Mod 11 Mid-Course Reflection and Self-Assessment

So far in this course I have learned and been reminded that language as a system is more than just words on paper. Sometimes as a teacher you get caught up in the lesson objectives and how much you have to get through based on the curriculum that you forget to do what is best for each student as an individual. As a teacher you should make your lessons to match each student's experience in some way. Whether it is using visuals that match vocabulary words or having audio books that read to the students to allow them to hear the word being used in a correct way so each student can relate. It is important to ensure that different cultures are being used in each lesson. By including different cultures, it allows each student to learn and appreciate what their peers experience. By including these cultures in the classroom, the students learn how to be sensitive to different cultures and be more informed. Learning about the language being used inside the student's household plays a huge part of students learning. Being able to give strategies to parents that can help learn English language at home adds to the comfortability of students hearing it in the classroom. For example one strategy is allowing students to watch a tv show that they are interested in but having the words show on the screen (captions) so students can see them, hear them and relate them to what is going on in the show. Having understanding of home culture is a huge advantage for the teacher because they can make lessons that relate to the culture. Having daily linguistic routines helps students hear and speak normal greetings in the English language. Having this as a daily routine and applying these words to other cultures greetings make it a welcoming environment in your classroom. Having different languages in the content area lessons only helps the learning environment. This helps by making sure each ell student is seeing their native language in the lesson allowing them to feel comfortable to engage in the lesson. Scaffolding lessons is very important to the learning environment because it allows the students to learn in a more manageable workload. Having lessons broken down into smaller lessons allows each student to get mastery of each piece to get build each lesson to get to the big picture of each lesson. Involving lessons that use high-quality early childhood literacy builds interactive lessons that build foundational skills such as vocabulary, comprehension and phonemic awareness. This leads to building success in social emotional skills and confidence in being engaged in each lesson. I have used structured speaking and listening activities such as think pair share activities and role playing activities that get students engaged and feel confident by being able to learn from their peers that speak the native language as well as allows them to teach their culture to their peers in certain activities. This allows each student to build more confidence that leads to building a more comfortable classroom environment.