Spanish Teaching

This year I will be helping out at the primary again, and I will also volunteer to be a translator for the parents. The only difference being that I will actually be more one-to-one with a 2nd grader, helping learn her English. I was overjoyed when I was offered this opportunity, I couldn’t wait to get started. I also couldn’t wait to get started with a new project I started at school. The step forward that I took was that I started my own program at my school, the unique factor being that it’s a spanish based after school study table. The goal of the program is to help out the students who are having trouble in class because they don’t know as much English.

By providing different learning experiences in the curriculum teachers will be able to meet the needs of each student’s learning style. For ELL students, New Caney Elementary offers Bilingual programs dedicated to teach both languages, Spanish and English, that will essentially allow ELL students to learn the language. Programs like these were created to help students to thrive academically no matter their circumstance. To assess students at all times, one as a future educator must ensure that we are assessing the students in each lesson plan. The teacher must ensure that each student is grasping the content presented to them by monitoring their gained knowledge. In order implement the units from the curriculum, I will strive to provide various learning experiences to each student. I will provide visual activities for my visual learners, have hands on activities for my hands-on learning students, and provide discussions for the ones that learn through hearing and repeating things out loud. Each learning experience is crucial to the student’s academic success. By providing different types of learning experiences I will be able to make the lessons more effective and

According to Gleason and Ratner (2013), “In the United States, the proportion of children who are raised learning more than one language is estimated to be about 20 percent, with Spanish becoming the most common second language (Gleason & Ratner, 2013, p. 75). My interview this week was with a teacher, Mrs. T, who teaches young English learners. Mrs. T teaches children who are in the first grade. Because the school has a growing Hispanic population, the native language of the children she teaches is Spanish. The interview took place in her classroom during the last hour of the school day. I observed as she worked with one of her students in particular who seems to

First, Rodriguez develops ethos in the area of authority, which is the author’s ability to demonstrate a command over a subject matter and to offer an informed persona. Although Rodriguez initially struggled with his adjustment into the American society and speaking English, he did not let that limit his capabilities of being a successful in the classroom. “Rodriguez’s article appeared in The American Scholar magazine at a critical time in the debate over bilingual education models” (Robinson 236). The American Scholar magazine

My observation purpose this week was to find out from my mentor how many ELL students were in her classroom. Ms. Zapata has thirteen students that are ELL (English Learning Learners), which concludes with it being her entire class. Furthermore, Ms. Zapata plans her lessons by having certain days where it’s Spanish day for two days and English days for two days as well, gathering this from a Bilingual Program her class is in. Although, on Friday it is a half day for English/Spanish. Resources are practiced in both languages so students are able to understand properly, there are times that students work one-on-one with Ms.

The first student that I conducted the lesson with was a girl I named Shiloh. Shiloh was an eight-year girl that was in the second grade, but would be entering in the third grade in the coming Fall. Her mother explained that she was an ESOL level two student. She was born in America, but both parents are Hispanic. The father is Cuban and the mother is from Venezuela. At home Shiloh’s family mainly communicates in Spanish. Shiloh’s mother explained that she wanted her daughter to speak Spanish at home because she does not want her to not learn Spanish or forget “where she comes from.” As I learned in TSOL I many parents do this this because they do not want their child

I interviewed an Instructional Aide that I work with at Cottonwood Elementary. Her name is Marcela and she works with the Kindergartners. She moved from Argentina to New York when she was 3 years old and her first language was Spanish. Her mother put her in preschool when she turned 5, to help her learn English. Marcela shared with me that when she went to school she felt very sad, disconnected and was constantly looking for other children that spoke Spanish. She did find a girl who spoke Spanish and she became “buddies’ with her. The girl that she befriended would help her by translating everything the teacher would say, which was all in English. Marcela said she was speaking English by Kindergarten, but she must have had a strong accent because they put in her in speech

Emergence into a new culture requires courage, toppled with humiliation. Despite the energy or the will, unfamiliar territory/language and events present unrelenting and unavoidable tensions. Hispanic students encounter teachers who fail to support them in maintaining aspects of their cultural identity. For some ELL students honoring and respecting another’s culture may diminish some of the struggles these students face.

“They are your kids, not mine!” The typical excuse content area teachers will say to the ESOL teachers when any issue arises regarding the education of the emerging bilingual students. The truth is that everyone in the school building, including content area teachers, office personnel, and administrators, should be involved in educating the emerging bilingual students, not only the ESOL teacher. Content area teachers need to be aware that if the students are not proficient in the new language, they will have challenges in all the content classes. Even in the Common Core Standards, the expectation is for teachers to develop not only their content area, but at the same time improve the academic language. One reason is that since the Common

For a period of time I was an ESOL (English as a second language) classroom teacher. This meant part my class was native English speakers and the rest was native Spanish speakers. All of my little first graders had an entire year of culture appreciation and learning to be patient with one another. They learned about holidays which they both celebrated and holidays they did not have in common. When certain Spanish speaking students would get tired of finding the correct English words they would speak in Spanish.

Every classroom in America is made up of multiple cultures with many different believes; however, regardless of culture or beliefs all students should receive the best education possible without losing their identities while in the process. Culture is a way of life of a group. Culture and learning are connected in significant ways and for this reason having an understanding of different cultures and learning processes should provide an outline for instructional decisions (Guild, 2001). The first step a teacher must take is to gain an understanding of each child culture. This paper will examine the Hispanic culture, discuss how a teacher could build global awareness and understanding, and incorporate diverse social and cultural views to create innovative methods to solving problems in his or her classroom.

As a Spanish teacher, I believe the purpose of education is to learn so you can go out into the world and survive. Being able to communicate, have teambuilding skills and self-direction are the foundations of learning. My goals for teaching Spanish is that the students know how to communicate effectively. I do not want them to list off vocabulary but be able to apply it to a real world context. I want to teach Spanish because I love the idea of another language with the cultural aspects. Students learn best by doing, they can do worksheets but I believe students doing things hands on, crafts and interactive activities will help them acquire the language easier.

Teachers are being forced to give up their lesson plans in order to prepare students. One teacher told how she had spent considerable time and money assembling books of importance to Latino culture, and how her students had responded enthusiastically to her initiative. Her students, however, would have to wait to learn about the Latino culture:

Ms. Tate is very fluent in Spanish and feels that knowing that language has helped her in becoming a more effective teacher the Latin Americans ELLs. She can tell if a student has some hang ups in the English language and therefore can recognize where the problem lies. She can see if they are not getting a certain language pattern and why, then she can compare the two languages and focus on how to get through the barrier by explaining the differences between the two patterns. Tate also says using the Krashen method where there is more comprehensible input and not everything is based on output produces better results than when she taught before and students had to listen for a long time before producing anything. She loves the curriculum we have: Sopris, Direct Instruction for true Spoken English. It is based on Krashen and gives comprehensible input in repetitive patterns in small doses. It runs

The second classroom I observed was a first grade class of twenty-five students. Students in this class were all of Mexican descent and labeled as early intermediate English language learners. The