Observation 1

I am observing at Washington Elementary School with Mrs. Wagner. I was excited about observing ELL students because in my past observations, I have always observed the whole class. I arrived at Washington Elementary School, checked in with the secretary, and headed to Mrs. Wagner’s classroom. I kind of got lost but found my way! No worries =D
Mrs. Wagner was working with a small group of students when I walked into the room. She told me what she was going to have me do for the day. I was going to observe an ELL assistance work with a student until 10:30am, work with the student until 11 am on his math; work with a different student with her math until 11am; and then read with a kindergartener in Mrs. Davis’s room.
It was interesting observing because some characteristics of the student came into my mind. I would say the student is very good at his English. I wondered if his parents speak English at home too or not. I loved the fact that he did not mind me sitting next to him because I have had experiences in the past where a student did not want me sitting next by him the first visit. Finally I got a chance to work with him one on one with his math. He is a very bright child. With a couple of the problems, I told him that drawing out pictures helps me a lot and I thought that he should try drawing a picture to help him get the answer too. I model how to find an answer by drawing it out and I had him do the next problem drawing pictures. And it worked, he got the right answer. We did not get done with all the problems that I anticipated for us to get done but as long as he understood everything else then that is what counts!
It was 10:30 and he had to go back. I waited and another student came. I helped her with her math too. She seemed to be shy. She wasn’t as talkative as my first student. We were working on greater or lesser than math problems. In her math book, “greater than” is not said “greater than”; it is said “more than” and I kept on saying “greater than” because I grew up learning it by saying “greater than or lesser than”! I kept on correcting myself and thinking that the student might think I am slow! Oh well. 11am came by fast and I left to go to Mrs. Davis’s kindergartener classroom.
I read with a student. He was very adorable, loud, talkative, and funny. We were reading about Dinosaurs and Wow!.. he was excited. When we were reading, I stopped him a couple of time just to check his comprehension and it was there! Every time when he did not know a word, he would say, “what is this?” very loud. I thought it was funny how the way he said it. I have seen many students read in the past; and I can now say that I can see the difference in reading level. This student that I was working with is probably in the beginning level or reading. His reading is not very good but it’s okay. He just need that extra help to get him sped up. Noon came around and the kindergartners had to go to special class. Overall, I thought it was a great day!

March 2 2009

Class started out with Mariya’s presentation. She presented about speaking. She brought up the question of which is more important: accuracy/ fluency and segmental/ supra-segmental. I think that it depends on the levels of the student, environment, and what is the focus of the lesson being taught. Between accuracy and fluency, I think that both of them are important. I would say fluency should be taught first and then incorporate accuracy. I think that many people would say segmental is more important than supra-segmental because you would think that people or students should learn the sounds first then the intonations. However, according to research it is the other way around. Learning the supra-segmental first is more important. Interesting, I thought!
We left for the GLL after Mariya’s presentation. We came up with an activity using the list of speaking items in each group that we picked, and then we rotated to the other group’s item and created an activity, lastly, we commented on their activity as we rotated again. I thought it was interesting just to see how people can up activities for students to speak using different item. Mariya, JoAnn, and I did our activity using flashcards with the article a/an. We had time to do our peer review. I got some good feedback from JoAnn and Mariya when it came to the portfolio. The class ended with a mid-term survey.

February 23 2009

Class started out with Aaron and Kizuna’s presentation. I thought their presentation was interesting because they talked about why and what ELL students have difficulties with. Some of the difficulties that Kizuna mentioned were stress patterns, intonations, rhythm, and so forth. I think that ELL students have many difficulties that many native speakers may or may not know about. A couple of the difficulties that I think that ELL students have are the language structure differences and the amount of exposure to the second language. During a discussion of Aaron and Kizuna’s presentation, Stephanie mentioned that she thinks non- native speakers actually speaks more formal. I think that many ELL students or non- native speakers want to sound know and feel like when they are speaking, they sound correct. Therefore, it makes them sound very “bookish” and ELL students don’t want to sound that way. We went to the GLL room and attempted to do a listening activity but some of the computers were not working so half of the class was assigned with an activity for ELL students.

February 16 2009

We started class with answering what kind of listening activities our group has experienced or taught in the past. After sharing our experience with our small group, we shared it with the whole class. Kizuna said his worst experiences were dictation. Bekir and Chris loved dictations. This is especially a great example of different learning style. Thea’s listening experience was with teaching students the game “Whatcha doing?” I thought the game was a great idea because when students are playing this game, they really have to listening to what the other person is asking or doing. I think that students would really like and enjoy the game. This game is fun and interactive. Thea and Stephanie presented their presentation. As an activity, they had everyone did a listening activity. Bekir and Aaron were in my group. One of the group members was the reader and the other two would draw what they were hearing. Bekir was reading while Aaron and I were drawing. I had some difficulties because I wasn’t able to catch up with the story. In the text, some of the listening difficulties were the rate of deliverance, reduced forms, clustering, redundancy, performance variables, interaction, stress, rhythm, intonations, and colloquial language. I guess I was having trouble with the rate of deliverance