My Expereinces in YOED 6020

My experience in this class has been absolutely wonderful and very enlightening. I have realized even more how much I love the subject matter and how much I will love working with ELL students and implementing all the information I have gathered and all the strategies/methods I have learned from this class, SPSE 6820 and my future classes in this subject area.
I believe that I will be able to welcome my students and their families into my classroom using brochures, informational handouts and other discourse methods such as phone calls, emails and parent/teacher meetings. I know that it is important for me to make sure my students and their families know and understand all that I expect from them and all that I will do for them. I want them to let me know what their expectations are of me and what information they need from me. I plan to make sure my students and their families understand the importance of literacy in both their new language and their native language and what strategies I will be using to promote literacy in my students as well as what strategies the families can use to encourage and promote literacy in their children. I am positive I will be using WikiSpaces as a form of communication with all my students as well as their parents. I believe using a Wiki will make it faster and easier for parents and students to see what we are doing in class and get the help they need with assignments, promoting literacy and practicing their new language. I like the choral reading strategy as a way to help my students practice pronunciation as a class and possibly learn new vocabulary words and promote BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) through discussion of the choral reading. I will definitely use the Cloze procedure to gather information on my students reading and vocabulary levels as well as to model problem solving strategies for reading such as context clues and substitution. I like that the SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) lesson plan focuses on vocabulary and allows for the inclusion of different subjects and their learning objectives. The lesson plan that I helped create with my fellow group members focused on vocabulary that may be used every day, such as the food and weather vocab, as well as vocabulary in the content area of geography. Also, the activities we were able to include brought in some math and included many of the different learning styles that our students will have. I feel that the SDAIE lesson plan model is very well rounded and can be used in many different types of lessons. Since I already have experience teaching English at the Secondary level I really enjoyed creating the writing prompt and anticipatory guide. However, I do believe I am still catering to students with moderate to high levels of English proficiency and plan to practice developing writing prompts and anticipatory guides for students of lower English language proficiency. Still, I believe these tools help students with comprehension and to connect with the content and materials they are working with. Finally, I encountered two different evaluation methods in this course: the SOLOM (Student Oral Language Observation Matrix) Instrument and the OLD (Oral Language Developement) Instrument. I found that I preferred the SOLOM instrument, although the OLD was just as easy to use. Still, I feel that the two instruments could be combined, since they are quite similar, and be used with great success.
For those of you who are just begining your journey to teaching ESL, I beleive it is important to remember the following things: (1) Always keep good communication between yourself, your students and their families. (2) Make sure you are differentiating your instruction to include all learning types, stages and abilities. (3) Do not let yourself become frustrated. Some things come with time. You will always continue to learn new strategies/methods and tricks of the trade and your students will continue to learn as long as you are there to help them and encourage them. (4) Make sure your classroom is a safe place and promotes literacy and exploration. (5) Encourage your students' parents to promote literacy at home in their native language and, if they are comfortable with it, their student's new language. (6) Be aware of the different stages of language acquisition. Do not worry when a student goes through the silent period. (7) Evaluate your students and yourself often. (8) If something does not work very well, just try something new. Be willing to ask fellow ESL teachers for help and if you can bounce ideas off of them. Be a team player. :) (9) Be aware of your students' backgrounds, personal struggles and academic difficulties. Finally, (10) Make sure to stay up to date on current research and stay flexible.
I know that I will use all the information, methods and strategies I have learned from this class, from SPSE 6820 and from my future classes. I also know that I can incorporate much of the information, strategies and methods I have learned from my classes in English and Secondary Education. I am looking forward to learning even more....