Field Log 2

Within my observations, I have noticed that there is a link to students previous experiences. This does not occur on every lesson but I have noticed that the ESL teachers do try to do this as much as possible. This is because they know the importance of students being able to relate to the content that they are learning. The way that they try to build background knowledge is by using a lot of pictures/ visuals and videos. This helps the students because they are able to visualize in a picture or video format what they are going to be learning about.

The ESL teachers do allow the students to name things in visuals in their home language. This is because their philosophy is that they want the children to learn English but not forget their first language. They do not want to see a loss of culture within their students. They are always as open as possible to learning about the students culture and incorporating it into the lessons.

Both teachers do make connections to past learning when they are working with a group that has had past learning experiences. They are always asking them if they did what they are currently doing in school in their home country. Then they ask the students to show them how they did it in their home country. This makes the child feel significant as if they are teaching a portion of the lesson. This is great for building rapport with the students and for gaining the students trust.

Key vocabulary words are always introduced and taught with word learning strategies. I know with the upper grades they are constantly breaking down words into root words and prefixes and suffixes. There is a lot of word work that goes on within lessons. With the younger grades, the use of Orton Gillingham is present within the lessons. This is used to help build the students decoding strategies and learn different letter sounds to form words and sentences.

Comprehensible Input-

The teachers language is accessible to students. I find that one of the teachers is more careful than the other when it comes to accessible language. The teacher whose language is accessible to students always makes sure that she explains something more than once. She double checks that the student understands the task and understands what she is saying. She uses simple sentences and also uses visuals and points to different objects in the room if she is referring to them. The other teacher can use some additional practice with using simple sentences. She can sometimes talk to fast and the students can miss what she is saying. Therefore, I think she needs to slow down her rate of speech and also paraphrase a little bit more.

During the lessons, the tasks are very clear. They are both very good at making the objectives explicit. They know what their students are capable of understanding and I feel that they push them just the right amount to improve their understanding of the English language. Within the lessons, gestures and body language is used constantly. They both are very animated when they speak which is beneficial to the students. They also use visuals and point to objects as I had previously stated. Graphic organizers is also something that is used a lot within the lessons. This is a great visual representation for the students so that they can understand and grasp the content that they are learning.

This photo is a bulletin board that is in the ESL room. It shows where each child is from and has a string that is directing the person that each child colored to their home country. 

This bulletin board shows numbers in different languages that are spoken by the ENL children. 

This is the beginnings of the word wall.