Final Learning Journal


1. Academics

I am very happy to have learned more about the WIDA leveling system and ELL standards for MN. I really knew nothing about ELL standards or leveling systems before I took this class. Although I did learn about the system in general, I need to think more about how I would implement in a classroom. I do not like abstract concepts very much and the WIDA leveling system is quite abstract to me in what students should be able to do. Hopefully the district or school would be able to help me in breaking the levels down to more concrete terms. I liked being able to compare LEAP levels to the WIDA levels. LEAP’s levels are much more manageable in that they are more specific.

I think my favorite part about reading the textbooks was adding many, many more activities to my repertoire. (Maybe they aren’t quite in my repertoire yet but I’m sure they will be!) I liked the insert method especially. As an English teacher, I think it can be challenging to scaffold articles and readings in a mainstream classroom. The insert method helps to scaffold reading comprehension by helping students to utilize metacognition. They must be thinking about what they are reading as they read the material. I also learned about how to scaffold group work. I have always had a negative experience with group work in high school. It always seemed like I was either stuck with all the work or not given an opportunity to participate. Thinking about groups as “cooperative groups” gave me some more insight into how I should implement them in my classroom. Rather than just telling students to get into groups, I need to think before about how students are going to be grouped and what exactly each student’s role is in the group.

I was also interested to learn more about how to teach reading to a wide variety of different ELL students. I really liked using picture walks in the 1c class at LEAP. I am a very visual learner and it helps me to see what words mean. Picture walks really helped me to scaffold my reading groups for each student’s reading needs. I would ask Tu Reh to pick out a house and Tong to point out water. I like that this activity can be differentiated without students noticing.

The laws and legislation were helpful for me in creating a framework of knowledge about where ELL education has been and where it is headed. I learned a lot from Nina’s talk as well. It is good to know the laws so that someday, if I work in a small little district in the country with unfair ELL services, I will be able to inform them of the rights of ELL students. I remember looking at the laws for ELL education in ED 246 but I didn’t really think about how they apply to me, as an ELL teacher. I hope I am an advocate for my students both in and out of the classroom. Ms. Kristi has a sign in her room that lists the rights of ELL students with corresponding cases and legislation. I think it is neat that she shows the students their rights in the classroom. Hopefully it will encourage her students to speak up for themselves as well.

I was very interested to learn more about the history of ELL education. I have had to think more about why the pull out model is ineffective and why others models are so effective. I never really thought before about the different models and why they worked/didn’t work. I like the SIOP model a lot. I am glad that I got more comfortable using it. I like that it provides step by step instructions so that teachers will remember to think about everything in a given lesson.

I learned a lot about lesson planning as well. Honestly I never realized how much work went into teaching before this Interim. I had made many lesson plans before but I wasn’t smart enough to realize that all these lesson plans and unit plans are made after an entire day of work. As stressful as this Interim was at points, I learned a lot about what I need to do to balance work and fun. I think I became better as the Interim went on with managing my time and effectively organizing my time throughout the day.

2. Contextualizing

The most important knowledge I will take away from this Interim is the importance of creating a framework for students between past experiences and new learning. I think this framework falls under the broader category of contextualizing learning for students. I loved learning about my students’ lives this Interim. I never realized how important this knowledge was for a teacher though. I thought it was just something fun that teachers could do with their students. I now believe that it is absolutely imperative that teachers take the time to understand their students’ backgrounds. I learned that in the teaching of reading it is essential that students understand the cultural context of a piece, as well as the basic aspects of reading. For example, I take for granted that students will know that fairy tales start with “once upon a time”. Before this course, I never though about how much a knowledge of different genres can positively affect a student’s reading comprehension. I only focused on the basic aspects of teaching students to identify graphemes and phonemes. It is imperative that I teach the cultural context of a text as well as the basic aspects of reading.

I learned that I need to reflect both on my and my students’ cultural backgrounds as I make lesson and unit plans. Some teachers may not think that is important to learn about their student’s background. One student in my 1c class was really down for at least a week. He always had his head on the desk and didn’t want to do his work. On one spelling test, he spelled every single word right… just backwards. Ms Kristi and I were trying to figure out what was going on but without any success. He kept saying “I’m sad” whenever we asked. I thought it was maybe part of the culture shock of coming to the United States and trying to cope with everything that had happened. After a translator talked to him and Ms. Kristi for a while, she figured out that he had very painful sinus headaches and it hurt to lift his head up. The conclusion I had jumped to, although not bad in itself, was still not right. If I was the teacher and had not pursued the matter any further it could continue to negatively affect his health. This whole long story is just to say that I learned a lot about not jumping to conclusions about students based on their appearance or attitude.

I love learning about different cultures in the world. I loved learning a lot more about the Karen people. Since this journal is open to anything we learned, I think it is safe to comment about what I learned about other cultures. I was interested to learn about how different students adjust to American culture in different ways. For example, it was interesting to learn that many Karen boys dress very femininely and experiment with nail polish and makeup as they adjust to American culture. I would’ve maybe been tempted to make assumptions of students based on my past experiences with similar students. Again, I learned over and over the importance of not making assumptions about ELL students (or any students) but keeping an open mind and allowing them to explain to me their culture. It is also interesting that the Herrera book believes that teachers should learn the basic symbols and language structures of their students. I have learned that it is vital that teachers take the time to learn about their students’ culture and language. I think that this learning can even stretch to my teaching of mainstream students. Even if I am not teaching students the English language, I need to make sure that I am learning about them and their personal background so that I can better assist their learning needs. I realize that it can be a temptation to do the minimum as a teacher, but I know that the benefits of putting in the extra work of showing students that you care about them by researching their background far outweighs the negatives of extra work. I’m sure that this knowledge will help me as a future teacher in the St. Paul school district.

3. Personal

I also learned more about myself and where I need to develop as a teacher. I was happy to learn that I really do enjoy teaching. I really enjoyed working with each one of the students at LEAP. One positive thing I learned about myself is that I am very flexible. I was able to jump into Ms. Quest’s class and teach daily mini-lessons although I didn’t get the opportunity to plan before. Granted Ms Quest modeled for me what I was supposed to do, but I was thankful that I felt comfortable enough in the role of teacher to teach at a moment’s notice. One point that I learned is that I need to improve on being creative, rather than frustrated, during challenging lessons. While dealing with the lowest level students in 1c, I realized that I was focused on the frustration of not knowing what I was doing rather than using the reading group as an opportunity to hone my skills as a teacher. I was thankful to learn this about myself so that I can improve in my last week in this skill.

I learned that I need to give myself extra time in creating lesson plans and unit plans so that I do not feel stressed with the workload. When I do assignment in bite-sized pieces, I am much more relaxed and can complete the task without frustration. I think it is important to know my own limitations so that I do not burn myself out as a teacher. I enjoy writing lessons and creating an interesting unit plan, but I had to first realize when my best work was done and what I needed to do in order to do my best work.

Peregoy and Boyle

I never thought about how much background knowledge of a genre of reading could affect reading comprehension. It makes sense to me though. I am in Ms Quest’s class for “Reading Hour” and students always ask me if the book they are reading is non-fiction or fiction. (They have to fill out worksheets about what they read that asks whether it is fiction or nonfiction). Although I answered this question at least once a day, I never realized that this question demonstrated a lack of background knowledge. For example, when reading a book titled “Margeret Meary”, a book about a woman who saved animals in Alaska, one student did not know if the book was fiction or nonfiction. Students with a background knowledge of non-fiction would probably be able to identify the title, the name of a specific woman, with the genre of non-fiction. I think background knowledge of a genre is achieved primarily through lots of exposure to reading. It can be explicitly taught but it doesn’t seem that it would be as effective as reading.

I also like the idea of Literature Response Groups (Peregoy and Boyle 290). I have been reading with a student, and at the end of every chapter is a series of questions about what the student just read. I like stopping to talk about the questions at the end because it forces the student to orally summarize what they read. As was noted elsewhere in text we read, there is never a communication with just one form of language (i.e. speaking, reading, etc). Encouraging students to both read and speak is great practice in becoming a well-rounded speaker/reader/ listener of the English language. Anyway, the questions at the end of the section are good scaffolding for literature response groups. As she learns to answer those questions at the end of a section, she will be able to move onto formulating her own questions for comprehension.

I have also noticed a complete lack of metacognition while reading. Students in the lower levels do not think about what they reading while they read. For example, students will stumble over a challenging word and just keep reading. I will ask them at the end of the section, do you know what the word “________” means? The student will have no idea what the word means but they will keep on reading. Would metacognition mean that they would stop, realize they don’t know the word, and then figure out the word before they kept going? It just seems like they just read without thinking about what they are reading or the meaning of it.

I have been thinking about how a student’s lack of vocabulary can influence their reading. You mentioned in class that sometimes one word could throw off a student’s whole comprehension of a section of text. I experienced this while reading the Herrera text. Herrera’s use of CLD rather than ELL drives me crazy. I couldn’t remember what CLD stood for and so everytime I came to that I was distracted from reading. Obviously I figured out what it meant in context, but if students do not have that ability to figure out words in context then their comprehension must be very limited.

I also agree with Peregoy and Boyle that students should pick out their own text. The student who picked out the Margeret Meary book excitedly told me about all that Margeret Meary did in Alaska. She loved wildlife and Meary’s work really resonated with her. Another student loves to read romantic works, especially when we answer questions in the end that ask her to make connections with her own life. I think it interesting to see what students choose to read. I like that LEAP has a lot of books that are age appropriate but also appropriate for their reading level. Something that frustrates me about the books is the fact that they are often for remedial readers and not for ELL students. One student and I were reading about all sorts of different drugs and euphemisms for drugs. (The character was addicted to different drugs). We both didn’t understand what we were reading. I was trying to explain to her what these drugs were but it was very challenging. I think these books can be kind of pointless for ELL students to read. Why confuse them with all sorts of unnecessary vocabulary?

Herrera

I like the table on p. 137. I have been reading a lot about the importance of making schematic connections for students but I never knew how exactly that was done. The teaching tips are very specific. I realize that LEAP is sort of an outlier in this regard, but I have difficulty with the concept of “using interactive grouping configurations among students to promote the sharing of multiple point of view and personal experiences” (137). Because LEAP is not like this at all, I forgot how hard it is to get students into interactive groups. For example, at Northfield High school the Hispanic kids are very segregated from the other students. They do not want to be in groups with other students, and maybe other students want to be with their friends as well. When is it important to allow students to choose their own groups for their own comfort? It seems like it is challenging to always push students out of the comfort zone if they are shy or used to being around other kids like them. Another teaching tip is to “highlight and make links across cultural experiences whenever possible” (137). I also like the idea of making connections with students cultural experiences. How do I make cultural connections in a sensitive way? It seems like it would be easy for me to generalize an entire culture and then make connections. I think this sort of generalization could be very offensive to students. For example, if a non-Swedish teacher tried to tell me that all Swedes are stoic and cold (which many of them are) I would be annoyed that she was making that generalization. Maybe ELL students are not raised to be sensitive to that kind of stereotyping, but I wonder if they too feel annoyed with the generalizations.

I have also been thinking about explicitly identifying and teaching cognitive strategies. The word “explicit” jumped out at me. How do I balance explicit and implicit instruction? It seems like there is no bridge between telling something someone explicitly and then teaching them implicitly. For example, sometimes Ms. Quest teaches a mini-lesson on a topic where she explicitly teaches the pronunciation of words, past tense verbs, etc. It seems forced even for her though to transition between the mini lesson and the activity.

I was a bit confused about chapter 5 of the Herrera book. Are all three approaches (reader based instruction, interactive language learning, and direct instruction) supposed to be used together? They seem like they could fit together in a good lesson. I am interested in understanding this chapter as I lead a 1C reading group. I have had a hard time teaching Vocabulary to the students. I heard in class that you should only teach 5 new vocabulary words a week. I totally agree. I think that is is crazy that think that students are going to retain more than 5 words a week. Although I agree with the 5 words a week idea, I teach my 1C students at least 10 words A DAY. How in the world should I balance this with the knowledge that 5 words a week are all my students can handle? They are so low level in their knowledge that they need to know a ton of words each day to keep up with their peers.

Chapter 4 of the Herrera book was interesting to me. I have been working on the alphabet with students in Kristi's 1c class. I am surprised at how many of them know the entire alphabet. I could definitely see how they struggled to match the graphemes to the phonemes. For example, I think "x" is a different phoneme in their language. Kristi said that she notices that they don't know how to pronounce x correctly. They say something that sounds like a z or "see". Maybe that is the phoneme for that grapheme in their language. I would be interested in learning a little more about some of the Asian languages. I know nothing about them. Again, I think it is important for teachers to know the background of their students, including a little bit of background of their native language. Even if students dont know all the background you know about them, it will help to inform instruction and creating a framework for a unit.

I find cognates to be very fascinating. I like that Herrera suggests that teachers should use cognates as much as possible to help students makes phonetic links between their primary language and English. In my lesson plan, I tried to use cognates in my teaching think aloud mode. (I can't remember what that is called- maybe "teacher think"?) Anyway, I thought out loud that "memorable" looks like the word "memory" and is related. Cognates were my best friend when I learned french. (I use learned very loosely in this context.) I can definitely understand how they would be helpful for students. Again, it just helps to create a context or framework for the students.

I am realizing how much ELL instruction is about the framework that you create. I see this over and over again in the literature that I read. I may sound like a broken record in saying that framework is important, but I see it so much in the literature too. I even have seen it in the laws that I read. As I look at the WIDA standards, I noticed that students don't need to make their own frameworks until Level 5. In Level 5, "students apply information to new contexts". Thus in the previous 4 levels, it is the responsibility of the teacher to make explain the contexts for them and to apply information to different contexts. It does certainly make more work for a teacher. It would be easier for the teacher if they just taught the new information without building various areas of connection. (This must be why so many of my teachers in high school taught material without contextual support.) As I've seen in the literature, it is absolutely vital that a teacher makes various connections, regardless of the extra work, otherwise the students are not going to retain the information.

I think Peregoy and Boyle's point that we should integrate many aspects of language into a lesson, including reading, listening, and speaking, is so true. This suggestion fits into the current model of education, which seems to be context, context, context. Whether grammar lessons, history, or math, everything should be taught in context, especially when teaching to ELL students. Developing a framework for students' knowledge is imperative for helping them to retain information. This is why it is important to have culturally fair assessments. For example, that "social cultural profile" we looked at in class on Monday demonstrates the importance of creating a framework that incorporates all the different cultural backgrounds. The framework has to be explicitly taught and built in a unit plan. That is what I am working on in my unit plan right now. I am trying to figure out what the best way is to teach about Martin Luther King Jr. Most of my students do not have any background in learning about MLK. Maybe they learned about him from a different high school they were at, but I can almost guarantee that they didn't learn about MLK in elementary and middle schools like a lot of American students. I am trying to connect the assessments and teaching to their own experiences so they can make sense of the information.

The importance of context is also highlighted in chapter 5. The book discusses using holistic strategies, specifically reading and writing whole texts rather than single sentences. I wonder how this holistic strategy can be scaffolded for ELL students? It just isn't possible for ELL students to begin by writing whole texts. In the 1c class I am in, students read "whole texts" but each page is one sentence. I can actually quote verbatim the text we read on Monday in my reading group. "This is ice. Ice is water. This is snow. Snow is water. This is rain. Rain is Water." Would this count as a "whole text"? The sentences seem quite isolated from each other. In my classroom, I would need to consider how to present a holistic method in bite sized pieces. It seems like an oxymoron to me.

I have also been thinking a lot about how to group widely different students. I started thinking about this with the leveling system, but I also have seen a similar interest in trying to group all students under different theories. For example, the reading readiness perspective assumes that kids (on average, of course) are not ready to read until the age of 6.6. I realize that in Public school you have to come up with theories and solutions that will fit the most number of students, but I wonder if this clumping is beneficial for students. I hear a lot in my ed classes that it is important to differentiate instruction, but I feel like if I truly "differentiated" I would have a different lesson for each student. No two students are the same. To make the blanket statement that almost all students will be the same way seems foolish to me. At the same time, I dont know what the alternative would be. It is impossible to create an individual lesson for each student. Maybe the solution is something like Ms. Quest does. She teaches a lesson, but then explains the concept in different ways to different students when they ask her questions. For example, she might show the student the word "wobbles", using a wobbly table, but then might explain the concept of "wobble" differently to another student. She is always differentiating, but she doesn't necessarily differentiate the lesson itself for all students.

I have been thinking a lot about bilingual education since being at LEAP. I was reading in the 1st chapter of the Herrera book that "bilingual instruction has positive outcomes for ELL students". As I reflect back on my study of French at St. Olaf, I realize that I would struggle to learn without bilingual instruction. (Granted I am horrible at learning languages and I would probably struggle even with all the best practices in place. In fact, you might be interested to know that when I was still babbling at the age of 3, my parents took me to a speech therapist who told my parents that it seemed like I was following my own language rules, just not English. I was in Speech Therapy until I was 13 when I finally learned how to say my last sound.) Anyway, I can definitely see how bilingual instruction would be vital for students. Yet it just isn't possible at a school like LEAP. There would either have to be a person who knew at least 150 languages/dialects or 150 teachers in the classroom. Both of those solutions are obviously not possible. I do not believe that bilingual solutions should be tossed out the window though. I would allow my students to use bilingual dictionaries to assist them, especially in the lower levels. I have asked other students to translate for a student in the 1c class I am in. Honestly I couldn't explain what "draw" meant without someone explaining. Poor Tri looked at me as if I was explaining geometry when I told him to draw a tree. I asked his friend to tell him what I meant and then Tri started to draw a tree immediately. I wouldn't want to rely on this method, but I agree with Herrera that bilingual instruction can be a positive asset to a SIOP program.

I thought it was interesting that the authors of the SIOP book suggest that teachers do cut and paste timelines rather than writing directly on a timeline. I can definitely see the purpose of this activity in cementing knowledge in one's brain. At the same time, I feel as if this activity could lose its meaning in an ELL classroom. Could this activity develop into the lower functioning students being assigned to cutting and the high functioning ELL students figuring out the actual time line? I think it could also be too childish for some "grown up" high schoolers. As with any activity, I would have to think about exactly how I would introduce the activity and what roles each member would play in a group.

I am having a hard time figuring out how to incorporate SIOP feature 26. How can I possibly make sure all students understand? For example, in the 27 student 1C class, there are many students who are not possibly on the same page as the teacher. Mali can read and write complete sentences and Xia is not literate in her L1 or L2. I just dont understand how all students will understand my lesson when there is such a wide variation of students.

I like the idea of picture walks, referenced in chapter 10 of the SIOP book. I actually just did a picture walk today with the students in my "reading club". I think it really helped a lot to describe different items before we even began reading the story. Xia was in my group and I think she was even involved in the story as she pointed out flowers, snow, ice, and rain. Maybe this is one way I could help students to access the lesson at their own ability levels. Although all students won't be at the highest level, my students will all reach the minimum threshold of my objectives (i.e. Xia) but some students can go even higher than that (i.e. Mali). This must be why offering so many different methods of instruction is so important in the SIOP method. The more ways a student can access the material the better.

WIDA

Leveling ELL students seems like it could be a sticky venture. It could slip into a tracking device, which is obviously not an educationally sound principle. I realize that it is important to group students according to their ability level, but I also think that it is too easy to clump students together into a solid group that they cannot move from. Even at LEAP I have seen some of the challenges of the leveling system. There are approximately 27 students in the 1C class that I am in and so a lot of the students are overlooked. Obviously the teacher does the best to assess them continually, but she cannot possibly be everywhere at once. One student can read and write complete sentences while other students cannot even read. I know that a class size of 27 is not normal, but it still demonstrates the weaknesses of leveling students.

I also think the WIDA leveling system is sort of abstract. There are a lot of gray areas on it. For example, in Level 1 Speaking, students should be able to "name objects, people, pictures". I think it is crazy to assess students based on this kind of standard. Should Level 1 students be able to name every object and picture? Native English speakers probably cannot name every object. On the flip side, who determines what they should/ should not be able to identify? Another standard states that students should be able to "discuss stories, issues, and concepts". This standard is so broad. I realize that it cannot be super specific but I think the broadness of it is a huge weakness of this leveling system.

I do not know exactly what would be a better leveling system. Maybe these broad parameters are a good system because they allow the teachers to use their own common sense and experience to inform their decision in moving students between levels. (This could be good and bad depending on the teacher/school). It is good for me to familiarize with the WIDA system so that I can think about how I would use it a little more specifically.