Entry 4: Reflection

This class has impacted my teaching philosophy in several ways. As an aspiring Math teacher, I tend to focus on inspiring students to love and enjoy learning about my content area. After learning more about English language learners and second language methodology, I believe it is equally as important to inspire and motivate ELLs to achieve proficiency in English. It is important to motivate ELLs to participate in the content area classroom just as you much as you need to motivate native English speakers. As Wright (2015, p. 316) states, "effective teachers take advantage of the positive aspects of federal and state policies for ELLs to obtain needed resources and create effective programs." I realize that the efforts made by teachers to support ELLs in their content area classroom can make a great impact on ELL's progress with learning English and learning class content. 

Learning about the variety of program models developed for ELLs is extremely important to me as a future educator. Knowledge of the various programs available for ELLs goes hand in hand with becoming familiar with the speaking, listening and writing strategies discussed in the text book. It is in fact state law that teachers accommodate to their ELL students’ needs, so learning about programs and strategies teachers can implement to help ELLs develop English proficiency are relevant to my future as a content area math teacher. Regardless of the laws concerning ELL instruction, as Wright (2015, p. 117) mentions that "teachers must fully commit to implementing [the programs, or] ELLs will be left behind." Implementing programs and strategies to support ELLs is the responsibility of the teacher and is essential to student learning. I can use the practices I learned about in this course regularly within my content area classroom to support and motivate ELLs in my classroom. 

One of the benefits of this classes format was that students were able to gather and share a wide variety of perspectives and experiences from both English language learners and ELL teachers. The use of the Vblog makes it convenient for students to share and view multiple resources focused on the Second Language Methodology (SLM). 

One of the challenges of this course being online is that deeper discussions concerning SLM topics could be held if the class met as a group. Sometimes, using the online discussion format, responses can be delayed, and discussions of key concepts left unexpanded. Nevertheless, I was able to learn more about course concepts through reading my peers responses and carefully constructing my own responses. 

The way Vblogs were used in this course helped me make connections between course readings and real-life classrooms. The Vblogs helped develop a sense of and online community because after completing an interview and considering the topics discussed in the interviews, it was nice to see how interviewee responses compared to those from my own interview. I also feel that the Vblog assignments not only helped me develop my online writing skills, but also helped me become more proficient with recording and editing videos and sharing them across an online format. Teaching and learning through videos have become more common and is a great skill to become familiar with in the field of education.

Entry 3: Interview with an ELL Teacher

According to Wright (2015), the program Mr. Hernandez describes seems to be an In-Class English Second Language Instruction model. Wright (2015) claims that students in middle grades typically have one or two course periods of ESL which must be taught by a certified ESL instructor. This aligns to the program Mr. Hernandez described at his school. Since Mr. Hernandez mentions that a majority of his students are Hispanic and he is able to translate to in Spanish for them when needed, I can see why it is ideal for him to implement this method of ESL instruction in his classroom. For his Vietnamese student, it may be a little more challenging to follow along, but he still has accommodations in place within the content area classroom to support his learning and understanding of both the content and the English language. I recall stories shared in my peer's interviews with English language learners who learned English in the public school system. Those who spoke less common languages, like Mr. Hernandez's Vietnamese student, were not always able to have a translator or an aid who spoke their native language.

Mr. Hernandez goes on to mention that high stakes testing can inaccurately measure students knowledge and skills of mathematical content since there are language and vocabulary gaps among ELLs and native English language speakers. Wright (2015, p. 125) mentions that tests can be "unreliable measuring instruments because test scores can be affected by a wide variety of factors that have nothing to do with what the test is attempting to measure." Although Mr. Hernandez mentions that content area high stakes testing can be unreliable in measuring students' skills, he claims that high stakes tests like the TELPAS actually motivate students to learn English and move into English only classes.

Entry 2: Interview with an English language learner

Welcome to my second Vblog Entry!

After interviewing Priscilla about her experience learning English in the public school system as a child, I found several connections between what she discusses about her experience and what scholars mention. When Priscilla was asked about her teacher, peers and the activities used to support her in learning English, she mentioned that she mentioned that her teacher was not able to provide full translations, but used pictures to help Priscilla learn English. From Priscilla's description, it sounds like she was placed in a submersion classroom where she had to try her best to remember and understand words in English. She also mentions that some students were pulled out of her class, but she was not. Wright (2015) mentions that many different ESL programs can be present within a school campus. Wright (2015, p. 107) mentions that at some schools where pull-out ESL instruction was offered, some ESL students simply did not receive pull-out instruction. Wright (2015) goes on to discuss how if students do not understand what is being taught in their mainstream class, pull out instruction could have been beneficial for them, yet was not provided. Priscilla mentions that although she did not understand what was being taught some of the time, she had to try her best to remember what words meant. In Priscilla's case, pull-out instruction may have been beneficial according to Wright (2015).

 I also would like to discuss the tension Priscilla describes when it comes to high stakes testing. She mentioned that her teachers seemed so focused on the test scores, that they were not actually able to provide the individual support that English language learners need to succeed. Wright (2015, p.136) mentions that one of the harmful effects high stakes testing can have on ESL students, teachers and entire classrooms is that they create a stressful school environment focused on testing which leads to test anxiety for students. Wright (2015) goes on to mention that low performance on high stakes test can lead to lowered self-confidence in ESL students, as well as frustrated and demoralized teachers. What Priscilla described in our interview directly aligns with what scholars have proved through research about anxiety that can be caused, both for the students and the teachers, by high stakes testing. 

Entry 1: Introduction

Welcome to my first Blog Entry!

Hello, my name is Angel Foster. I am currently a senior at the University of Houston pursuing a degree in teaching and learning 4th through 8th grade math. I will be graduating this upcoming December with a Bachelors of Science in Education. I am very excited to pursue a career as an educator and be able mentor, teach and inspire young people to achieve their full potential through education. In this video, I will discuss my experiences with learning new languages.

After discussing my experiences with learning new languages, I can note that I have experiences many different approaches to teaching a language. When I was learning Spanish, as I stated in the video, I had no intentions to learn Spanish. I learned Spanish subconsciously through experiences and interactions. Krashen argues that the fundamental difference between learning a language and acquiring a language is that language acquisition is subconscious (1998). I have found this to be true because when I was taught Arabic in a formal classroom setting, I unfortunately was not able to acquire the language. I did in fact learn many things about the Arabic language, but not enough to fluently converse and comprehend the language. When learning Arabic, my teacher focused on the language rules, grammar and vocabulary rather than by teaching me to understand complete messages. In the input hypothesis, Krashen mentions that language is acquired by understanding messages, not by consciously learning about the language and not by memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary (1998). When attempting to learn the Vietnamese language, I was not able to comprehend complete messages because the tapes moved very fast and I could not remember what ever word in each sentence meant by the end of each section. When learning new vocabulary is Spanish on the other hand, I normally only asked a friend to tell me the meaning of a word in order to understand a message or dialogue from a peer. I subconsciously became familiar with sentence builders, and was able to find the meaning of any words in between which I did not know in order to comprehend a message.

Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.