ELL take two…

I was excited to get another chance to meet with Melina, an ELL student at Akins High. The first meeting was about meeting and getting to know the student. I had learned many things about her life and family which helped me to get to know her better. I in turn talked about my own life and family so that she would know that this is a two way street.

This day was a bit more academic in nature. We began our time reminiscing about our last meeting and catching up on what had become of activities we had said were planned between our first two meetings. We then moved on to what the future held for each of us. She was very excited about being part of her best friend’s Quincinera this coming weekend and all the work they have put into it will be well worth the effort. She is looking forward to spring break and the bit of rest she will get from a lot of responsibility. I shared that I’ll be heading to New Orleans to help out with housing and she was interested in how a person volunteers for something like building houses. Rapport between teacher and student was increased by connecting by name and location to people and places she had mentioned in our last meeting. Also, we continued by continued to develop a dialogue about interests and hopes. I believe a weakness on my part was the transition between rapport building and academics. To me it seems like jumping in a cold pool on a hot day and the mind is jogged a bit.

The academic portion of our meeting dealt with the assessment of my ELL buddy’s language proficiency using a scripted dialogue provided to us by our Professors. I read a short passage from a book to my buddy, making sure to model proper pronunciation and use of punctuation. After reading the paragraph the student was asked to say what it was about. My buddy did a great job of pointing out all of the high points of the paragraph. This response showed me that she understood the spoken word very well.

Our second task was for my buddy to read a longer task and then answer questions about the text. The second reading was done by the buddy silently. There was only one word that she did not know and it was not a word she could have gotten from context but with context to the word provided she was able to use her schema to understand the word. The student then read the paragraph out loud. This reading showed me that the student was having a hard time using punctuation to help her understand the text. We will need to work in the future identifying punctuation and it’s use within text to enrich understanding.

Our final activity was the creation of a graphic organizer of the family in the text. My buddy made quick work of the assignment. With lots of time left we continued on with some of her geography homework. I believe we will need to work in connecting ideas and organizing material in complicated areas where the vocabulary is very complex.

I am looking forward to assisting my buddy in realizing her own potential. She has show great promise but her self-esteem connected to intellect is fragile and must be developed if she is to succeed beyond this first year.

geronimo…

Today is my first video teach and I am very nervous about the whole thing.  I have done good proparation but it’s not what but the way in which we have to teach.  We have been given so many terms and techniques in our classroom time and I know that they will be looking for all of these when I teach.  I have to teach to my strengths but need to incoporate more diversity in my style I am sure.  I have been so out of sorts with all of this I have actually thought about putting it down for now and just recieving my B.A. with no certification at this time.  I feel though that I must push through and finish.  Keep jumping through the hoops until I break a leg and they send me to the glue factory, I guess.

Today, I feel I have prepared properly.  I have been deliberate in using multiple learning methods so as to reach as many students as possible.  I’m teaching a piece of vocabulary.  I’m connecting real world knowledge to abstract political philosophy.  I’m reinforcing information that will be presented on the TAKS test that the students will be taking in just another week or so.

It’s just twenty or so minutes so just calm down.

Deep breath…

I became very frustrated in a class today.  No it was not my cooperating teacher, no it was not the students, it was in fact my fellow intern.  In the previous class, which the other intern was not present, we began to work on a research project.  I made it clear to the class that as a historian it is not good to use Wikepidia at all.  Wikepidia as many know is an site that is a living encyclopidia of sorts.  The problem with the site is that anyone can contribute, whether they know anything about the subject or not.  The site does have checkers but there is no way any amount of people who do the checking can be experts on all subjects.  Therfor, no university professor will allow any use of this web page as a source.  Secondly it was made very clear that you do not copy from a web page and place information upon your document.  I was asked by a student midway through the next class why I told them this when the other “teacher” told them it was fine.  I was then confronted by the other intern and told in front of the students that I was completly wrong and that some people just think in old fashion terms and things change.  Although these two students had come to me freely in the past class and a half, from this point on they made a point of bypassing me to ask anyone else in athority.  I’ve got to take a lot of realy deep breaths.

My cooperating teachers have been great to work with this week.  Ms. Fayed is very open to allowing interns to interact with students and jump into the lecture when they have something useful to add to the discussion.  The downside of this is that sometimes you feel like too much is expected too soon and there have been times, that once we have started working on group or individual projects she has disappeared from the classroom.  It all comes with balance and I feel I’ll have to have a heart to heart with her about what she realy would like us to be to her class.

Ms. O’Neal is a great teacher from the little I have been able to observe.  Unfortunately our first day she was on a field trip and the second day half the class was taken administering a test.  I am looking forward to today as I’ll get to see a whole class period of interaction.  She is a young teacher so she does understand our worries and fears so she has been very deliberate in easing us into her class.  I need to get my hands on a seating chart for her class today because I have no names.  Well a few more months and I’ll have to know the names of six classes and I’ll be the only one in charge, so I’ll enjoy this while I can.

English Language Learner…

Even though my mother has been an English teacher my entire life I still struggle with the language.  Oh, my papers have drained many a red pen.  It is not hard to see why I am paired now with what is termed an English Language Learner.  This is a student whose first language is not English and might not have been in our country very long.  A great part of this program is that the student that I am paired with is not just termed a “student” but is call my “buddy”.  My buddy is named Malina and this Spring it is my responciblity to share what I have learned in class and lessons from my own struggles with the language to help my buddy come closer to mastering the English language.

Our first meeting went great.  Melina is very personable and has a great vocabulary.  I might actually learn a few things from her.  She loves her friends, chinese food,  movies, and church.  Her family is a bit splintered.  About a year ago she lost her father.  Her mother, who is a nurse, and younger sister live in Alculpoco, Mexico.  Maria lives her with her Aunt and cousins.  She does have one older brother, but does not see him a lot because he’s a bit older with a family to care for himself.  Her friends and church have become her family here in Austin.  Five out of seven evening are spent participating in youth group, girls group, liturgical dance group, and worship.  When Melina gets older she wants to be a nurse and possibly a pharmacist.  She feels a bit like she has a little too much responciblity for a fourteen year old and wants to remain a kid a bit longer.

Melina likes to talk a lot about many things but I it is clear that her vernacular is the strongest part of her language skills.  Where she struggles the most in school are in the classes most identified as problem areas for ELL’s, science and geography.  We will have to work hard on mastering specific vocabularies that pertain to content areas.  We will have to learn not only vocabulary but become comfortable with multiple learning strategies so that instead of becoming frustrated the student can move on to a different strategy.  Because of Melina’s high energy view of life I will have to find creative ways to present and embed these strategies.

Here it goes?

I’m here sitting in a high school library doing realy my first blog.  Yah, I do the myspace thing but that requires self starting, this on the other hand is an assignment.  I’m glad for it though as I’ve got  a lot in my noggin aching to get out, wether you like it or not.  I’ve been working with kids for over a decade in classrooms of every kind.  Some of the rooms have been just that rooms, like the kind you would imagine but some have been on the ocean while others have been under the stars in the hill country of Texas.  This more formal setting will be new and wonderful.  As a mentor of mine, Jerry Manlove, once said, “A man would go crazy if he were to just wander the great plains two hundred years ago because his wandering would seem aimless.  We find comfort in finding that fenceline that lets us know we are going somewhere.”

I have found the fenceline and it does not feel confining but freeing.  I now know my boundries and how much room I have to work with in the classroom.  Now I get to just go wild in this space and make some young minds come along for the ride.  History Rocks!!!

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