Sunday, October 14, 2018

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.

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