On Monday, I met up with my two ELL girls. We spent a few minutes talking about what they did over the weekend and about their family. We then moved on to drawing a family tree of our family and presenting it when we were done. I told them what we were going to be doing for the next 45 minutes, which was reading, comprehending, and creating a family tree for the family in the story. I began by giving them a short synopsis about the story and then began to read to them. In so many bwords they had to tell me what happened in the story along with answering some questions I had for them. The most exciting thing they had to do was to read part of the passage to me and anwer questions afterwards. basically they had to read, hear me read, and answer questions. Finally, they created a diagram or graphic organizer of the family in the story.
After spending time with these girls, I felt like I only one of the girl’s full attention but the other one was on cloud nine the whole time. Her name is Lulu and she was not paying attention to what I had to say or what she had to do. There was definitely a lack of academic langauge (CLAP) on her part. No matter how I tried to connect and get her back to what we were doing she seemed to be very ADD. I had to call her out a couple of times to pay attention. She definitely showed her affective filter when she did not want to gave me any input about the main idea of the story. I guess she felt embarrased because most of the time she could not understand or speak the English language. I have to say that maybe that is why she went into this quiet mode. I tried to expain things to her in spanish thinking this would bring her back but she put a bridge between me and my other colleague. Oh by the way, I also feel that she was a little intimidated by my other colleague beacue my colleague pretty much put her in her place many times. The lesson to me was more like the Madeline Hunter’s explicit instruction. We had to do a warm up, explain the objective, all the way to the closure. I think that our closure of the story was understood by the good ELL girl and somewhat by Lulu. The good ELL girl gave me a good explanation of how wel she grasp the story beyond of what she read. I tried to preassess their knowledge of the story by connecting it to other real life situations. I asked them other questions than the ones that were on the worksheet. That was my way of practicing some ways I can preassess their knowledge.
Even though I had a rough time, I must say that I am glad I am being exposed to many different kids and situations. I think as a teacher myself, I will less lenient my first years of teaching. I fell that by doing so, I can build a stronger and respectful rapport with my students. I should have done it with these ELL learners the first time we met but I was so excited and I wanted them to trust me and feel comfortable with me. I really liked the lesson and the way it was set up but I think that I would make it a lot more fun for them, for example, I would have them create a colorful decorated family tree that will be displayed in the classroom for six weeks. This will boost up their self esteem. As for the reading part, I would do everything the same way expect when it comes time for the students to read, I would put them into groups. They can take turns helping each other read and explain to each other what they have just read. This wil not make them feel intimidated because they have to read to the teacher but comfortable because they will be reading in front of other struggling friends. The closure would be that through their family tree of the story, they would explain the whole story to me. Those are just some of the many ways that have been learning in class to do.
