Kindergarten experience!

            Today I had my first experience in the kindergarten classroom that we are working with at the elementary school and it turned out to be an extremely positive experience! Walking in, I could tell we were entering a very diverse classroom, full of possible English language learning students which was very exciting to me! The sheer size of the class was a big difference from the preschool room, having many more kindergartners to work with, in comparison to the small class size of the preschool.  I was able to work closer toward my first goal which is to simply gain more experience working with English language learners in the classroom. I followed a group of seven boys through the three different stations they worked in for the lesson.  While I observed and took notes, I was able to talk with them a little bit, ask questions, and see them interact with their peers. I felt that these boys were extremely energetic and excited to learn, due to their talkative nature and attentiveness to the teachers! They were able to communicate with the teachers with ease and contributed to the learning with full enthusiasm. This is a pretty substantial contrast from the preschoolers because they are much quieter and are more difficult to have constructive discussions with.  In comparison, these students were much more talkative and naturally had a larger vocabulary, making it a much more interactive experience. Looking around the room, I saw strong evidence of it being a classroom with English Language Learners with in it. The walls were covered with visuals and any time something was labeled, it was labeled in both English and Spanish! Something I noticed while speaking with some of the students was that they spoke in both English and Spanish throughout the class period. One boy drew some grapes and pointed to them and said “Look! Los Uvas!” which is Spanish for grapes! I, in turn, decided to speak in both languages to the students as well, seeing that they were comfortable using both!

                My second goal states that I would like to discover the struggles of English Language Learning students in the classroom and work to reflect upon how I could improve their educational experiences. While I felt the lesson taught today went exceptionally well, there were some occurrences I witnessed where certain students struggled. It is never a good thing to let a student fall through the cracks and have their difficulties go unnoticed. As the teacher, it is important to make sure to have as much one on one time with your students as possible. During the lesson, there was so much enthusiasm from most of the students; I almost missed the one male student sitting quietly with the large group of boys. When addressed he struggled to answer questions correctly or at all and other students would chime in for him. I feel that if the student is experiencing a language barrier or finds him or herself confused, they tend to stay quiet and not ask for help.  As the teacher in the room, in order to prevent this from happening I think multiple checks for understanding need to happen throughout the days that are attending to each student individually. Especially when working in these groups, a student who is struggling may easily fall to the way side without being noticed by the teacher.  To avoid this, I would also be extremely mindful when giving directions and making sure they are clear and easy to understand, I would offer visual supports or even the inclusion of sign language to help all learners in understanding what we are discussing, and I would make sure to have individual conferences with students, formally or informally, to check up on how they are doing in the classroom.

                Overall, I was able to get so much out of the classroom experience today and felt that I was able to gain some great experiences with English Language Learners which I have been able to reflect on!

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count!