Reflection #4

Reflection #4

Prior to taking this course, I knew some of the advantages of knowing an additional language. However, this course also taught me to take a step back and explore the processes of learning those languages from the perspective of my English Language Learners in my classroom. This class not only taught me to be flexible with my lessons, but to also be sure I am accommodating the needs of the different learners through activities and instructions. Taking the perspective of my students allows me to identify their process of learning an additional language- which are influenced by their growth from childhood to adulthood.

During the SLA course, I was able to reflect on a lot of the practices and techniques during student teaching. Not only was I able to be flexible and accommodate some of the needs of my students even further, but it became a habit to keep my eyes peeled for struggling students. For example, motivation plays a crucial role to the learning process of not just children, but adults as well. During my student teaching, many students were unable to recall the advantages and disadvantages about Energy Resources. However, when they were asked to create a visual product where they could create a fictional character using these Energy Resources, their retention and motivation increased significantly. According to Ortega, students are able to retain information longer when their level of activation is high (Ortega, 2009, p. 93). Therefore, it is important to understand both the psychological needs and capabilities of ELL learners.

Topics that I think should have received more attention are the: morphology and phonology. Even though we had reading passages from the textbooks, I would like to physically see these two topics broken down into multiple content courses. Although this course is online and relied heavily on independent reading, I found it helpful when some students included these practices in their video blogs during the interview. On the other hand, a topic that took quite an appeal were the psychological development from children to adults in their learning a second language. From reading the textbooks and watching my peers’ video blogs, I was able to understand the perspective of ELLs and their learning a second language as a child or adult.

In regards of the video blogs, I found them to be extremely useful when looking at the multiple perspectives from watching and reading the reflections of my peers. Although my peers and I are all teaching different content and grade levels, I could reflect on their techniques and apply them towards my content. Doing these video blogs, reflections and interactions allowed me to understand multiple perspectives compared to a single perspective. In addition, the interview was probably the most resourceful assignment. Not only was I able to have a one on one interaction, but observing my other peers’ interviewing with their mentor gave me a better insight of their insight of learning languages with their students. I enjoyed this course and I hope I will be able to apply some of the techniques in my classroom.

Ortega, L. Understanding second language acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Entry #3: Interview with...

Interview with Mrs. Su

Video can be played using this link: >> click me !! <<  

Hello! For this VBlog, Mrs. Su has agreed to share out her experiences as an ESL instructor. Mrs. Su has been teaching for at least ten years and has experience in other multiple languages such as: Chinese-Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Japanese. Throughout the video, she shared out some of her experiences and suggestions when handling a classroom with ESL students.

Mrs. Su mentions that she had a mixture of ESL students from different backgrounds who spoke different languages. In order to accommodate to these students, she focused on enhancing her students’ writing skills through modeling and practicing. In regards to modeling, negative feedback can be provided in verbal discussions, but it may also occur in writing very often (Ortega, 2009, p. 71). Although the students struggle with writing, creating a concept map or visual prior to writing their draft will help the students organize and retain their ideas. Therefore, teachers should always model as a whole-group of their expectations before allowing students work on their own.

Another interesting point I would like to discuss is the advice Mrs. Su brought up in terms of motivation and preparation. She mentions that students need exposure to hands-on activities as much as possible in order to be engaged. In addition, this also ties into preparing a thorough lesson plan that includes higher-thinking questions and differentiate activities that appeals to different learners. Ortega mentions that although there are different levels of motivation, our immediate comprehension deals with the attitudes of the learning experience (Ortega, 2009, p. 170). If teachers create a lesson plan that appeals to student-interest and choice, students are not only able to find a high level of enjoyment, but also a high level of effort. After interviewing Mrs. Su, I now have a better understanding to not only be prepared in delivering the content, but to also be prepared in finding different ways to appeal to student-interest and learning styles.

Ortega, L. Understanding second language acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Entry #2: Interview with...

Interview with Carlos

Here is the link if it does not play below: >> click me !! <<

Hi everyone. For this vblog, I am going to be interviewing my friend Carlos and asking him about his experience learning English. Carlos was born in Colombia and moved to the United States when he was 10 years old. His English development has improved vastly because of the environment at school and his personal motivation.

Carlos’ primary language is known to be Spanish, but he was able to pick up English through his siblings and friends upon moving to the United States. After the interview, I asked Carlos about his experience with ESL interventions. He shared out that he actually was not put into any ESL sessions where he was pulled out of his core subjects to practice his English. In this case, Carlos may have had a teacher that was trained and certified to teach ESL (Wright, 2015, p. 108). Through his connection, I witnessed some of this during my field observation where ESL teachers goes into the regular classroom to work with the classroom teacher and the ELL students (Wright, 2015, p. 109). This is shown to have a positive learning experience for the ELL students because they are given that one on one support and guidance when the classroom teacher is instructing as a whole-group. Both teachers must be communicative and responsive in delivering information and activities to the ESL student.   

Another interesting point I would like to discuss are his motivation in learning English. Although Carlos mentions he still had trouble conversing with his peers, his influence was conversing with English speakers daily. Similarly, Carlos experienced the same situation as Wes from Tokyo. Wes emigrated from Tokyo to Honolulu by choice and he had a social personality that avidly seeks people and engages in interaction (Ortega, 2009, p. 56). Carlos found by choice that he was not helping himself if he excluded his knowledge to conversing with his Spanish speaker peers. In order for individuals like Carlos and Wes to improve their new language development, they knew they had to get out of their comfort zone. After interviewing Carlos, I really want to be as flexible as possible with my ESL students. Although Carlos had a difficult time understanding his teacher, he was determined to communicate with his teacher after school. Every student is different, therefore it is also the teachers’ role to build a strong rapport with the students to notice their struggles for future references.

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

Ortega, L. Understanding second language acquisition. New York: Routledge; 2009.

Entry #1: Introduction

Michelle Lam's Blog

Welcome to the first entry of my Blog.

Here is the link to my introduction video: >> click me!! << 
(oops my video didn't show the timestamp when I was recording. Video is 6:43 mins 😥)
**Please use the Video Player from Google Drive if you are unable to view. **

Here is the winter melon soup I was talking about in the video 😊