Teaching Issues
The lesson topic for this class was "The Human Body." The teacher began the lesson with an initial engaging activity of singing the song, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," which the students really enjoyed and participated in after hearing the words once or twice. The teacher utilized many different forms of instruction which engaged different learning styles. See examples below:
Visual Learners-
- flashcards
- interactive game on the board via a projector connected to the Internet
- content-specific images shown on the board via a projector connected to the Internet
- activity involving drawing an outline of a body
Kinesthetic Learners-
- interactive game on the board via a projector connected to the Internet
- activity involving drawing an outline of a body
Linguistic Learners-
- entire lesson consisted of instruction geared for verbal/linguistic learners
The students participated in all of the activities, and the teacher later told me that she was pleased with how the lesson progressed even though it was rushed and the accomplishments of the students.
I saw two issues in regards to this lesson. The first issue is related to time. There simply was not enough time for the lesson to be carried out in a satisfactory way in the length of time the students are allowed in ESL class. While taking with the teacher after class, she expressed her concern with the amount of time students are in ESL class daily. With pressure on the ESL teacher to not only teach BICS, but to teach CALP as well, more time must be devoted to ESL classes.
The other issue I saw is related to grouping. The class period I observed is allotted for developmental kindergarten. There are only two students who fall into this age/grade level. The problem is that one of the students is much more vocal and less shy than the other. Student A (the vocal student) is quick to yell out answers to verbal questions and to volunteer to perform certain tasks within the classroom. While Student B may very well know the content and proves this when given the chance, she is often overshadowed by Student A. The teacher and I discussed this issue after class, and she related to me that she is concerned about this and tries to employ tactics to ensure that Student B has the opportunity to participate in class is she desires.
Second Language Acquisition
I observed many different ways that second language acquisition was promoted within this lesson. The teacher utilized learning strategies such as activating prior knowledge, personalizing the content, and using images among others. The students were asked questions that required verbal answers as well as physical answers (pointing to body parts and going to the board during the interactive game). The materials used during the lesson consisted of a white board which showed projected images from the Internet (not a SMARTBoard or Promethean Board) which was used for playing a game and reviewing body parts, flashcards, music, and paper and markers used to create a body outline.
Ethnographic Perspectives
It is necessary to know the cultural backgrounds and linguistic capabilities of these students to know how to provide the best language instruction. As stated above, it is also beneficial to know the different personalities so all students are equally represented in class. The teacher took into account the students' cultural backgrounds by integrating some of the vocabulary words in their L1. I found this to be a beneficial tactic in my adult ESL classes as well.
