Day 9: Snowballing

Do you want to build a snowman?

Snowballing is an idiomatic expression that there is an amount of something that is increasing in size.  I am now admitting that many of the assignments will be snowballing soon, even for my work.  I am quite overwhelmed right now, I admit that too, especially because I am becoming even more forgetful.  Anyway, I can't wait for the break for my work which is after the SAT-10.  The nice thing to look forward to: summer break will be upon us soon!  That is worth melting for!

About work: I am currently focusing on WWII Guam for Mes Chamoru.  It saddens me that many of our students are starting to forget this event.  However, as I am teaching them now, they seem to have become more and more interested with the topic.  And that is quite comforting.

ESL Struggles and Strategies

I found this youtube video and I thought it will be nice to share with you ladies. I was searching around to find video samples of using the different strategies and approaches the chapter discussed when I found this video. I hope you all find it interesting just like I did. This is really true in many of our schools and classrooms. This is not only happening in the United States but also out here on our small island. This is basically what the English language learners are facing in our schools. Have a great and safe weekend ladies. I will see you all tomorrow at the Story Hour at Hagatna Public Library. Good night

Compassion

If there is one thing that I've learned by taking all these classes under the TESOL graduate program, it's to have more compassion toward second language learners.  This year, I have had the highest number of ESL students in my different classes than ever before.  I get frustrated when they score low on tests because I feel like I failed as a teacher.

This week, the reaction paper was on Chapter 7 which focused on the writing process.  My school is a Success for All school.  I love the Writing Wings program because it breaks the writing process down into each step and requires a lot of student interaction among their peers.  What surprised me as I read the chapter was that research has found that focusing on correcting written papers may actually detract from the writing experience.  The most important part of writing is gathering and organizing ideas.  Mechanics and grammar can come later.  Subconsciously, I think that if I correct my ELL's, their papers would improve with time and extra attention.  I think I should start focusing on gathering ideas and planning a little more.

I wrote a couple of lesson plans about Idioms, Figurative vs. Literal Language, and a Social Studies lesson regarding the newspaper and current events.  I added in standards from the TESOL website.  If you would like a sample of either lesson plan, I would be more than happy to share them with you.

Have a wonderful weekend.

"My poems are hymns of praise to the glory of life" by -Dame Edith Sitwell

When I read this quote, my interpretation is that when someone writes a poem, they are writing about their deepest thoughts and  life experiences that resemble hymns in songs because a song have a certain beat and the heart beats.  Therefore when you read a poem it makes you think, feel, and react to what the writer is writing about.  You can not help but engross yourself in deep interpretation of what is written by the author.  The reader uses graphic, syntactic, and semantic cues to interpret the poem using their background knowledge like what I just did to interpret the quote. 

Reminder

Just a reminder ladies tomorrow is the Story Hour event in Hagatna Public Library at 10:00-12:00. I spoke to Toni earlier. She said bring your own book to read to the children.

See you guys tom! 

Day 8: Striving and Thriving

           Amazing how it is already halfway through this semester!  I remember when I first sat in this class, I felt so overwhelmed- to the point of being terrified!  “My schedule, my energy, my time, my sanity!  I have work, two other classes, a social life, and a personal life!” were the concerns that bombarded my mind when I first listened to the workload that we were about to have.   The uncertainty of trying to balance all my responsibilities put fear in my thoughts and for a moment, I was thinking whether I should quit while it was still early.

            Two months have passed already.  Although the amount of work has been “snowballing,” I am glad that I have reached a level of equilibrium emotionally and mentally with all that’s been happening in this class.  Thank God that I have long gone away from feeling the panic, although, yes, I still feel overwhelmed sometimes because I have other responsibilities to attend to and I can honestly admit that I do feel exhausted many times.  But I am ok and I am confident that I will continue being so in the days to come. 

            What really helped me with keeping afloat this semester is the camaraderie we share in the class.  I have all the ladies to thank, for being so encouraging and unselfish- their willingness to share and to be kind.  Honestly, if we didn’t have such a strong network of support in this class, this would have been greatly, greatly more difficult for me.  I tend to emotionally connect and the emotional support from my classmates and professor has truly been a gift.  I thank God deeply for everyone. 

            Putting emotions aside, I know that this class has helped me to become a better teacher.  I learned theories that help explain the phenomenon of language learning, strategies for a more effective instruction, and most especially, to become the kind of teacher who sees the value of my students, including their cultures and languages.  The textbook has also become one of my most favorite books in all my years in college. 

            It would be fascinating to see what the rest half of this semester will bring.  I am excited.  Let’s keep striving and thriving!

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Helen Keller

Image:

Goal setting

Challenges and Change

           

            Bernice Johnson Reagon said, “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.”  This course has been a bit challenging for me, but in a good way.  When I opened and read the syllabus on the first day of class, I was a bit apprehensive about all the requirements.  I like being challenged.  I feel such a sense of achievement and satisfaction after completing a challenging course, and I am sure that the same will hold true at the end of this class.

One of our weekly assignments is to read a chapter.  The chapters in this book are approximately thirty or so pages long, which is fairly reasonable given that we have a week to complete the reading and write a reflection on the chapter.  I have learned so much from the chapter readings.  What stands out in my mind are all the strategies I’ve learned thus far.  I was elated to find that I already do some of these things in my classroom which makes me feel like I am doing my job as a teacher.

The “Getting to Know You” project was interesting to do. I enjoyed interacting with my classmate, Beauty.  She is such a positive, uplifting person and I am glad that I was able to get to know her better.  Beauty is from Woleai and, before I met her, I never even heard of the name of that island before.  She is so unique and her culture is quite different from mine, so I found it enriching when we traded information.  I enjoyed putting together the website for the class.  One of my hobbies is playing around with the layouts of online tools and it was a pleasure for me to do one for this course.

Another course requirement is to join the International Reading Association (IRA) and attend two of their monthly meetings.  So far, I have only attended one IRA meeting.  I used to attend the IRA meetings on a regular basis, but my schedule became hectic and I stopped for a while.  I took a friend with me to the last meeting, and she had never been to an IRA meeting before.  We were both so entranced by the presenters and I look forward to attending the next meeting.

I feel compelled to complete the SOLOM checklist and the culture project.  I feel like I would learn so much from these two assignments.  The SOLOM checklist will give me a good insight as to how to place my ESL students into their appropriate levels and I feel that doing the culture project will add to the trivial amount of knowledge about foreign cultures that I already have.

One thing I would like to improve upon before the completion of this course is my time management.  I would like to complete the assignments at least a day before the due date.  I find myself feeling quite stressed on Fridays and I would like to decrease that stress.  I plan to accomplish this by doing a little of each assignment at a time and look ahead to upcoming deadlines.

I feel that this course has, and will continue to, challenge me both as a student and as an individual.  Reading the chapters of the book takes a while for me to do and the book is full of useful information to use in the classroom that at times it seems overwhelming.  I believe it challenges me as an individual because it forces me to become more organized and time-conscious in order to complete the assignments by the due dates.  I feel it also challenges my personal literacy skills, particularly my writing skills, because there is a lot of writing done for this course. Fred Devito made a lot of sense when he said, “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”  I feel this course will change me for the better, and I look forward to that change.

Image: https://31.media.tumblr.com/af1ca919cb9835d80c6f2bdbb28c37b2/tumblr_mpsr309e491r62pq6o1_500.gif  

Getting to Know Other Cultures

I was looking at the syllabus and I was reading the Getting to Know Other Culture. Just making sure, that is going to be our LiveText artifact submission right?


I know it's too early, but I would like to showcase the "Filipino" culture for that project.


Have a great weekend ladies!

Half way there ....

So I just completed my Mid-term reflection, and realized .... the semester is half way done! Is it just me, or is time going by quickly?


Keep up the great work ladies!  We got this!

Multilingual

I found this video on youtube and I thought it will be cool and appropriate to share it with you ladies. I have been trying to go and watch the movie "Frozen" when it came out but I didn't have the time. When I found this video I was so fascinated. The song is sang in 25 different languages. How cool is that?

During the time of my emerging elementary years, I recall having to look up vocabulary words as one of my daily assignments.  There will always be new vocabulary words on the board to research.  I had to learn how to spell it, explain the meaning of the word, and use it in a sentence.  I studied every single word because my teacher will randomly pick any word from the list and ask me questions. I had to prepare myself all the time for this impromptu moments.  This activity built -up my vocabulary skills, learned the meaning, learned how to spell it, and learned how to use it in a sentence.  We also reviewed previously learned vocabulary words as well as learned new ones daily.  I also recall my teacher always reading us a story daily, but I hated it when she does not finish reading the entire book and continues on the next day.  

IRA General Meeting (Membership)

Today was a very busy and long day for me. There is so much that is going on in my family right now but I was so glad to see some great and beautiful ladies (friends) this morning at the IRA General meeting at St. Paul Christian school in Harmon. I saw some great friends that I haven't seen for so many years. I also saw great friends (teachers) from when I was a student teacher. I was so glad that I was able to go to the meeting this morning. Yay!! I am a member of IRA.

Words and Meanings

I was so glad and happy to see everyone during our class session. I am always looking forward to see each and everyone of you ladies. I had so much fun with the class discussion and the activity jigsaw. I always enjoy the jigsaw  activity because most of the time when I come to class I didn't finish reading the chapter. By doing the jigsaw activity I am able to understand the rest of the chapter especially the ones that I didn't get to read on my own. Thank you ladies for always sharing your great experiences in the classroom during class discussion. 

I found an video on youtube and I thought it will nice and appropriate to share with you ladies. I hope you all like it. You have all a great weekend. See you next on moodle next week.

Vocabulary Builder

Thank you all for being so cooperative and helpful for the "Getting to Know You" assignment.  I will post the link on the blog as soon as everyone sends me their information.

During class, we learned about more strategies we could use with our English Language Learners to build upon their vocabulary.  Below is a video to assist in building vocabulary.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKNEWrW9ASE

Have a good weekend!

 

Class Meeting

I really enjoy our class discussion on Chapter 6 and our jigsaw activity. I like the different teaching strategies that was discuss in the chapter to help promote vocabulary growth for our English learners. But most of all, I enjoy seeing everyone today. It was a great learning experience and a great laugh.

Have a great weekend everyone!

March 7

Tonight's class session was refreshing.  Discussions are also getting more animated and colorful.  Great job ladies!

Really looking forward to the March 22nd event at the Agana library.  Hope to see you all there!

Day 7: SOLOM and IRA Meeting Mar. 8

Since I felt really jumpy because many of my assignments from my classes are coming in huge waves, I thought I should at least be thinking about the SOLOM assignment.

When I finally looked at the checklist online (there is one in the textbook, p. 139), I thought it looked similarly to the ESL progress report card that we already fill up for the ESL department.  These domains are observed: listening comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, grammar, and pronunciation.  If you'd like to just take a "peeksy" on how it looks like and you haven't your textbook, here is the site that I looked at: http://www.cal.org/twi/evaltoolkit/appendix/solom.pdf.

Lastly, there is an IRA Meeting this coming Saturday, Mar. 8.  I will update this post with the location and time as soon as I get the information.

See you all on Friday! ^_^  

Image:

Talking

UPDATE:

IRA MTG. @ ST. PAUL'S, 8:00 AM!

Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy highlighted children's natural tendencies to develop literacy concepts through immersion. Children begin to develop written language knowledge from the moment they are first exposed to reading and writing at home during their preschool years, possibly from the time of birth.