Mini Group Facilitation

Posted on February 23, 2016 by suriti singh

Lesson Plan

Topic: Strategies to use with ELL students in the classroom

My Inquiry Question: How do teachers provide the support that the English Language Learners need while still meeting the needs of all other students in the classroom?

Article: Alone, Confused, and Frustrated: Developing Empathy and Strategies for Working with English Language Learners by Gay N. Washburn

Plan: Have group read the article prior to an in-class group discussion on Monday, February 22, 2016. Discuss the article- what they thought of the article if there were any points they liked in the article or did not like.

-Move on to my personal questions, such as: Do they find it a challenge to work with or help ELL students or even students who seek help in any other way?

-What strategies have they tried? Did these strategies work or not? How does their SA address the need of such students? And how do their SA’s assess these students?

In the article, some pre-service teachers feel like they are not trained properly in their programs to teach ELL students; what are the groups feeling about this on our program.

-I will give them the background about my students, and see if they can give me any tips on teaching and assessing students.

Reference:

Washburn, G. N. (2008). Alone, Confused, and Frustrated: Developing Empathy and Strategies for Working with English Language Learners. The Clearing House, 81(6), 247–250. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/30190007

Post Group Facilitation Debrief

I think my group discussion went well yesterday. Despite it being a small group, everyone was really engaged with it. I guess because as teacher candidates, we are seeing ELL students in our practicum classrooms, therefore, we are exposed to and are required to use differentiated instruction on our practicum sites. The group discussed what strategies to use. Some examples were: try to talk slowly; use different teaching techniques as every student learns differently; so be aware of who are the visual learners; kinesthetic learners; and auditory learners.  Also, a very interesting suggestion was brought up in the article, which the group agreed with. This is that it is important to learn a second language so we are aware of what it feels like to be in an environment where we do not understand or speak the first language. Other than that, we should always be compassionate even if it is getting a little frustrating. We are here to support and teach every single student, not to discourage them.

 

 

 

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A little about me

Posted on February 22, 2016 by suriti singh

Hello, World! My name is Suriti Singh. I am currently a student at the Bachelor of Education program offered at the University of British Columbia. I am part of the Personalized Learning-Technology cohort. I am also a teacher-candidate for a primary grade classroom here in the Lower Mainland.
Before entering this program, I received my Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology. My undergraduate major grew a desire for me to learn about diverse cultures. This led me to become a travel and food enthusiast.
As I was growing up, I knew that I wanted to work with children. Yet, I did not know what field to choose. However, one day I decided to go volunteer at an elementary school, and from that very moment, I knew I wanted to become a teacher.
In my ideal world, I would love to teach in Canada and internationally. I would like to share all of the educational learnings and strategies that I have acquired from this program with the world.
My teaching philosophy consists of that active and positive learning requires the collaboration between teacher and students, therefore, it is important to connect with your students to help them achieve great education and success.
On this blog, you will find my journey up to date as a teacher candidate, along with some helpful resources.

“Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning” – Robert John Meehan

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Strategies-Reply to previous post!

Posted on February 8, 2016 by suriti singh

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned that sometimes students, whether be ELL or non-ELL students may require a push; The question that arose from this was what is meant by “push”. I thought of answering this question based on what I have observed from practicum.

By push I mean that as teachers/ teacher candidates we should encourage our students to try hard. We need to assure to them that they are capable of doing their work and are indeed superb students.
We need to constantly remind our students that they themselves need to do their best to get to the desired level they want to be at. We need to remind them that at times they will struggle, but they must understand that it takes perseverance to get through it all. Students need to be challenged and we need to stretch their minds.
As for some of the students that I have been working with who want that constant attention, we need to remind them that they are proficient of being independent. We need to figure out ways of how to get them enthusiastic of starting and finishing their work without continuously relying on adult supervision.

In the next few weeks I will be sharing some of the techniques that I have been learning and using from practicum and research studies to promote effective working strategies in the classroom with ELL and non-ELL students.

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ELL Blog Resource

Posted on February 5, 2016 by suriti singh

ELL Blog Resource:

While I was searching for research studies; journals; articles related to my inquiry question, I came across this wonderful blog. Despite the fact that this blog has been designed/ written by a teacher in the States, this blog offers great strategies for K-12 teachers and ELL students.

Haynes, K. ELL Strategies that Work for the Whole Class. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/ell-strategies-work-whole-class.

Kim Haynes has created a great blog which is a great resource for differentiated instruction; specifically focusing on English language learners. She suggests some great strategies that we can use with our students. Even though we might have seen some of these approaches before, she has taken the time to describe each tactic by providing some great examples. This makes it easy for those of us who are having difficulty in assisting some students and are planning to use some of these strategies in our classrooms. Even though this post looks at about 12 different strategies, the three that stood out to me the most were:

“TheTriple exposure” – You teach a concept using 3 ways: Introduce it/ teach it/ review it.

Teach students to “Stop & Think”- Here students review their own work. Kind of like a self-reflection piece.

And my favourite one: “Celebrate each student as unique”- This will not only allow ELL’s to feel safe in the classroom, but they will also feel welcomed which will lead to confident.

More details can be found on the blog below, along with some additional resources:

 

http://www.teachhub.com/ell-strategies-work-whole-class

 

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Practicum reflection related to inquiry

Posted on January 31, 2016 by suriti singh

Last week on Thursday – January the 28th on my weekly observation I noticed one or two things happening in the classroom that are related to my inquiry question. My inquiry question is How do teachers provide the support that the English Language Learners need while still meeting the needs of all other students in the classroom? Well let me tell you this much, last week’s visit left me with lots of questions to think about.

We have a few students in the classroom that are ELLs. What I noticed was that not all of them require the one on one help as they did before. I definitely see progress with some of them. However, I have a been finding it a challenge with a few of them. What I noticed was that these students are academically strong, but they just require that push. Until they do not get your attention, they do not give their 100%. However, once they have you standing beside them, you asking them to do their work, then all of a sudden you see them doing an amazing job. Do they do this because perhaps they lack confidence? Or is is just because they like the attention? These questions have been bothering me. Due to this, I even had a non-ELL student in the classroom ask me if I was one of the other student’s helper (good thing the ELL student did not hear this). I had to explain that no, I am here for every single student that requires my assistance, and that specific student had their hand up.

I am hoping through research and by looking at other studies, I will find out the reasoning(s) for this.

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Inquiry proposal

Posted on January 18, 2016 by suriti singh

Inquiry Proposal:

http://prezi.com/buczt8cixkk9/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

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Building positive skills for ELLs & ourselves

Posted on December 3, 2015 by suriti singh

My inquiry questions is: How do teachers provide the support that the ELLs need while still meeting the needs of all other students in the classroom?

One of the resources that I really found useful for this inquiry question is titled The Positive Peer Effects of Classroom Diversity: Exploring the Relationship between English Language Learner Classmates and Socioemotional Skills in Early Elementary School by Michael A. Gottfried.

Gottfried, M.A. (2014). The Positive Peer Effects of Classroom Diversity: Exploring the Relationship between English Language Learner Classmates and Socioemotional Skills in Early Elementary School. Elementary School Journal, 1115(1), 22-48.

This article focuses on policies and practices that teachers can use to promote positive socioemotional skills on both Engish language learners and other students in the classroom (whether they require differentiated instruction or not). What really stood out to me from this article was that it talks about “how teachers can be each other’s resources”; Teachers are barely getting any resources for ELLs, but by helping each other out, we are problem soloving and working towards the same goal, which is to help support the students in our classroom.
This article was relatable for me as I am doing my practicum in a kindergarten classroom and coincidently this study was conducted on kindergarteners and first graders. This article will definitely be beneficial for my inquiry assignment.

 

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