Recycling Lesson at Brigham

Last Thursday I was in the Kindergarten classroom again, but this time I wasn't teaching my own lesson, instead, I was an extra teacher in the room while Lisa and Amanda taught. Their lesson was on recycling, and I think it went smoothly overall. Being an extra teacher, I just sat back and took notes on one student and how she responded to the lesson. This particular student was very engaged during the lesson and was always raising her hand to answer questions. She spoke in English every time she answered and seemed to understand what the teachers were saying as they spoke in English. I think it really helped during their lesson that they had the visuals for the students to actually see. These visuals were especially helpful for these students because not all of them might have the understanding of the language to get it without the visuals. It was helpful as the students were working on their picture sorts to actually see the objects there. The word aluminum really confused a lot of students and they had a harder time grasping that category. I think Lisa and Amanda did a great job of explaining it and even had a visual for them, but it’s just a hard word that any kindergartener would get mixed up on, especially ones that are bilingual.

I am still working towards my goal that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester. These goals are: 1) Help the students learn in the best way for them, 2) Gain experience working with English Language Learners, and 3) Gain confidence when working with English Language Learners. I am definitely gaining experience and confidence working with English Language Learners every week we are at Brigham for science. I am also getting this experience during my clinical time at Brigham. Because the bilingual kindergarten classroom is right next to my classroom and Mrs. Silva and my CT are friends, I am with this class quite a bit. Every time I am with them, I am thinking of ways to interact with them and get to know them. This experience has been so helpful for me, because I really haven’t had much interaction with English Language Learners before this. I think it is great that Mrs. Silva can fluently speak Spanish and that she incorporates this into her teaching. She prints nearly everything that is hanging up in her classroom or that is going home with the students in both English and in Spanish. She also reads stories to them in Spanish. It is wonderful that she is able to incorporate their native language in her teaching.

The language barrier is definitely there for some of these students, but it is so important to push past it and to help these students learn in the best way for them. The other day, Mrs. Silva was telling me that one of her students, who is one of the smartest in her class and is bilingual, was considered low and at-risk the year before. After looking more into it, they realized that he actually was not low, but they thought he was because they were testing him in English, and not Spanish. Because they did not test him in his native language they thought he was lower than he actually was.

EXCEEDS: I made a connection to my clinical placement.