Living vs. Non Living Reflection

Teaching My Lesson

This Thursday was the day I finally got to teach my science lesson with Andrea!  Ahead of time, we decided we really wanted to help ourselves reach our goals with our lesson since we hadn’t seen much Spanish implemented in the lessons we helped out with.  Because of that, we thought that using a song describing the weather and seasons, (our science topic for our lesson), would be a fantastic way to use Spanish in the bilingual classroom.  The video we found were words we were both familiar with in Spanish: ontoño, invierno, verano, and primavera.  Those mean fall, winter, summer, and spring.  The whole plan of the video was to assist the children in learning about the weather in their native language for better comprehension.  Right away, the children were excited and asking us “In Spanish?” like they were so shocked to see it implemented by someone other than Mrs. Silva.  Right then I knew Andrea and I made a good decision.  Being able to choose our own lesson we wanted to do, implementing Spanish was the first thing we wanted to make sure we did.  Using Spanish was a great help for me to get so much closer to both of my goals.

Since I am familiar with the class and their attention grabber, I think our classroom management went really well.  Since it was a small group of children, it was much easier to control the actions of the kids but also keep them engaged throughout the lesson.  Introducing the topic with the Spanish song was a huge hit and I saw kids dancing on the carpet.  When we initially asked the kids if they knew the seasons of the year, we could tell they did not know. After the song, most of the kids raised their hands to tell us what the seasons are.  They stayed engaged throughout the lesson as well.  Andrea and I instructed them to go to their seats and have the teachers move to each table to teach all 4 seasons to the kids.  We wanted to make sure that the kids got to do group work and individual work, so they had to decorate a tree like it would look like in the specific season they were learning about.  Then they had to draw and color appropriate clothes on their paper dolls for each season.  We provided books for them to look through for each season and made sure we implemented our Spanish words for the seasons as well as the English words. When all of the tables learned about all of the seasons, we had them come back to the carpet to share their work.  They got to come to the front of the class, show them their doll for the season we selected, and then share what types of things their doll was wearing.  The kids were really eager to raise their hand to volunteer to come to the front of the class and share their work, which is awesome.  I could tell these children were excited about our lesson. 

At the beginning and we asked them what each season was like, they used the terms cold, hot, snow, etc., but could not answer much more about them.  We even asked them the types of things they wear in each season and did not get much of a response.  At the end, we asked the same questions and they were able to answer them with more details. For example, we asked Jennifer what her doll wore in the winter.  She said things like a hat, gloves, and boots because it is cold and snowy, whereas at the beginning, she thought “cold” was a season.

One of my goals was to feel more comfortable while teaching in a bilingual classroom.  I feel like I got so much closer to that this week.  Even though I only used a few terms in Spanish, I think the children felt more comfortable with us being in their classroom as well.  Implementing Spanish on their worksheets they used to draw and color on as well as saying the words to them along with the English word was a really cool experience for me.  Sure, I’ve spoken Spanish before because of high school, but I have never had the chance to use it in a classroom full of native Spanish speakers.  This week prepared me to teach in a bilingual classroom more than ever.  Even though I see this class 3-4 times a week and have been in the classroom while my classmates teach science, this week helped me get closer to my goal than I ever have been before.

My other goal was to be able to communicate with all students in a diverse classroom.  This is going to be extremely hard for me to ever achieve because America is so diverse, but I think I got a little closer to it this week being in the bilingual classroom at Brigham.  Since the entire class speaks Spanish and English, I only had to prepare to accommodate for the students with Spanish and English. I knew that if Andrea and I planned a lesson that included both languages, we would more than likely help every student meet our objectives.  I think that looking up different songs that featured Spanish, our topic, and for children was the best idea to begin our lesson. The words we used were easy enough for us to use, the children to use, and our teacher helpers to use.

While I walked around each table, (each table was a different season), I noticed the children using the Spanish words for the seasons like we heard in our video at the beginning.  It was awesome to hear them trying to communicate in both languages to our teaching helpers.  I also noticed that because of our videos and labeling in both languages, even the teachers were able to comprehend the Spanish the children were using.   We encouraged the helpers to use those terms as well to make sure it was really being implemented the entire lesson. 

Preschool Classroom

This week I had my first experience being in the preschool classroom at Brigham.   I was nervous about moving closer to my goals since I had never been in there before.  I heard that the children did not talk a lot, if at all. I knew that alone would be a struggle for me because it would be hard to reach my goal of communicating with students in a bilingual classroom if they did not talk.  I honestly am not even sure which children in the classroom were the Spanish children.  Every child I talked to, except for a little boy named Jonathan, gave me a blank stare.  I’m still not sure if they were not understanding me because they did not know what I was saying, if they were shy because there were 6 new teachers in the classroom, or if they were not interested in us. 

Unlike the kindergarten classroom, I did not feel very comfortable in there.  I realized that I know both of the preschool teachers because I eat lunch with them every day I am at clinical, but even they were quiet when we were in the room.  When I asked the children their names, they did not respond or responded too quietly for me to hear them.  That was a big issue for me trying to communicate to them. A lot of times, I had to get down at their eye level and get in front of them in order to get their attention.  I think that if I knew how the classroom was run, the names of the children, and which ones were the bilingual students would have been extremely helpful.  It was hard to get any closer to my goal than I was two weeks ago in kindergarten.  Getting the opportunity to work in the preschool classroom prior to this week would have also helped. 

Having 3-5 year olds in a classroom with unfamiliar teachers had an effect on my goals as well. If I didn’t feel comfortable as a teacher, I think it would be hard for the children to be comfortable as well.  Being around unfamiliar people and trying to learn would be difficult for them.  I noticed that when I first walked into the room, they all were very quiet and barely made eye contact with us.   

I ran the cup phone station with Taylor, and I think she was also having a hard time communicating with them.  I have come to realize that in order to reach my goals, being in a classroom consistently will be key.  Since I only have the kindergarten classroom left and my lesson in there until the end of the semester, I think my goals will be easier reached.   I am comfortable in that classroom because I see those children 3-4 times a week and know them by name.  I know that Mrs. Silva implements Spanish and English in her instruction, so Andrea and I are implementing Spanish into our lesson to get closer to our goals.

Using information from this week, I learned that my goals are going to be harder to reach without being in the same classroom consistently.  I plan on continuing to prepare myself for the classroom by learning the words in Spanish that will be implemented in the lessons.  By doing that, it will also bring me closer to my second goal, which is to be more comfortable in a bilingual classroom. 

Exceeds: Comparison of preschool to kindergarten classroom (comparing goals) and exceeded the word count