow working it in through activities and warm-ups, it might not be as abrupt, and the students may feel as though they have a better handle on things, even if it starts out as simply as just learning how to pronounce academic language, or working up to having one character in a skit speaking in low register language and one in high register language. There are a lot of hypothetical things happening in this blog post, but I think the main thing to remember, in any of the classes we’re taking ourselves, is that though there might be one thing we focus on in that class, when we step into our own classrooms we may have to pick and choose what to work on first.