Final Post. :)

Entry 1 - Literature Circles

For our last assignment, we were to create a literature circle for a group of our students and implement it. Literature circles are a great way to engage students from the beginner level to the advanced level of readers. The students become more involved in their learning and begin to take ownership. Literature circles are also a great way to have students begin to discuss the books they are reading and can dive into a deeper understanding of the book because they begin to see how other perceive the book, text, and pictures. I absolutely love literature circles! They are especially great because they combine reading, writing, speaking, and listening -- all the skills that ESL students need practice with.

Therefore, I was extremely excited about implementing my literature circle lesson plan with the students. I chose the book "John, Paul, George & Ben" by Lane Smith to use with my 4th graders since they were learningabout the Revolutionary War. There are 4 students in this group -- three Hispanic boys and one Sudanese girl. All of the students are intermediate level and the book was right on their reading level. On the first day, the students decided their literature circle roles in the group, which to my surprise went very well. The roles were: discussion director, vocabulary finder, literary luminary, and checker. With the implementation, I quickly realized however that the students needed guidance with what their roles meant and how to effectively complete the role's assignments. The students are high enough where they were able to lead most of the discussion. However, there were a few times where I directed the questions because the students were only skimming the surface of the book and not trying to fully comprehend the book. During these times, I have two beach balls for reading comprehension with questions on them when they were stuck for questions. They would pass the beach ball around and discuss the answers together. They were truly engaged and walked away being able to give me a full summary of the book -- IN DETAIL!!!!! :) I will continue to use literacy circles.

Entry 2 - Personal Reflection on Journey through Fieldwork

Throughout my Master's degree program, the fieldwork class is the one where I feel I learned the most. I was able to take all of the things I learned in all of my previous classes and apply that knowledge in an actual classroom and had the help/advice from a mentor. By being able to work in the classroom and complete an action research and case study, I believe I have gained the most from these assignments because I understand to look at the whole student to best meet their needs. Until the teacher does that, they will only teach to half of the student and not effectively meet their needs.

For all teachers, even those who do not want to be ESL teachers, I would definitely recommend the ESL add-on endorsement because with the number of immigrant students coming into the classrooms, it would greatly benefit them to have some background knowledge in working with them. When taking the ESL add-on endorsement program, I would advise you to soak in everything because it is great information to have! :)

Case Study in theRegular Ed. Classroom

When doing the case study, I chose the same student I had for the neighborhood profile and ethnographic narrative. In doing so, a teacher is able to see all aspects that make up a student. The home life, how the student works in the regular ed. classroom, and the student telling me how they feel about their home life and school. I feel like I truly know the student and am completely able to teach the student in a way that will accommodate everything in their life so they are successful because I have completed all of these projects. By completing the case study and ethnographic narrative, the student's teacher next year will have a lot of data and information on the student that will help them to meet the needs of this student.

For my case study, I decided to observe a 4th grade classroom in my school. The student I observed working is a more timid student when working in pairs because they have low confidence in themselves and the work they produce. Therefore, I was interested to see how the student would work with their table because they were the only ESL student and their partner excels in Math. The activity to practice function tables was the student and their partner had to go to 6 tables that have the students practice what they have been learning about function tables. With their partner, they worked together through discussion to determine the answers. Then, they would go check their answers with the teacher and if correct, they would move on to the next table. At the end of the lesson, I was pleasantly surprised that my student was able to work and when it was their time -- they took the leadership role! That tells me that the student is beginning to feel more confident and comfortable in the classroom.

From the case study, I have learned it is important to do the following when second language learners are working in a group environment. They need to have the following to feel confident and work successfully:

• Allow the students a set of mathematical (or any subject) term dictionary. Therefore, the student will be able to recall the terms they have learned to better explain how they determined their answer with their partner. Also, the student would be provided with more chances to use and remember those key vocabulary terms.
• Since the student struggled with longer word problems, by discussing with the whole class before the activity what each problem was looking for might benefit second language learners.
• Lastly, a great strategy that encourages student's language learning success is through group discussion and with other groups. Therefore, the students have more opportunities to use the key vocabulary terms and builds CALP.