Surprisingly, I feel like I'm becoming a better teacher. I miss my gospel doctrine calling and LOVED it when I got to teach relief society. I taught my drama class a poem today and it totally flowed naturally. Things come quickly to me and I just feel like be a teacher was a life calling for me.
Important Things to Remember When Teaching ELLs:
(according to Karalee Fuller)
1. Repetition is key. Just like you and me, they don’t understand everything the first time. Mix up the ways you teach important concepts to help it stick. (multiple contexts)
2. Just because a student can speak to you does not mean they understand the textbook or certain academic vocabulary. (BICS vs. CALPS)
3. English words are hard. Sometimes a word can be deciphered, but often times not. Would you know what the word interpretation means by just looking at the word?
4. Every ELL needs help outside of the classroom. In order to catch up to their peers they need more academic time. Ex: after school programs that support academic learning
5. Visual support helps ELLs. Pictures are the universal language.
6. Every lesson should be engaging and motivating.
7. Practice, practice, practice.
8. Relate new concepts to things they already know/prior knowledge, whenever possible. (scaffolding)
9. Group work has been seen to help with confidence and learning. The teacher doesn’t have to be the only one teaching.
There is not one “right way” to teach something.
1 comments:
great thoughts! keep it up. you are a fabulous teacher and you're only going to keep improving.
love your point about english being hard. i used to tell me students the same thing! i said "it's a messed up language. we use so many other languages, it's a mash-up. we invent new words. so don't get frustrated when you're stuck bc this is hard stuff."
keep it up KF, you're doing great!
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