Science #3: Setback with My Goals

On Thursday, October 23^rd, I had the pleasure of going back into the preschool classroom and assisting a few classmates teach a lesson all about the sense of taste.  I was given the task of observing one specific student and taking notes about his behaviors, participation, and engagement in the lesson. 

Because of my limited engagement with the students in this lesson, it was very difficult for me to continue working on my goals.  The first goal I set for myself was to learn at least five words in Spanish.  I met this goal a few weeks ago after teaching my lesson about the sense of touch, however, I would like to continue working on this and learning more Spanish as the semester continues. 

My second goal I set was to gain confidence when working with English language learners.  Again, because I did not work a lot with the students during this lesson, it was difficult for me to gain any confidence.  In fact, if I had to say anything about my confidence I would regretfully say that I lost some confidence.  This is because there was once instance during small group work that Emily asked if I would take over her group so she could move to the computer and bring up their SMART Board activity.  Of course I said yes and I was very excited to get involved with the kids for a little bit of time.  However, as soon as I sat down and started talking to the kids, I realized that I was in over my head. 

I started talking to the kids about sweet foods and asked them if they could name anything sweet.  One little boy just stared at me and kept scooting further and further away.  I tried to make him feel comfortable but he did not speak English so he couldn’t respond to me.  This also made it difficult for me to know if he understood English.  So I just tried to use simple words and smile a lot to try and make him feel more comfortable with me.  The other little boy was also and English language learner and no matter what question I asked he responded with, “si!” even if it was an open-ended question.  I was glad that he was engaged in what I had to say and wanted to participate, but I was kicking myself for not knowing more Spanish!  I kept thinking, “if only I had taken Spanish in high school, both of these boys would get a lot more out of this lesson…”  Working with these two boys made me lose confidence in myself because I was at a loss with what to do or say.  I could make the questions simpler, but that didn’t mean that they understood.

Although I do not feel that I was successful in working towards my goals this week, I know that there are things that I can plan for my future classroom that will make it easier for me and help me work toward them in the future.  Working with ELL students requires a lot of labeling of items in both English and Spanish, or any language that’s present in your classroom.  This will help the students understand and it will give me a reference for the Spanish words when I need them.  A lot of visuals are also necessary when working with ELL students.  Pairing words with visuals helps the student gain a better understanding and internalize the information that you are presenting to them.  I hope to implement ideas like this in my future classroom.

Here is a link to a Pinterest board that is full of wonderful ideas to incorporate into a preschool ESL classroom!  A lot of the material from this board would be very helpful in building my confidence when working with ELL students.  http://www.pinterest.com/ei98srl/esl-preschool-teachers/

Exceeds:  Included link to Pinterest board with useful ideas to use with ELL preschool students.