William Arthur Ward
I believe the quote above relates to what we discussed in class today. Today, we discussed assessing listening and how it corresponds with the other 3 skills, reading, writing, and speaking. We also discussed designing assessment tasks and I realized that many of the different elements we discussed I see happening in my classroom when teaching my ELLs. One assessment is recognizing phonological and morphological elements and this is when students either confuse vowels, consonants, words that end with -ed or -s, and contractions. One example I see happening in my class with my ELLs is distinguishing gender such as her and he and the confusion between vowels. My students are saying the sound of "e" for "i" such as it and eat. What important lesson I learned is that once we notice the mistakes being made, we must gently and calmly fix those errors before it carries on with their learning. Which brings me back to the quote where the teacher helps students gain knowledge and by doing, and we must inspire them. We must also remember that learning should be fun. Learning should not only be about absorbing facts but also acquiring understanding. And with some time, patience, and the correct correction process we will be able to get our students to understand what is being taught. Teaching in a DI school, a few teachers teach more for the lesson gains and some teach to mastery. My goal is to teach to mastery. I would like my students to understand more of the sounds and how to comprehend stories than to know more and not understand what they just learned.
I have noticed that for the most part at my school, the Filipino students are usually the ones using the wrong genders. This seems to be a very common mistake. I agree that it is important to understand what you learn and not try to just cover as much information as possible.
ReplyDeleteYour quote really does hit home. I used to tell my students that it doesn't matter where you are going to be after you leave my classroom. I knew most of my French students would forget most of the language aspect of the class over time- but they would hopefully remember that learning language was not easy and that their culture is not the only or necessarily the best there is. I wanted them to walk out of my class with an appreciation for the differences and similarities among the people they encounter in life. When I was teaching science I knew that some students would never love science, but I wanted them to gain some insight into how the world works, some sensitivity about the environment, and some ability to analyze facts and the origin of information they encounter. For our ESL populations, some may go to university and become professors, doctors, writers, or researchers. Some will join the workforce right out of high school. Whatever our students end up doing in life, a love of learning and the motivation to work hard will only benefit them. Well-developed English skills will also certainly benefit them too if they remain in the United States. Our goal is to inspire positive change in their way of thinking, their attitudes about learning, and their connection with the world around them.
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