This is my first observation of the ELL teacher and a fully ELL class. The class I observed included 3 second grade students. Students C and B are girls. Student A is a boy.
Note: The italicized writings are my reflections and the regular writings are my observations.
12:20 – Mrs. M brings her three second grade ELL students to her office in the back of the library. She asks each student to say hi and introduce themselves to me.
They are all adorable. I can easily tell that Student A is very active and loves to talk. Student B is very quiet and timid. She speaks English well but she is hesitant. Student C is very well spoken and does not seem shy at all.
12:22 – Once Mrs. M gets all the students seated, Student A burps really loadly. Mrs. M makes a point to ask him what he should say after that happens and then she explains that he should not do that in public. She asks all the students why he should not do that. Student C answers that it is not polite. Student A answers back in Spanish.
I really like that she teaches them manners as well. She is stern, but very nice. Student C is quiet and polite, but she is talkative and seems to be the first to raise a hand. It seems that student A is a proficient English speaker, but he uses Spanish when he is excited or agitated.
I want to note that Mrs. A has several visuals on the walls. Some is student work and some are small charts. I really like this. I believe having the student work and other visuals really helps the students.
AT THIS POINT I WAS NO LONGER ABLE TO KEEP TRACK OF THE TIME.
- Mrs. M conducts a review of the last class. “Do you remember what color you were?” Each student says their color and Mrs. M gives them the post-it notes in that color. She has to correct Student A’s behavior because he gets out of his chair.
Student A has a lot of energy.
- The post-it notes have words written on them. There are two charts, along with other visuals, on the wall. The charts each have two words at the top. The first has Fly and Go. The second has See and Too. Mrs. M asks each student to put their words back on the chart like they did in the previous class. She also has the students say the words as they put up their post-its. Student A puts the words Pie and Try under Fly, the word So under Go, the word See under We and the word Zoo under Too. Student C puts the words Fly and Try under Fly and the words The and Sea under We. Student B puts the word So under Go and the words He, The and Sea under We. Mrs. M goes over the words in each column and draws their attention to the last letter in each word. She has them say the last letters aloud. Then, she asks them to look at the words See and Sea. She asks if they remember the song they sang in the last class. She encourages them to sing the song with her. The students sing along and get up to do the hand movements. They sing, “A Sailor went to sea, sea, sea to see what he could see, see, see. But all that he could see, see, see was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.” Next, Mrs. M discusses the differences between the two words and the fact that they rhyme. She mentions that they are synonyms.
I really like that she has the students do things where they are able to get up out of their chairs. The room is rather small, so this keeps the students from getting as restless. Also, the students are using more than just one of their senses. Instead they are using their visual, textile and audio senses. They must physically put the word in the right place; they get to see what the word looks like in comparison to other words that sound the same; also, they get to hear the word and say the word as they stick it on the chart. This would be considered active learning and will definitely help the students internalize the words and the fact that they rhyme. The song is great as well. This will help the students remember that these two words sound similar but mean different things. The song may even help them pay attention to context clues when they hear the words being used. I am not sure if she has discussed context clues with them yet, but I do know that the words for See and Sea in Spanish do not sound so similar, so the students are not used to this. In Spanish the word See is Ver and the word Sea is Mar. These words are very different, so context clues are not necessary when you are listening to someone use these words. I believe the song will be very helpful for them in remembering the differences but that they also sound the same.
- Mrs. M has to correct Student A’s behavior again. He has gotten up from his chair without asking permission. She asks him to stay in his seat and says, “if I have to call your name again, I will have to call your mom. Your mom is very busy. She has to work and does not have time to come here.” Student A proceeds to talk about his mom getting a new boss. They way he explains it at first sounds like she had gotten fired, but he is able to clarify that her old boss was fired, not her. Mrs. M explains, “she is doing her work and so should you.”
I like the way Mrs. M explains that he should be doing his work just like his mother. I think that puts both a personal and a real world connection on the issue. The student realizes that everyone has work, even adults like his mom. So, misbehaving and not completely your work will waste the time of his mom, his teacher, the other students and him.
- Mrs. M shows the students a picture of a penguin. She points to the penguin and asks, “what is this?” Student A answers, “A penguin.”
- Mrs. M passes out post-it notes and asks, “who can spell penguin?” The students write the word on their post-its secretly.
- Mrs. M says, “remember, what do you do if you aren’t sure?” Student C answers, “sound it out.” Student C and Student B finish first.
- Mrs. M explains that it is fine if they aren’t sure or don’t get it perfect, as long as they try.
- The students compare spellings and Student C says it is ok if they aren’t right because they tried their hardest.
I think this is a great lesson for the students. They should be rewarded for trying their hardest. Also, if they did not get it right when they tried on their own, they will remember how to spell it after seeing where they went wrong. Usually, information will stick better if you made an attempt at something and were then corrected. If you do not bother trying, there is no prior knowledge to connect with. If you try and get it wrong, you have created knowledge of the wrong way to do something and the knowledge of the right way to do it will connect with that previous incorrect knowledge. It builds upon itself and helps you to learn more quickly. This is a great strategy.
- Student A is out of his seat again. Student B also gets out of her seat. Mrs. M corrects both students and then commends students C for being in her seat like she is supposed to be. Mrs. M gives Student C a sticker as a reward for staying in her seat.
This is a great lesson for the other two. They see Student C being rewarded for positive behavior. Hopefully, they will begin to correct themselves because they want to be rewarded, not reprimanded. So, instead of severely punishing the two who are misbehaving, she rewards the one that is behaving. This is definitely positive reinforcement.
- Mrs. M explains that they will watch something on the computer, so they should pay attention. She asks them if they remember the movie “Happy Feet.” They say yes. She shows them a clip of the new “Happy Feet” movie: “Happy Feet 2.”
This is a great way to bring out prior knowledge as well as get their attention so they may make connections as the lesson progresses. This is the “Set” for the lesson: it grabs their attention, connects to previous knowledge and gives them something to connect new knowledge to if they did not have previous knowledge of the movie or penguins in general. Now they also have a visual.
- Mrs. M asks, “do you know anything about Penguins?” Mrs. M asks Student B. She says, “they eat fish.” Mrs. M asks Student C. She says, “they have webbed feet and a big family.” Mrs. M asks Student A. He says, “I a penguin science book. The fur keeps them warm.” Mrs. M misheard him at first and thought that he said the FATHER keeps them warm. She repeats, “the father keeps them warm?” Student A says, “no.” Then, he corrects her in Spanish. She apologizes for hearing wrong and repeats, “The fur keeps them war.” Student C says, “the father lays eggs.” Mrs. M asks her to hold that thought. She explains that they will read about penguins.
I really like that she has the students share their previous knowledge with her and each other. This gets the students more invested in the topic, more engaged in the lesson and more motivated to see if they were correct and learn more about the topic. This is wonderful.
It is interesting that Student A corrected Mrs. M in Spanish. He may have felt that she would not understand him if he said it in English again. He seems to resort to his native language when he is worried about being misunderstood or about getting in trouble. He is very excitable. He may resort to his native language when he gets excited as well. It is great that she is a native Spanish speaker as well and is able to understand when they resort to Spanish to explain themselves. She does a great job of sticking with English, though. I am impressed.
- Mrs. M asks them to listen to the word again. She says, “Penguin.” She asks, “what is the first letter?” They all say, “P.” She goes through sounding out the word. The students say the letters. They are stumped at the letter “u:” it has a “w” sound in this word. Student B has a “w” in her spelling. Mrs. M explains, there is a “w” sounds, but it is not a “w.” Mrs. M shows them the correct spelling and has them make corrections on their post-it.
Having the students sound out the word is a great technique. She is very careful to explain that sometimes letters can make different sounds than what we expect. Having the students rewrite the word so that it is correct but keeping it on the same paper as the incorrect spelling is a great technique as well. Now, they have a visual of what the word sounds like to them and of how the word is actually spelled. They can learn a lot from this little post-it. They can see what sound the “gui” combination can make as well as the difference between the way the word sounds and looks.
- Student A burps again and says excuse me. Mrs. M explains that he “will have to learn to hold on to that and not do it in front of people.” Student A responds in Spanish.
I believe his response in Spanish is because he is agitated/worried since he is being reprimanded again.
- Mrs. M explains to the students that they will get to go see the movie “Happy Feet 2” when it comes out in November.
The students seem very excited. This is a great incentive for them to pay attention and be on their best behavior. This is a great culmination to a unit on Penguins. The students are able to learn about them and then go see a movie about them. Hopefully, after seeing the movie, she will have them discuss anything they saw in the movie that is not accurate compared to what they learned.
- Mrs. M passes out a paper that has information on penguins. Mrs. M asks Student C to read the first paragraph. Student C reads the first paragraph very clearly and very well. She reads very slowly, but she does not mess up. Mrs. M asks the students if there are any words they did not know. The students look through the paragraph and circle a couple words.
- Mrs. M asks the students, “what are feathers?” Student B answers, “they help the birds fly.”
- Mrs. M asks, “what is a bill?” Student A responds, “a bird?” Student C responds, “part of their arms and hands?” Student B responds, “to help them fly?”
- Mrs. M writes down the word on a post-it and puts it on the wall. She explains, “this is one of the words we need to find out more about.”
I really like that she makes this a whole class effort, including herself in the task. I also really like that she has the students pick out the words they are having the most trouble with and she also includes some words that she thinks some may be having difficulty with but are just too shy to say. She also is very good about having the students share their own knowledge with each other. For the most part the students talk more than she does, which is great. She never talks more than 50%, so the students play an active role in their own learning and in the teaching aspects as well. Once she introduces the topic, she lets them direct the lesson more. She focuses on things that they point out they are having difficulty with. Wonderful!
- Mrs. M asks, “what are flippers?” Student A answers, “helps them swim.”
- Mrs. M ask, “can you point at the flippers?” (There is a picture of a penguin at the top of the page.) All the students point at the penguin’s feet.
- Mrs. M asks, “do humans have flippers?” The students all say, “No.”
- Mrs. M explains that there are different types of flippers. She looks up images on the computer using Google. She shows them pictures of scuba flippers for people and pictures of flippers on animals. She points to the scuba flippers and asks, “have you seen these in movies or on TV?” Student B says, “on a movie.”
It is great that she is able to help them make connections. She uses visuals a lot, which is wonderful. Also, she is careful to make sure they know that there are two kinds of flippers. She is very thorough. She does everything she can think of to limit confusion for them. English is said to be one of the hardest languages to learn. It can be very confusing.
- Mrs. M asks Student A to read the second paragraph. He reads clearly and correctly. She stops him midway to ask what time of the year the paragraph is talking about. Student A answers, “winter.”
- Mrs. M asks the students to tell her about winter. They say it is cold and there is snow.
- Student B is asked to read the rest of the second paragraph. She reads slowly with some trouble on the words “heard” and “voice,” as well as the titles “Mr.” and “Mrs.” Student C helps Student B with the words.
- Mrs. M asks, “and what’s a voice?” Student B answers, “it’s when you talk.”
- Mrs. M writes “Mr.” and “Mrs.” on separate post-its and asks how to say each. Students A and C say them out loud.
I love the environment that Mrs. M creates. The students help each other when they see each other struggling and they are very reassuring towards each other. I do also love Mrs. M’s use of post-it notes and the fact that she stops frequently to check for understanding and help students practice words they have trouble with.
- Mrs. M has Student B re-read the section. As Student B is reading she begins to read more quickly since she has read the section once already. She skips a slight pause at a period. Mrs. M stops her briefly to ask, “what do we do when we see a period?” Student B asks, “keep going?” Mrs. M says, “stop.” Mrs. M nods for Student B to finish reading the paragraph.
Mrs. M does not miss a mistake. She is careful to stop the students and have them think about their mistakes or what they are having trouble with. This is great. She incorporates all skills in her lessons: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
- Mrs. M has Student C read some of the next paragraph. Mrs. M reviews pausing after periods. She points out where they should pause and models it with the section Student C has read.
I am so glad that she models this. It is very important for them to have a good grasp of punctuation.
- Next, Mrs. M asks another comprehension questions that ties in with the comment Student C made earlier about the father laying the eggs. Mrs. M asks, “ok, now who lays the egg?” Student C answers, “the mom.”
- Mrs. M asks Student B to re-read the part about the egg. Student B reads the part slowly and carefully. Student C says, “I was wrong.” Mrs. M explains that it is ok and that she just did not have the right information.
- Mrs. M asks Student A to read. Student A asks where they are at. Mrs. M says, “you should not have to ask. You should be following.” Mrs. M points to where he should start from. Student A reads about the dad keeping the egg warm.
- Mrs. M points out that both parents help.
I love that she was able to acknowledge that Student C was wrong, but still point out that she was right in a way because the father does help. This way Student C doesn’t feel alienated or lose confidence.
- Mrs. M asks Student C to read.
- Mrs. M stops Student C and explains that Student B was right about the fish. Student B responds in Spanish. Mrs. M replies to her, “that’s good; you can learn a lot from movies.
I am assuming that Student B explained in Spanish that she had seen penguins eating fish in a movie. I believe she reverted to Spanish because she was excited and did not take the time to think about how to explain where she got the information in English.
- Mrs. M asks Student A to read again. He does well.
- Mrs. M asks Student B to read again. She has a bit of trouble with a few words. Student A and Student C help her out with the words.
- Mrs. M asks Student C to read. Mrs. M stops her after she reads the word “Surprise!” Student C read the word with feeling. Mrs. M explains that she really liked her intonation.
- Student A jumps in and finishes the story.
- Mrs. M asks, “where do you think the mother is?” The students make a prediction that she is looking for food.
Now that they have made a prediction they are more invested in reading more about the penguins and learning more about them. Great way to keep them engaged.
- Mrs. M: “Before we go! Can you find any words in the reading that we can put in one of our groups?”
- Student C: “Feet.” Mrs. M has the students say the words feet then fly. She has them do the same with each word: feet, go; feet, we; feet, too. After each one she asks, “do they rhyme?” When they say “we,” she points out that there is no “t” sound.
- Student B points out the word “fly.” Mrs. M points out that they already have that word.
- Student B speaks in Spanish. Mrs. M replies, “yes, we are going to stop now, but first we need to find out what “bill” means.
Mrs. M has done a great job tying everything in together. She came right back to their charts. I like that she had the students look for words that rhyme. I did not like that they have such a short time together. Having to pick the students up and take them back does take away a bit of their time. The lesson went really well though regardless. Also, they can pick back up where they left off in their next meeting.
I am assuming Student B was pointing out that it was almost time to go and that they still needed to get their books. Mrs. M had told them they could return their library books and get new ones, but it does not seem like they will have the time.
- Mrs. M asks, “Does anyone like computers?” All the students say, “yes.”
- Mrs. M shows then Dictionary.com and asks the students to spell the word “bill.” She asks Student A to click the “search” button.
- Mrs. M has them all gather around the computer and explains that they can also listen to the word they want to know about. She lets them listen to the word and repeat it. Mrs. M goes through all the definitions to help them decide which is the one they need. Mrs. M has Student A read the definition they decided on after they discuss the definitions.
- Mrs. M writes down the website for each of the students and explains to them that they can ask their teachers to use the computer when they need to find out what a word means.
This is a great resource for the students. I definitely think technology is a great asset to ELLs and ELL teachers. This also puts the students in charge of their own learning. They have this option and this resource, they just need to choose to use it.
- Mrs. M has the students write their names on their post-its from earlier when they spelled penguin.
- Before they leave Mrs. M gives each one a sticker. Studetn B receives a sticker with a 100 on it. Student C receives a sticker with a 100 and an A+ on it. Student A receives a sticker with a happy face on it. Mrs. M explains that maybe next time he will get a 100 if he stays in his seat.
Again, Mrs. M is great with the positive reinforcement. She does not completely leave Student A out of the rewards, but she does not give him the same reward as the other two and she is careful to explain that he can receive the same reward if he behaves. This is great. I do believe some of this works a lot better with younger students, though. Last year I taught 11th and 12th graders. If I gave a reward to one or a few, the others would either not care or they would complain and complain. I would explain why they did not receive the same reward, but they just did not care. Some would just get mad. I had several students steal candy for themselves because they did not get one. Of course, I know I still need to work on my classroom management, but I am still a new teacher and that comes with experience.
- Mrs. M explains to the students that they do not have enough time to look for new books, but she will make sure they do next time they meet.
- Mrs. M explains to me that the students read and take AR tests. She explains that she has been encouraging her students to read at least one per week and take a test. Student A only made a 50% on his last one, so the librarian wants him to try again. She also explains that Student B has not been reading and taking tests. She keeps conveniently forgetting her books. Student C, on the other hand, will read two or three a week. She really loves to read.
I can tell that Student C is the most proficient in English. Student A would be about in the middle while Student B is the least proficient, and for good reason since she has only been here for a year. Student A seems to have trouble keeping his attention on things. He has a lot of energy. This may contribute to his lower score on the AR test over his book. Student B is probably putting off taking her test because her confidence levels are lower and her reading proficiency is lower.
1:13 - Mrs. M takes the students back to their class.
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