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
I agree that this switch made it difficult to make progress on our goals but I think there are a lot of lessons to learn from working with that group of students. It was extremely difficult to communicate with them. A lot of the time they would not respond or I would be unable to understand them. In working with them further I would hope it would become increasingly easier to communicate and create that sense of relationship with those students. Learning more about them and what they are capable of would help me reach my goal in engaging and challenging them with the lesson. I feel like I was also inching closer and closer to try and understand them. Afterwards Ashlyn told me that I was right in one of the kid's face. Unfortunately I just couldn't hear him and I was so frustrated because I was excited he was actually talking but I couldn't understand him. I don't know what else I could have done. I am really excited to work with your and include Spanish into our lesson. I think it shows a level of respect that we are going out of our way to include their native language into their learning. I think we will see a change in how they communicate with us and their level of involvement.
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