Responses to Language Diversity; Prompt 6

The world of education in my eyes is taking on a whole new level due to one major aspect: the growing number of English Language Learners in our schools. Having a language barrier between students and parents and teachers can become very troubling at times because the point of a message may never come across and can literally get lost in translation! In my SL classroom, I do not see alot of tolerance (not the exact word I want to use but close enough!) for any language other than English. Now this could be due to the fact that I came into this classroom more than halfway through the school year and the teacher may be expecting her students to be only speaking English at this point. I am sure that if I was in the classroom early in the school year I would see a more tolerant level for other languages in the classroom.
During one visit to my SL classroom, I had a difficult time keeping all three of my students on task. We started off playing Sight-Word Bingo and of course all three wanted to be the 'Caller' of the game, so to settle things I appointed myself as the Caller. After about twenty minutes of Bingo, we moved on to read a book the teacher had requested we read together. Again all three students wanted to read first so I just appointed the child to my right as the reader. This student decided that they were jsut going to go ahead and read the whole book, even though I kept stopping the student and telling the student that the others needed a chance to read. The student who was second to read took matters into her own hands and decided to read over the first student! So I had two students reading the same story at the same time and they were not listening to my instruction. Finally I interrupted them and said we are moving onto the next activity. I usually find it difficult to have my students read books, they much prefer to play the games and do the activities the teacher leaves for our group so introducing a board game got them to listen to me. But of course there were issues with the board game: one student wanted the star-shaped game piece, another wanted to continue reading the story and another one wanted to go first in the game. Some how they figured out who got what game piece and who would go first themselves and we began to play. This visit I found very trying but I did not give up and I kept doing my best to keep my students occupied with the materials the teacher left for us. As a future teacher, I know I will run into days like this in my classroom and I will need to be able to keep my composure and keep my students on task, so this visit was good practice for this!!

Collaborating with Parents; Prompt 5

Seeing the teacher in my SL classroom handling the variety of students in the room makes me wonder how she handles dealing with the parents of these students. In a discussion with her, she told me that most of the parents of her students do not speak English well and communicating is tough sometimes. When talking about one of the students I tutor, my teacher told me that the only way to communicate with the parents of this student was to send a letter home with a sibling and the sibling would translate the note to the parents. It is unfortunate that this is the only working system of communication between the teacher and the student's parents because the note could easily be misinterpreted, misunderstood or could not even be read to the parents. It is sad that even in modern times teachers cannot have basic communication with the parents of their students due to language barrier.
When I am a teacher one day, I hope that I will be able to have efficient communications with the parents of my students. One method of communication I can think of now that I would like to utilise one day is email. I feel that actually seeing the message from the teacher may make more of an impact on the parents. Also, parents who do not speak English could easily copy and paste the email into an online translator in order to see the message in their own language. Although an email may sometimes seem impersonal, I still feel that it can definitely be an effective means of communication between teacher and parent. Other issues besides language barriers that I may face when trying to communicate with parents is that parents may do nothing to fix a possible problem I could point out with their child. For instance, I may alert parents of a problem with their child in the classroom that should be dealt with at home and the parents may not take any action. If I were to encounter such a problem, I would send home another note about the issue but making sure there is high imortance on the issue.
This prompt actuallly fit perfectly with an experience I had in my SL classroom. One of the students I tutor has some behavorial problems. Each week the teacher would threaten to send a note home and each following week I would not see an improvement in the student's behavior. I feel uncomfortable asking my teacher why this student's behavior has not improved because I dont want her to think I am criticizing her methods of communication! But, I wonder if a note was ever sent home in the first place...

Assessments in a Diverse Classroom; Prompt 3

As a future teacher going into classrooms in these modern times means walking into schools that are much more culturally and ethnically diverse than they have ever been. This growing population of diverse students is changing how teachers must teach and assess their students since there is a variety of languages in some classrooms. In order to accomadate the variety of languages in a classroom, as a teacher I would try to include some aspects of students' different cultures in order to show that although some cultures are different, there are still important and should be respected. In assessments, for students who still struggle with English I could help them by using a translator in order to help the students understand what is being asked of them.
During one of the visits to my SL classroom, I had to deal with one of my student's very stubborn behaviors. This student is very bright and is usually on task, but during my time with her she was very stubborn and would pout if she did not get her way. Finally, I told her that if she wants to sit there and pout that we will just continue on with our activity without her. This sort of approach to her stubborness actually worked. After a while of not being included, she eventually gave in and worked with our group leaving her stubborn ways behind. I felt bad being stern with her, but she needed to discontinue her attitude because it was hindering the learning of the other two students in the group!

Cultural Awareness in the Classroom; Prompt 4

In order to become a culturally competent teacher, we all must learn to leave any bias we have behind ourselves the minute we step into any classrooom. As a teacher, and for us as tutors, we simply cannot hold any bias for any students in that classroom, it is not fair, and it is immoral. My personal history and my sociocultural characteristics intersects with my students because I come from a different background than a majority of the students I work with in my classroom. I hear the stories of the students I tutor and I can't help but think, "Wow, that would have never happened in my house". Although I think of things like this, obviously I never say them aloud when I am in the classroom. I feel, however, even though I realize these students are experiencing a different childhood than I did, I do not judge the students nor do I judge their families. This non-judgement is very important for us tutors as well as teachers because teachers encounter a variety of students, families, socioeconomic statuses, etc. and teachers cannot judge any of these situations.
One thing I found to be somewhat alarming in my SL classroom was when my students started talking about being drunk and drinking! I couldn't even believe what I was hearing; these were first graders talking about drinking! They were talking about how 'silly' people act when they are drunk and then one of the students proceeded to act like he was drunk. It saddens me to know that even at such a young age, these children are being exposed to drunken adults. In order to take control of the situation, I told the students to settle down and I told them that although being drunk looks funny, it is very dangerous and is only meant for adults. I felt I handled this situation pretty well, but it definitely caught me off guard!

The Culture of My Classroom; Prompt 2

Just by looking around the classroom I visit every week, it is very easy to see how ethinically diverse the classroom is. There is a variety of students ranging from African-American, Hispanic and Causcasian children throughout the classroom. However I had predicted, using what other people had said about the school prior to my visits, that there would not be many Caucasian students and I was very wrong. There is about an equal number of children from each of the above mentioned ethnic backgrounds.
From what I can tell in my group of students that I tutor, English is a second language for many of the students in the classroom. In my group, two out of the three students I meet with speak Spanish at home. And the other student speaks English at home, but sometimes will speak Portugese at a relative's house. Even though these students do not use English as their primary language, their speaking, reading and comprehension skills using the English language is actually quite good. Now, I do not know if this is because they have picked up the skills throughout the school year or if it is due to actually understanding the words. Either way, I am starting to see improvement from the first week in each of my students and it is really great to see this improvement. :)
As far as I can tell from the students in my group in relation to the term cultural capital, it seems that the students do not come from well-educated and financially stable families. From what I have heard from the students I tutor, it seems to me that they come from families with young parents. For example (and not to reveal too much about the family lives of my students), one of my students seemed very tired and when I asked him why he was so tired today, his response was that he was so tired because his mother went out the night before and did not come pick him up until almost three in the morning. Now, whether this student exaggerated or not is one thing, but he was extremely tired and his story (told in more detail to me) made sense. In my opinion, if this student came from a well-educated and financially stable family, he would not have been up so late at night.
Overall, I am enjoying my experience working with these children. I have a question, and hopefully one of you can help me with this, but is anyone else having issues keeping control over their students? Sometimes they get riled up and one starts walking away and the others are off in their own worlds and I feel as though I cannot do too much because I am not the authority in the classroom and I feel like I would overstep my boundaries. Can anyone relate/help?!

The "Feel" of the School. Prompt 1

When I first came to the school I am tutoring at, I found that it was quite different from what I had imagined it to be. Where I am from, all of the Elementary schools are only one floor, very bright and take up a good amount of property. However, when I arrived at my assigned Elementary school, I got quite a different view of a school. This Elementary school is located on a very busy street, and (to my surprise) there was no parking lot! The Elementary schools I am used to have big parking lots and are in residential, suburban neighborhoods. When I walked into the building, I noticed there are many floors in the school and it was kind of dark in the hallways. However, I felt that the hallways, stairwells and classrooms were very big and spacious, a great opportunity for teachers to utilize.
I felt that the space is used very well in this school. There are encouraging posters all around that are there to remind students of the values of the school such being respectful and responsible. To get these values across to students, the school has created a 'bee' theme and on these posters the messages will read 'Bee respectful', etc., with pictures of bees. I think this is a very simple, yet creative and effective way to teach students good behavior and values.
The 'feeling' I get from this school is a very supportive and welcoming and encouraging environment. I get this feeling from the very helpful and kind staff in the offices as well as all the posters and other decorations around the school.
The classroom I am in is a first grade classroom. The classroom is very big and spacious, and the teacher has used her space very well. All along the walls are bulletin boards that display student work, encouraging messages and things such as the alphabet, numbers, and vocabulary words. The teacher is very kind and she is great with her students. The students I tutor each week are various in their ethnicities and economic backgrounds. All three students speak different languages at home: one student speaks Portugese, and the other two students speak Spanish at home. From what I can tell, the values in this classroom are to do the best work you can do and to keep going in your education, which is another value of the school. I feel that these are great values to teach at such a young age because it is hard to keep children in school these days and if they know at an early age that education is key in life, they will go on with their schooling in years to come.
Referring to the data on the www.infoworks.ride.uri.edu, I found that my school is just about average in most of the levels that were evaluated. However, I feel that it is noteworthy to point out that in the section when teachers were questioned about the community support of the school, their answers were at a very low percentage meaning that they did not feel a good amount of support for their school in the surrounding community.
So far, I am really enjoying my experience at this school. I feel as if I am truly helping these students as well as getting a great learning experience for myself. :)

Katelyn

A Little Bit About Me..

Hello!
My name is Katelyn, and I am a freshman here at RIC. I have wanted to be an Elementary School teacher for as long as I can remember, so here I am! Outside of schoolwork, I love going to the beach, camping and playing sports and just being active in general! I am playing Women's Lacrosse this season for RIC, hopefully we have a good season! :)

Well, that is all for now!
Katelyn :)