Hello everyone, my name is Tiffany Yang. I am a student at the University of Houston. I am currently majoring in teaching and learning with the early childhood through 6th-grade certification in hopes of becoming a 4th-grade teacher. I am student teaching at Oak Forest Elementary in 4th grade.
As you can see from my video, growing up I was expected to learn two languages which are Chinese and Spanish. Growing up I lived in a multi-language household when I was very young. My grandma only spoke Taiwanese while my parents spoke Chinese and my siblings spoke English. English is my first language, however, my parents were not fluent in English. There was not a strong Chinese community in my hometown so I would rarely speak Chinese. My community was a Hispanic dominated community so people were expected to know English and Spanish. My parents were expected to learn English and Spanish to communicate. Many of my teachers spoke to parents in Spanish because the parents did not know English. Both sides of the border were expected to learn the other's language.
This is my first time doing a video blog. I am committed and providing a safe and fun environment to my students, so they are willing to learn and they have their basic needs fulfilled. I believe students are responsible for their own actions because I can only influence them. I believe students are small adults who need to be taught on how to act and think. “Minority students … tend to have parents with low levels of education who are unable to provide assistance with schoolwork or afford expensive supplemental educational services” therefore, as a teacher I need to provide support to close in the gap amongst my students to help them learn. (Wright, 2015) I can provide support such as oral administration, proximity sitting, and visuals. Oral administration can help them when they do not know who to pronounce the word or passage. Proximity seating would allow me more access to help the student.
I am forward to working with all of you!
References:
Wright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, Second Edition.
Hello Tiffany - hope you are having a great semester! Thank you so sharing your unique experience of being exposed to and learning so many different languages. You story really got me thinking about a piece in the book that talk about being weary of lumping all ELL students into 1 category as they are so diverse (Wright, 2015) depending on individual cultural accommodation struggles. With that, I really appreciated your input on way to accommodate ELL students and do also think the getting to know them as individuals is at the root of helping the receive their best education possible.
ReplyDeleteIt is very important for ELL students to not be in the same category. ELL students may not speak the same language as each other. According to Wright (2015), the teacher needs to provide primary language support to accelerate the student’s acquisition of English. My cousin grew up in Taiwan and moved to America in high school. He was put in an ELL class, however; the majority of the students were native Spanish speakers. My cousin was a native Chinese speaker and he did not know any Spanish. The teacher was speaking in Spanish throughout the class but, my cousin could not follow along. Students need accommodations to gain resources to fulfill their academic achievement and succeed in school.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
Hi Tiffany! My teaching philosophy is similar to yours. I also think that it is really important to make learning fun. I feel like this motivates students to want to learn, which is important. I think it is really cool that you have been exposed to all these different languages. Like how you mentioned in your video that Chinese and Taiwanese are kind of similar, this shows how diverse languages are and that all languages "varies from country to country and region to region," and it is important to remember that even though two people may both speak a language, such as Spanish, there are different varieties (Wright, 2015, p. 10). I really enjoyed listening to your vblog, and I think that you have a lot of great ideas on providing supports for ELL students.
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
I haven't really thought about the similarities between different languages. However, I realize that languages have influenced each other. For example, Latin has influenced many languages such as Spanish. According to Wright (2015), teachers need to know their student’s cultural backgrounds and how culture influences learning at school. Teachers can make a connection between English with the student’s native language. For example, the word air in English is similar to the equivalent version in Spanish, aire. This connection allows students to see the similarities between English and Spanish.
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hello Tiffany!
ReplyDeleteLike you I also did not grow up around people who spoke my language (at least once I moved to the US). I very much liked your teaching philosophy, because I agree that us as teachers only being able to influence our students and not being able to force them to do things. It was very interesting to hear that at the school you attended that teachers would talk to parents only in Spanish because that was all that they knew. Wright says on page 15 “Public education cannot fulfill its mission if students growing up in poverty, students of color and low-performing students continue to be disproportionately taught by inexperienced, under-qualified teachers” and I feel like being a teacher in the US education system would mean that the teacher can at minimum speak English, which might have made communication a little easier with parents.
Wright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, Second Edition.
It was a wonderful idea that my teachers were able to speak Spanish to the parents. The teachers were able to communicate with the parents to avoid stereotypes and generalizations. According to Wright (2015), teachers need to avoid stereotypes and generalizations. The teachers never know the background or experiences the students have. The teachers need to be aware of the student’s background so they can provide accommodations and resources to those students. Therefore, the students will be able to have a high academic achievement and succeed in school
DeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.