The content in this course,
methodology, as well as Second Language Acquisition have given me a little more
insight into teaching and advocating for English Language Learners. My
experience being in a military family and then joining the military myself, has
given me a good amount of perspective when dealing with individuals who do not
speak English as their native language. These skills along with the content
provided in this course will ensure that my future English Language Learner students
will be provided the most efficient and effective education possible. One
particular area that I was very interested in when taking this course was the
concept of Dual Language Programs. Wright mentions that the dual language program relies on teaching students
content in both their native language and second language. (Wright, 2015) These
would be such beneficial programs if more schools were able to incorporate
them. Providing English Language Learners with the opportunity to learn their
L2 language along with perfecting their native language can only be beneficial
to the student and the teacher. I will be teaching Science and the subject is
comprised of a lot of abstract concepts. These can be already difficult for
native speakers to try and understand, let alone an English Language Learners. If
there were schools were English Language Learners were able to learn those
concepts in English as well as their native language they will have a better
understanding of the concept overall. Being able to explain a concept in the
student’s native language when they are unable to understand something in
English will be able to ease the learning process for both the instructor and
the student.
I
would like to think that going into teaching I will be more cognizant and aware
of my English Language Learners. I will ensure that I have comprehensive lesson
plans that not only are effective for my native English speakers but also for
any of my English Language Learners. I am quite looking forward to the
challenge and hopefully I will be an effective teacher.
In
regards to the course, I think it was partially my fault in not getting
everything that I was hoping to get out of this course. A good amount of the
material were concepts that I had already had a good idea about but now I have technical terms for these concepts. I feel as well that because it was a summer
course the material was considerably rushed and I do not feel that I got as
much time to really soak in the information as I would have liked. I understand
that it is a summer course, I should have taken it during the fall, however,
graduation is in December and I had no choice but to take the class this
summer. I was not that impressed with the formatting of the tests with audio
and video clips. I felt that watching videos, one being an hour and half, and
uploading audio files is not the most conducive to a testing environment consdering that they are timed tests.
References:
Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Pub
