Lab Experience - Week Four

            This week was a very hectic, but short week because on Thanksgiving. Among all of the holiday festivities and plays that the children were putting on, I had to teach two lessons this week. One lesson Monday and one lesson Tuesday, both of which had to be observed. With only having these two days I decided to do a two day lesson on the story called The Lotus Seed. Monday I introduced the key words in the story. To start off the lesson I asked the students what was special to them to introduce the special seed that was going to be in the story. Then I assisted the students in a short story called The Special Seed which had all of the key words throughout. I had the story for them to see on a PowerPoint as well as a handout for them to highlight all of the words as we went through and read. Once we read the story, I went over each word and gave them the definition and a picture that they could relate with the word. For the students to stay attentive while I was teaching them these words I made them each individual dictionaries that had the definition already on each page and all they had to do was fill in the missing word and draw a picture. This seemed to help the students a lot, not only so they would be paying attention, but it gave them a tangible object that they could keep to remember each word. After that, I displayed a piece of butcher paper on the board with all of the words scattered on it. The students were given magazines and put into groups of two or three and they had to find pictures that represented each word. They all loved this activity because they were able to interact with their classmates and have fun at the same time while learning the material. I was surprised at how well the students remembered what each word meant because they did not even have to use their personal dictionaries for assistance. To help the students remember all of this information, I gave each student a key term where they had to describe/act out the meaning of the word. Lastly, for independent practice I gave the students a worksheet where they had to find the missing key word that fit into each sentence. All of the students enjoyed this activity and I could see that they were ready to move on to reading the story on Tuesday.
            Tuesday was a fun day because it was the last day before break and there were so many fun activities going on. There were Thanksgiving plays, arts and crafts, and a more relaxed atmosphere in the classrooms because the teachers wanted to leave on a good note for the break. However, I did have to teach a lesson today. I did a continuation lesson from yesterday. Since the children already knew the key terms associated with the story, today we went further and read the actual story, The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland. To start of the lesson I showed them a picture of a building in a foreign country and they had to name as many things as they could that look different from the buildings here in the United States. This made the connection to the story where the grandmother went to a foreign country. After that I explained that the genre of the story was realistic fiction, the characters, and the setting. Then we started reading the story. I randomly called on the children to read because they all were eager to read. As we were reading the story I asked them comprehension questions to see how much they really understood the story. The students did well answering the questions and seemed to be paying close attention to the events in the story. Once the story was finished, I provided each student with an envelope that had the events of the story in random order. They each had to correctly sequence the events and glue them in the correct order on a piece of paper. The last activity I gave them each a seed to remember the story by and I had them write a couple of sentences as to what they would do with this seed and why. They also were to draw a picture to represent what they were going to do with this seed. I loved being able to walk around and see their creativity in full force. All of their answers were very well thought and some were very creative!

Lab Experience- Week Three

Monday was just like any other day. So far, I have helped Ms. Stephens grade some papers as well as copying papers. I was also preparing for my lesson on Thursday by looking through some of her teaching edition books to get some good ideas as to what I wanted to do. I have been enjoying the children because by now they are getting comfortable with me being there every day. When they come into the classroom they greet me with a big smile! Once I see their faces with that smile on their face I know that this process is worth every minute of it. This has to be one of my favorite memories thus far in this experience.

Thursday was a pretty eventful day! I was there the whole day and I also had to prepare for my lesson after lunch time. The whole day I was very apprehensive about teaching this lesson because it was going to be the first time I have taught the third grade group. I was nervous that the children would not adapt to the situation of someone new teaching them especially when I have not had the chance to interact with them since I am only there one full day a week. Since the third grade class comes in after lunch I do not get to see them often, but as I started my lesson the children were very excited and adapted well to me. As soon as I started teaching my lesson, the nerves subsided and I began interacting with them. I was instructed by Ms. Stephens to teach a creative arts lesson on information writing. This lesson was a challenge to find a way to teach with the topic I was given in a creative way. So I started the lesson off with showing them various objects such as a cow, a cat, and a piggy bank and they had to give as much information/facts as possible. Then, I transitioned into further teaching them about informational writing and why it is important to understand the proper way to write it. The children were very attentive and willing to try whatever I had for then to do. Then, after I taught them this I had them made a brochure for their animal that they had chose earlier in the week. As I was walking around I noticed how creative the children were being with their brochure. They really enjoyed this activity and I could tell that they loved being able to interact with each other when they had to explain what they drew and the facts about their animal. Preparing this lesson was a challenge for me, and throughout the whole day I was very nervous. However, all of my fears went away when I saw the children having fun and wanting to do more. I loved teaching third grade and I am looking forward to teaching them more!

Lab Experience- Week Two

This week was a very exciting week because I was able to teach two lessons! The first lesson I taught them was about a story called “Twister.” During this story, the students were to find the key words for the lesson. These key words described the warning signs and aftermath of a tornado and of bad weather in general. To start the lesson, I divided the students into two groups and labeled them voice one and voice two. I then had the students do a chant where group one would say something and group two would reply. After the chant, as a class we went over the key words in the chant. I handed out a copy of the definitions of the key words for the students to use as a reference. After this, I passed out the key words written on note cards. There were several sentences written on chart paper that were in context with the key words, yet the key words themselves were omitted. The students had to match their key word with the correct sentence. Once this was done, I had another piece of chart paper divided into three sections, “Seen, Heard, and Felt.” The students had to match their key word with which sense that it would trigger. For the independent practice, I had the students complete a works sheet. After the worksheet, I had the students draw a picture of a storm and then describe it with as many key words as possible. The students were so attentive and excited about the lesson. I was so glad to see that they enjoyed the lesson and it was also a fun way for them to learn vocabulary words in a new way.
The second lesson was a continuation of the first lesson. Now that the children knew and understood the vocabulary words for the story "Twister" we started actually reading the story. While the children were reading I asked them comprehension questions and we filled out a graphic organizer to help them document the most important facts throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
After this week of teaching and seeing how well the children reacted I am very excited to teach the remaining lessons and be able to interact more with them!

Lab Experience- Week One

My first week of student teaching in the ESOL classroom was challenging. This experience is very eye opening because I typically work with younger students in the Kindergarten through first grade levels; however, in this lab I am paired with third through fifth graders. With the younger students’ lessons require more interaction among the students, yet with the older students they are more self-sufficient. As I was observing this week I noticed that there is less interaction on a daily basis than I would have originally thought. Most of the students in the classroom understood English well enough to learn basic concepts in other subject areas. The biggest difference that I had to adjust to was the use of worksheets instead of a traditional teacher based lesson.

Another major difference that was interesting to me in the ESOL classroom was the push-in and pull-out method. The push-in method is where the ESOL teacher goes into the regular education classes and provides assistance to the EL students. The pull-out method is where the EL students are taken out of their regular classes and come to the ESOL classroom for further instruction. I really enjoyed seeing this method especially in the push in classes where I was able to see how the EL children interacted with other students and see how the teacher makes accommodations.

As the weeks progress, I am very eager to be able to interact with the students as I teach my lessons. I want to understand more completely the method of teaching ESOL to students in the varying circumstances that are found in schools.