Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Visiting an ESL Class
During my Junior Field experience, I had the opportunity to visit an ESL (level 2) class. The class was composed of twelve students, ranging in age from 14 to 20 years, at the freshman to senior level of high school. Students had mainly resided in the United States from two to four years and were from Peru and Haiti. All students at this level are "mainstreamed" in their academic classes at this particular high school. Since the exercise of speaking with me gave them opportunity to practice their speaking skills, the teacher was anxious for me to ask them questions. I found this to be a wonderful way to gain individual, first-hand feedback on what English Language Learners like and do not like about their mainstream classroom situations. Once the students knew that I was interested in their responses, they were very forthcoming in giving me good and constructive hints for dealing with an English Language Learner in a mainstream class. First, including a visual representation of vocabulary, (both text and pictures and/or diagrams, if possible), in an orally-presented lesson is very helpful. (I shared with them a description of my Power Point lessons, detailed in another blog on this website; they were very excited by this type of lesson.) Also, all students indicated they were not comfortable asking a teacher to stop and explain a concept or word, mainly due to embarrassment and/or frequent teasing from fellow classmates. They also indicated that it would be very helpful for the teacher to come over to the student during "classwork" time and ask if the student understands the assignment (but unobtrusively since they are easily embarrassed by their limited language skills). When I commented to them that I gave them a lot of credit for taking courses in a language that is not native, they responded that they wished that all teachers felt that way. What I got out of my short classroom visit with the ELL students is that the teaching methods I am working on for my Biology/Science classes will be helpful to these students, and perhaps more importantly, that it is crucial to be sensitive to the unique emotional stresses that English Language Learners are subject to in a high school classroom
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It was very interesting to read about your experience in a ESL Class. I came to the United States from Venezuela when I was five years old. My first language was spanish and so I was placed in ESL classes, and what I mean by this is that I got taken out of my normal class and was placed in a smaller classroom with other children such as myself who did not speak English. I'm not sure if I think that was the best way to learn English because I wasn't around the language and the environment as I would of been if I remained in my normal class. I actually don't see students being removed from the classroom to be taught English, now they are to remain in their classrooms and learn English in a way that some may call "Sink or Swim". Honestly I can't say which one is better, but in my case, I think that it had alot to do with my age.
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