I like that
I had to set goals before actually going into a bilingual classroom because I
was really able to reflect on them while teaching. Seeing as my PDS placement is at Brigham, I
already knew quite a few of the children in Mrs. Silva’s class. I knew the children that would have a harder
time paying attention and following directions, so that was extremely helpful
for me personally. One of my goals was
to be able to communicate with all of the students, since they are English
Language Learners. Going into the
classroom, I did not expect the children to try to speak to me in Spanish as
frequently as they did while I rotated my station through the whole class. I hear them speak English every day I’m there,
so I know they’re capable, but experiencing them speaking Spanish first hand
was new for me.
While allowing the children to feel
the balloons, I went around the table to ask them what they thought might be in
the balloon they were holding. Some of
the children were able to say things like “dirt” or “rocks”, but there were 4
or 5 who tried to explain to me what they thought by using Spanish. At first, I was not sure whether they were
speaking Spanish or English and asked them to repeat themselves. Once they repeated, I realized that they were
speaking Spanish and I had no idea what those words meant. I did take 3 years of Spanish in high school,
but never learned the words for dirt or rocks or rice, so it was extremely
difficult for me to understand what they were saying. They could have said the Spanish word for
dirt and I would not even know they were right when feeling the balloon with
dirt.
I think I could have better
prepared myself for this lesson by asking Mrs. Silva or Dr. Osorio ahead of
time how to say all of the words of the things that were actually in the
balloons. That way, I would have a
better grasp as to what the children were guessing. With that being said, if the children were
guessing things that were not in the balloons, I would still not understand
what they were saying. I think that as
time goes on, the children will get used to our class being in their classrooms
and learn that not all of us know Spanish, but I’m not really sure that would
be beneficial to us as their teachers or them as students. It’s part of their class to speak both
languages, so I think we should encourage them to do so as much as
possible.
My other goal was to gain
confidence when working with diverse students.
Since this was my first week in the classroom, I did not have much
confidence aside from the fact of knowing the students already. I think the confidence will come as I am in
the classroom more often and I get more comfortable with the students trying to
speak Spanish to me.
The action steps I chose for myself
when I filled out the sheet remain the same, even after my first time in the
classroom. I still want to learn Spanish
words in order to effectively communicate with the students, get to know them all
in order to accommodate them, (especially for my lesson), and continue to
reflect on how I do each day in order to build my confidence levels when
teaching a diverse classroom. I think a lot of these steps will come over time
and I will be more comfortable by the end of the semester.
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