This week we learned a lot about how to help ELL students. The group that taught us in class started their presentation by speaking in different languages. Immediately many of us in the class started to tune out and do our own thing because we didn't understand what was being said. This was a neat experience because it gave us a chance to really see how easily ELL students become distracted when they do not understand the language very well. We discussed how important it is to really help these students to learn and understand what is being taught so that they are not tuning out and getting bored in class.
I felt that this was a great reminder for us as future educators to be patient and not get upset with things these students do, because they are most likely just as frustrated and don't understand what is going on. They tend to check out because they don't know what is going on. A great way to help these students feel comfortable in our classes is to just make sure that we are doing all we can to help them.
Chapter 11 in the book, which is entitled, "Evaluating Student Learning" goes along really nice with ELL students. I think that it is important as a teacher to help ELL students by accommodating to their needs when giving assessments and things. It talked all about how there are many different ways to accommodate all aspects of school so that a student can get the best help for them.
We also talked in class about how equal and fair are two different things. A student may think that the accommodations for one student are not fair because not everyone in class receives the same accommodations. But, in reality the accommodations are fair, they are just different. A student who needs special accommodations has a reason for those accommodations. As a teacher it is important to remember to keep things fair, not equal so that all of the individual needs of our students are being met.
Teaching One Another
This week I also had the opportunity to teach about poverty with my group. While preparing for this lesson I found it interesting to see the different statistics and rates of poverty around the world and especially in the United States.
After going over some of the different statistics, we went down to the gym for our activity. For this activity, we had 30 different note cards. Twenty of them were white, 7 of them were green, and 3 of them were yellow. Each color represented a different level of money for the students that had them. The yellow cards meant that you were very well off-- you didn't have any needs, you got everything you needed with no problems. The white cards meant that you were average; you had the necessities but didn't live a life of extravagance. The green cards meant that you were living in poverty; you didn't have enough food to eat, you didn't have a way to get to school all the time, you didn't have the money to pay for doctor appointments and things when you were sick. As we went through this activity each student started out on the same line. We then began to read different scenarios out and according to the card color it determined which way you moved- forward or backward. At the end the gap between those who were living in poverty and those who weren't was huge. It was cool for us all to see the effects poverty can have on students.
After that we came back to class and showed a video clip about a boy who told his story about living in poverty. It was really sad to hear how one young man's life changed so much because of poverty. Every aspect of his life and himself changed. Overall, I think our presentation went very well and I think that we were able to help the other members of our class see the effects of poverty and how even though it isn't a physical or mental disability it is still a special need that we will need to be aware of. One thing I would've done different though is going over the resources and helps for these students a little more in depth. I would give my group a 10 because we taught the overall principles of poverty in a way that could be easily understood and we kept the class attention throughout the presentation. I would give myself a 10 because I was able to find an activity to really effectively show how poverty impacts the lives of those living in it. I also was able to help find a handout that showed some of the statistics of poverty.
No comments:
Post a Comment