Hello!
My name is Miss Gloge and I am a university student who is currently completing my final practicum in order to graduate and become a fully certified teacher. As a part of the final practicum, it is mandatory to do a professional development project. We are given the option to choose an area that is applicable to our situations and to fully research it. We then must present our findings to show our learning process.
Back in December, I briefly met the class I was to spend the next four months teaching. I was very excited and my brain was already buzzing with idea after idea. Once I found out that there was an ESL student in my class, I couldn't help but think about how I could help him develop his language skills. I have always been a language person (my major is French) and I remembered the little bit of work I had done with a couple of other ESL students in a grade five class I observed in my first year. Once the idea was set, I couldn't help but be excited about starting this project.
In order to fully understand what level he is at, it is important to know a little about his background. I questioned his teacher and the following is a brief overview of what I have gathered. (I will from hereon in refer to him as B).
B moved here from a refugee camp just this year. He did not speak a word of English and his parents knew very little. In addition, he was never given the opportunity to read or write in a school. Today, B can speak some simple English words, but no full sentences. He did some work with another student teacher in the fall with the names for farm animals and colours, but these words seem to have disappeared somewhat from disuse. He was also exposed to some phonetic work, but seemed resistant to it. He tries to mimic others and is willing to copy and learn, but becomes frustrated from time to time when he can't communicate.
I decided that my schedule would be to work with B two or three times a week for minimum half-hour sessions in order to attempt to develop his language skills (similar time frame to the French classes I teach). I have learned from my observations that he has very limited knowledge of the language (especially with reading and writing) and therefore I felt that a proficiency test would not be much use.
After hearing about the disappearance of the words from the fall, I decided to start with a set of vocabulary words he would be able to use almost every day - classroom objects. He does have an advantage here as he does have some words he knows such as pencil, eraser, and sharpener. This sets a good base for developing his sentences as he will be given something new and something familiar.
I began today by showing him images of various classroom items and their corresponding words. These included: pencil, pen, pencil case, pencil sharpener, eraser, ruler, schoolbag, notebook, textbook, and crayon. We did various matching activities such as finding the picture that matched the word, concentration, and reading the word then placing it with the corresponding picture. Through learning and teaching French, I have learned that repetition is key when learning new words. This is why I decided to choose these activities as our starting point.
He guessed on a few words and pictures and only recognized the words school, book and pencil. As we repeated the various words, he practiced saying them out loud and he repeated many of them under his breath to try and help with the memorization.
After doing this for half an hour, he was able to match almost all of the words and could understand most pictures, but still had troubles remembering which words read pen, case, sharpener, eraser, crayon and textbook. He was also given a little book in which he could write the words and draw the pictures of the objects he learned. Today we added pencil and ruler (one word he knew and one he did not). The next day we will repeat some of these activities and add a couple more words to the book.
I am confident that B is going to do well and am excited to see his progression over the next few weeks.
My name is Miss Gloge and I am a university student who is currently completing my final practicum in order to graduate and become a fully certified teacher. As a part of the final practicum, it is mandatory to do a professional development project. We are given the option to choose an area that is applicable to our situations and to fully research it. We then must present our findings to show our learning process.
Back in December, I briefly met the class I was to spend the next four months teaching. I was very excited and my brain was already buzzing with idea after idea. Once I found out that there was an ESL student in my class, I couldn't help but think about how I could help him develop his language skills. I have always been a language person (my major is French) and I remembered the little bit of work I had done with a couple of other ESL students in a grade five class I observed in my first year. Once the idea was set, I couldn't help but be excited about starting this project.
In order to fully understand what level he is at, it is important to know a little about his background. I questioned his teacher and the following is a brief overview of what I have gathered. (I will from hereon in refer to him as B).
B moved here from a refugee camp just this year. He did not speak a word of English and his parents knew very little. In addition, he was never given the opportunity to read or write in a school. Today, B can speak some simple English words, but no full sentences. He did some work with another student teacher in the fall with the names for farm animals and colours, but these words seem to have disappeared somewhat from disuse. He was also exposed to some phonetic work, but seemed resistant to it. He tries to mimic others and is willing to copy and learn, but becomes frustrated from time to time when he can't communicate.
I decided that my schedule would be to work with B two or three times a week for minimum half-hour sessions in order to attempt to develop his language skills (similar time frame to the French classes I teach). I have learned from my observations that he has very limited knowledge of the language (especially with reading and writing) and therefore I felt that a proficiency test would not be much use.
After hearing about the disappearance of the words from the fall, I decided to start with a set of vocabulary words he would be able to use almost every day - classroom objects. He does have an advantage here as he does have some words he knows such as pencil, eraser, and sharpener. This sets a good base for developing his sentences as he will be given something new and something familiar.
I began today by showing him images of various classroom items and their corresponding words. These included: pencil, pen, pencil case, pencil sharpener, eraser, ruler, schoolbag, notebook, textbook, and crayon. We did various matching activities such as finding the picture that matched the word, concentration, and reading the word then placing it with the corresponding picture. Through learning and teaching French, I have learned that repetition is key when learning new words. This is why I decided to choose these activities as our starting point.
He guessed on a few words and pictures and only recognized the words school, book and pencil. As we repeated the various words, he practiced saying them out loud and he repeated many of them under his breath to try and help with the memorization.
After doing this for half an hour, he was able to match almost all of the words and could understand most pictures, but still had troubles remembering which words read pen, case, sharpener, eraser, crayon and textbook. He was also given a little book in which he could write the words and draw the pictures of the objects he learned. Today we added pencil and ruler (one word he knew and one he did not). The next day we will repeat some of these activities and add a couple more words to the book.
I am confident that B is going to do well and am excited to see his progression over the next few weeks.
RSS Feed