Reflection
Although
I was once of those students who verified and received English Language Learner
program support in high school, I have experienced and understand obstacles of
ELL students but before taking this course my knowledge of understanding and
teaching ELL is so limited. I had not expected that second language acquisition
had so much to it. Three and half months passed by so fast. Although that
period of time is not long, but it has brought many useful knowledge that help
me to become a good teacher for my students and especially for my English
Language Learners. From the readings, videos, assignments and blogs each gave
me a large amount of information about Second Language Acquisition and each one
of them is a piece of the puzzle; they connected together to create a big
picture of Second Language Acquisition. The knowledge that I have gained in
this course, I can apply it to my career as an educator who guide students to
achieve academic success.
As
I mentioned about puzzle pieces of this class, one of the most beneficial
pieces would be the blog. It gave me the opportunity to knowing my classmates,
others’ experiences and making connections between theories we learned and real-world
situations. I feel it very interesting to learn from each other and personal
experiences in the field of education. Each individual is unique so their
individual’s learning or teaching experiences are very variable. The blog allowed
me to watching/reading all my classmate’s interviews, reflections and giving/
receiving feedback. Definitely, there is always something great to learn from each
blog. In this semester, my most favorite blog is Blog Entry 3, interview a
Foreign Language/Second Language/Bilingual teacher or professor. The teaching
experience and strategies of the teachers have shared in each interview are very
valuable to me who will be a brand-new teacher the upcoming school year.
In
second language acquisition, there are many factors that influence an
individual’s L2 learning experience. According to Ortega (2013, p. 9), “Among
these, the most important and well-studied sources of universal influence are
age, mother tongue, environment and cognition.” During my student teaching, I have
the opportunity to interact with some students who have no motivation; it leads
to their reluctance to acquire knowledge/ lesson. I believe that the most
effective factors that helps a learner learn more effectively is motivation. As
an educator, I would like to be the one who inspires, motivates and be there
for my students. I want my students to know that I really care about them
especially my ELL students. To achieve the goal, my first step is getting to
know my students; building a positive relationship between me and my students is
a fundamental aspect of quality teaching and student learning. Next step, I
would like to create a safety and comfortable classroom because students need
to feel safe in order to learn. I am also would like to including differentiation
in content base on students’ learning styles and interest so that my students appear
to be more engaging in their learning.
Hey Quynh Ninh,
ReplyDeleteHey Quynh Ninh,
It is so great that you had support with ESL in high school. By having that you were able to gain experience with SLA that some of us will never know. We have learned so much information in such a short period of time. The knowledge that we have gained from this class will be very beneficial in the classroom when teaching SLA students. After this curse I now understand just how complex any given language really is. I too think that the blog was en excellent aspect of this class. The blog allowed us to be more connected as a class and to learn from one another. By having us learn from each other it gave us a better idea of what it will be like as teachers because it is so important that we are always learning and open to new ideas. Blog entry 3 was great I also enjoyed learn from a teacher who is working in the discipline. According to Glass (page 100), motivation is one of the greatest factors when teaching a student a new language. Also the environment in which the child is learning is also a large factor of the students SLA (Glass, p. 7). It is so important that we make a safe learning environment and encourage each student to be diligent and motivated in his or her studies. Thank for sharing!
Hi Elizabeth,
DeleteThank you for your comment. My experience as ESL student during my high school years definitely allowed me to gain more knowledge about SLA students. I understand more on the struggles that SLA students have to go through which teaches me to be more patient and to pay closer attention to them. Applying what we have learned in this class, I am confident that we would make our class more interesting and engaging to our future students, especially for SLA students.
Hi Quynh!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about your experience in this course. I agree with many of the things you have talked about in your reflection. I loved that we were able to make connections as well with what we read and learned about in this course and the experiences we had in real life. I also enjoyed how we were able to record and share with our classmates the interviews we had since everyones experiences are totally different! I really connect and agree with your opinion on student motivation. I wrote in my own blog that motivation is something that should be focused on since it is such a big part that impacts the student's ability to learn a new language. Motivation is what starts with the student being able to learn since without motivation, the student would not want to learn and therefore decrease their learning. I am so happy that you talk about wanting to inspire and motivate your students. This is so important for students to receive this motivation from others so that they are able to have support. Students too must find intrinsic motivation so that they are able to continue their learning for a very long time (Ortega, 2009). Thank you so much for sharing!
Hi Julie,
DeleteThank you for your comment. I total agree with you that motivation is the important key to the success of students, especially intrinsic motivation. This quality of motivation is considered optimal because it has been experimentally shown to be consistently associated to higher levels of achievement (Vansteenkiste et al., 2006). I would apply what I have learned in this class to inspire our future student and create a learning environment to help them build their intrinsic motivation.
Hey Quynh, I always enjoy reading your blog entries! I find it very interesting that you experienced being in an ESL program in high school, and now you are seeing the other side of SLA from a teacher's point of view. I definitely agree with you when you said that before this class, your knowledge on SLA was very limited. I had never realized how limited my knowledge was of SLA either, and that is why this course has been so beneficial to us all. I also agree that this blog is an interesting way of sharing ideas in the field of education! I see that teachers everywhere always use blogs to post ideas for lessons, classroom management, and now SLA! Lastly, I too find motivation to be one of the biggest contributors when it comes to every students' success, especially ELL's. According to Ortega (2013), a second language learner can either succeed or fail, all depending on their volition, or free will, and their motivation to learn (p. 168). So, as teachers, we must take the appropriate steps that you had mentioned in order to get to know our students and to be their helping hand! (-:
ReplyDeleteHi Haley,
DeleteThank you for your sharing! My experience as ESL student helped me realize that how difficult it was to learn another language, especially when no one around you speak the same language as you do. According to Ortega, effective teaching is an important element in SLA (Ortega, p.8, 2013). Therefore as a future teacher, this makes me want to go far and beyond what I can do with my future SLA students to help them learn effectively.
Hey Quynh! The fact that you will have English as a second language in common with your ELL students will be a huge benefit to you as well as to them! You will be able to relate to them better than I will ever be able to, because you went through the experience that they will be currently going through. They will also be able to look up to you as mentor. They will know that you successfully learned English, so they can do it too! This will motivate them even more to learn math in your classroom because they have a reason to use that effort and drive that they have deep down inside to learn English as well as math (Ortega, 2013, p. 170).
Delete