Content Area Observation

ELL stands for English Language Learners and are often students from countries which do not speak English that come to school to learn not only the regular content that a school teaches but also the English language. One of the many issues teachers face in helping students learn the content in class is the challenge of integrating the students’ native language along with the content of the lesson. Studies have shown that “3 years of exposure to English is not long enough for all individual ELLs to catch up to their monolingual peers for all subdomains of language” (Paradis, 2016). To properly teach ELL students both content for subjects as well as the English language teachers need to help integrate English and the students’ native language

I would also suggest that the teacher note that the ELL student is thinking in two languages

I had an opportunity to meet the ELL teacher who is responsible for educating ELL students in the district. She allowed me to observe her teaching a couple of students at Brighton Elementary School. The teacher informed me that she teaches ELL students using Scholastic books and a Scholastic app. Additionally, the scholastic app is usually used to help students replace missing words in a sentence, assist students with pronunciation, punctuation, & comprehension. While I was observing her class, the students would click on a word and the computer would pronounce the word for them. This is a really good way for students to learn how to pronounce words accurately. I also observed her using several strategies to facilitate these students’ understanding of English as a second language, for instance, she mentioned one strategy for capital letters “you step on gas” and another for periods “you brake”. Another strategy that she uses when teaching them to write sentences is “Mr. Space”, which is the size of a Popsicle stick, and it allows the students to put appropriate spaces between each of their words. The students are required to take a test at the end of the year to measure their progress. Students are supposed to show growth and progress and this data is communicated to the student's parents.

After the students came in from recess, Mrs. Haughn told them to get their math journals out to answer three math questions. As they finished the questions the

R1 expressed concern over the lack of research with the specific ELL students that he/she works with and the difficulty of educational gaps with those learners. R1 did not further explain what educational gaps are challenging, if the challenges are language specific or possibly due to other learning difficulties. R2 partially echoed R1’s difficulty of an educational gap by explaining his/her concern with a lack of students’ English language knowledge when entering class. R3 reported the challenges were communicating with parents that have no English language skills. R3 did not state any challenges with educating ELL students. R3 further explained that the difficulty is when a translator is not available to assist, which may mean there is a lack of support in the respondent’s school and/or school district for ELL services. Lastly, R4 stated that there are no challenges in educating ELL students as long as they are taught with lots of visual aids. R4 did not further explain if visual aids are the only tool necessary for success or any other reasoning for why no challenges

In all honesty, the way classroom interruptions were handled was not professional either. When a student would speak about something irrelevant to the topic, she would interact with the student and get very off topic. I found this very confusing, as there was a test the next class day, and they were currently working on their review as a class. Overall, in my honest opinion, this could have been handled in a much more mature fashion that encouraged the student to

The teacher interviewed and observed was Mrs. Linda Grill, she has twenty-eight years of experience. Her first ten years of teaching were at an inner city school in Los Angeles, where she said, “I was the only white person there.” For the last eighteen years she has been teaching a variety of grade levels at Aurthur Hapgood Elementary in Lompoc, current she teaches kindergarten. As I work at the same school as Mrs. Grill, I interview her almost daily, for the purpose of this paper the majority of the interview was completed two days before the observation. The formal observation of a kindergarten math lesson occurred on Friday September 16th at 10:10 am, immediately following the morning recess.

Ms. Kostos is a second grade teacher. During her time as a teacher she has seen the math standards and expectations for students evolve from just getting an answer, to thinking about how a problem is solved and communicating that process to others, while using the

I nervously walked down the colorful hallway decorated with children’s art projects and posters with cliche quotes. I approached the room labeled 208, took a deep breath and opened the door. Instantly I felt the intense glare of 25 4th grade students. Their teacher introduced me and explained that I would be helping out once a week because I would be studying education in college. Giggles and whispers filled the room and even some comments about my above average height. After quieting the rambunctious children, the teacher proceeded to give the class a math assignment and then gestured me towards her desk. “Could you take Maya into the hallway and help her with this fractions worksheet?” She asked. I was shocked I didn't expect to be working

When walking into Mr. Stanlick’s classroom one may notice the colourful posters covering the blank walls and the abundance of inspirational quotes. The busy room, although it may be distracting, instantly put me at ease. Mr. Stanlick had a method of explaining a math problem that made you instantly understand the solution. His confident

This is a challenge to ELLs because they need to understand the language in the books and when knowing English is a second language we need to make our material more bilingual in order to help these students achieve the basics in elementary school. If we can help them understand the material in both languages this could also influence their scores in mathematics. A study by Maxwell (2014), once a concept develops in the math material for the ELLs, it helps them improve their learning during the year in that math teacher’s class and that the learning will stick with the ELLs student in subsequent

Bluffton Middle school Mrs. Goll’s math resource class utilized A and B days. Group a class had only 8 students with a demographic of ESOL students and minorities. These students are below math level but have the opportunity to test out of the class. After quizzes students are able to record their own progress and see how many points they need to be in a general education course.

My field experience hours were completed inside a fifth-grade classroom at Centennial Arts Academy. Although I was paired with an educator who taught both mathematics and science, during the majority of my hours viewing her class, I was present during the time period of the student’s math block. The elementary school has a mission to inspire, nurture, challenge, and prepare their students as they are educated to become successful in a 21st century global society (website, 2017). Because I was partnered with an educator who taught multiple subjects, I was able to observe both of her classes, which are separated by which homeroom the children begin in. This opportunity meant the chance to see a multitude of different cultural backgrounds and stages of learning among the children.

Compare the strategies that were used. Which strategies were used the most? The least? Not at all? Critique why you think the teacher used these specific strategies.

The teacher is African-American and knows very few words in the Spanish language. When the teacher interacts with Student B, the communication is evidently poor because of the language barrier. When I assisted the Student B, I only translated the actual language of the examples. Student B’s mathematical skills were found to be on point. She had no trouble with her computations and was able to finish her work on time as the other students. However, I had wondered if I was not there if Student B would have been able to do her work properly. The student is extremely shy and seems to have no