Building Connections & Vocabulary

Visual Connection:                 

                 

Theory in Practice: 

Attitude: Even though the linguistic students are very few, the attitude that the teacher possess towards these students are love and wanting them to understand and learn at their own pace and get as much help as they need so that they can be successful. A way that the teacher does this is through connecting with the students background experiences in the way that she knows each students circumstances at home, how they got here, and is always in contact with the parents to add more personal connections into her students lives. My experience in the classroom has been a great opportunity to work with the ELL's in a group together as they learn because they all connect very well together and the teacher has always initiated it. 

Knowledge: The teacher accessed previous knowledge by learning from her past experiences with ELL's and is also never afraid to try new strategies and curriculum to make sure that they students are successful. This is important because each student every year is different and every student learns differently and connect with different students and it is good to access old knowledge but to expound and tweak it to the needs of the students. This is so the students can be more successful and enjoy their learning experience and have access to the world of knowledge and possibilities. 

Vocabulary: Vocabulary has been taught very efficiently in the way that the teacher breaks every word down like this:

-sound it out

-spell it

- write it down

And the teacher gives many examples that the students can connect with so that they fully understand what the new term means and how they can apply it to the lesson that they are learning that day in whatever subject it may be. Their is also visuals which are super essential and the students have interacted more with pictures and have learned the vocabulary words more efficiently then when the teacher just describes the word to the students. 

Reflect: This has really impacted me in many significant ways. First of all, I have personally been working with the English Language Learners in a group together so I have learned a handful of things about how they learn, interact with others and myself as a teacher and facilitator to them. Secondly I have learned what attitude, skills, and knowledge that I need to possess in order to successfully teach ELL students. This consists of having a positive attitude and lots of patience and taking things at a steady pace, connect with each student and get to know them personally and get to know how each of them learn personally and what strategies work with that. And lastly I have been empowered to really take extra time out of service learning to figure out what will work with each child and really learning to be a teacher in the sense of one on one learning and connecting and getting to know and love each student that I have interacted with.