ESL 440n-0500 Topic 5 Interview with Mrs. Austin project C final observation for SherryLynn
docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Grand Canyon University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
ESL-440N
Subject
English
Date
Dec 6, 2023
Type
docx
Pages
3
Uploaded by SherryLynnBreece1105
Interview with Mrs. Austin
SherryLynn Breece
EOC: ESL 440N-0500
Professor Dr. Tracy Watkins
09/06/2023
How do you support and celebrate cultural diversity within instruction?
When I get a new year of students when I send out my welcome letter to the new
families, I also send a questionnaire for the families to fill out about their homeland and
some of their cultural practices. I ask the families to come into the classroom and share
about their culture and their practices. I also ask them to send in a family favorite recipe
to share and we will make a snack from the culture. I will put all the students’ names
into a jar and will pull a name every two weeks and we will learn all about that person’s
family. This is when they come in and share their home experiences. We have a bulletin
board that tells all about the student and their culture and family origin. There are two
boards outside the door and every two weeks the older one is pulled down and
redecorated by either staff from items that the family sends in, or the family will come
in sometimes and decorate the board. This is really fun for the students because they get
to spend the time their family is in the building doing the boarding with them.
How do you leverage your home language and cultural assets?
When it comes to home language and cultural assets Mrs. Austin likes to take each
lesson and makes sure that she is incorporating something from a different culture in
each lesson. Even if it is just a diverse group of characters in a story for that lesson. She
tries to share stories about different races or cultural backgrounds. She has often
featured an author from the same culture as their student of the bi-week and she also
has the parents or other family member come in and share a story with the students.
This is to include the families and make them have a sense of connection to the class
and it also builds rapport with the teacher, aids, students and their families. Building a
rapport with the families is the most important thing that Mrs. Austin feels is a
necessity. To have a great relationship with the student, Mrs. Austin said that she must
first have a great relationship with the parents.
How do you show responsiveness to the different strengths, needs, and identities of all ELLs,
including special needs?
By setting my expectations for all my students the same across the board and not letting
them see favoritism or any of the students receiving special treatment, I feel that I am
making sure that I get all the students’ best work. I know what my students can and
cannot do and I make sure that I set my standards high for each student based on their
individual abilities. If I have a student that is great at helping and one that feels like I
am punishing them by asking them to help I am going to call on the one that likes to
help far sooner than the one that feels like I am disciplining them. Same goes for those
that can read really well, I will call on those students and not on one that has their hand
down and avoids eye contact. Their body language is telling me that they do not want to
be called on for reading.
How do you demonstrate understanding of the social, emotional, and cultural needs of
students when establishing classroom routines and procedures?
I feel that I am always hitting on this by doing a student of two weeks. We also encourage
the parents to come in and spend time in the classroom and volunteer their time for field
trips and other activities that we have from time to time. I also make sure that there is
some type of diversity in every lesson. I focus on different cultures, and we always talk
about every holiday that is on the calendar. I really like to always keep my focus on the
diversity topic.
How do you respond to the holidays of the different cultures in the classroom?
Mrs. Austin talks about all the different holidays in the classroom and the ones that are
listed on the calendar. She will look up any holiday for that day and she will show short
videos that talk about the holiday and talk about those practices and what it looks like.
The student will often have about a 20-to-30-minute conversation about the holiday and
if it is something she can find a craft for they will make that craft that depicts the holiday.
How do you make parents of different cultures feel involved in their child’s learning?
When it comes to making the parents feel involved in their child’s education, I make sure
that we have daily contact. We have Class DoJo, and this allows us to stay in contact with
them all the time. If their child does something positive or negative, they know about it
right away. They can see all the positive and negative actions of their child when we put
information into the system. Parents are involved in all their child’s activities throughout
the day also. They know if their child is in a class outside of the classroom such as gym,
art, outside, or music. They know if their grades are updated and what they are. The
really great part of DoJo is that it translates into over 250 languages. I have not had a
parent yet that told me they cannot get their language.
Reflection:
Professor Dr. Tracy Watkins,
After all my time with Mrs. Austin and her aids and the students, I have a newfound respect for
this teacher. Her organizational skills blew me out of the water. I struggle to remember where I
put my glasses ten minutes ago and she knows where all her resources are and which section,
they are in in the file cabinet. I asked her for a number line when we were working with the ELL
students in math, and she told me exactly where to find it and I said you must have just put them
in there and she said that she put them in there over two years ago and she just has a very good
filing system. I then asked her if she has all her resources remembered like this and she
confirmed that she did. She knows where they are in paper form and electronic form. Her
dedication to her students and the time she spends investing in their education is amazing. She
has resources that she used two or three years ago, and she just rotates it so that they are not
doing the same work from last year, but she put all the work into assignment modifications and
accommodations that she does not need to think about them as much anymore. When it comes to
providing social stories for the students, she has all the resources she needs at her fingertips, and
it is just a matter of finding the one she made before, or she can construct a new one in under ten
minutes.
When I finally have my own permanent classroom, I am going to have her come and show me
how to set up my filing system like hers. I will also be making sure that I have all the same
resources for the students as she does. She has everything modified for the ELL students and I
also want to make sure that the accommodations and scaffolding is correctly in place to make
sure that each student has the same opportunity to learn and grow academically.
The one thing that she does also that I really want to incorporate into my class is that she takes
the time prior to the start of the school year to spend as much time with the ELL student’s
families as possible. I want to make sure that I know as much about the families and their daily
practices and rituals as I possibly can.
I did see one thing that I would not do with my students, that is I do now want to ever single out
a student even if they are doing things that are not acceptable. She did not let a student go to the
lunchroom because the student had a bad behavior and she told this student that he would not be
allowed to go to the lunchroom but had to stay in the room during lunch eating his lunch because
she did not trust him to be safe in the lunch room, she said all this in front of all the other
students. I think that would be embarrassing for that student. I feel that it would have been much
for all the students to not have publicized the discipline for that student.
All in all, I have a great amount of respect for this teacher and all that she has done and will be
doing with her classes. She is doing such an amazing job.
Thank you for your time. God Bless,
SherryLynn Breece
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help