Second Kindergarten Experience

This week, I was in kindergarten for the second time. Kelcey and Annie taught their lesson on the four season to half of the class. The majority of their lesson was large group on the carpet with them in charge, so it was a difficult week for me to work towards my goal of becoming more comfortable when working with English Language Learners. Once they sent the students back to their desks to complete an activity, I was able to interact with a few students. However, I was also in charge of taking pictures. It was also difficult to interact with the students, because there were six teachers and about ten children. Again, I think the best way to work towards my goal is just to expose myself to children who speak another language, so this would’ve been another great opportunity, if there weren’t so many teachers and more small group/individual work. I was able to talk to a few students for a very brief amount of time.

One of my conversations was with a little girl about the picture of a person who was supposed to represent fall. She asked me what season it was supposed to go under. I squatted down next to her to help her out, and I asked her what the person was holding (rake). The little girl looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I waited for a few more seconds, and I prompted her again by asking her “Do you know what we use this for?” pointing to the picture of the rake. She paused for a minute and said, “pile up the leaves with it”. I had to ask her to repeat it again, because I wasn’t sure what she said because of the way she had phrased it. Reflecting back, I realize that she may not have had the vocabulary word to tell me what the rake was called, but she still knew what it was used for. I think this is something I can remember for my future classroom. I think it’s important to phrase a question a few different ways or prompt children a few different ways, because of the language barrier, they may not understand the first time. If you reword the question or ask it another way, you might be surprised to find the child does know the concept or idea, but he/she just doesn’t know the vocabulary to go along with it. This is something I want to remember, because I want to make sure I’m really trying to draw out all the knowledge my English Language Learner’s know before I give them the answer. After the child answered my question, I realized that she knew what I was talking about but just didn’t know the name of the tool. I was sure to tell her the name of the tool, and I had her repeat the name back to me to practice it. She was able to hear the name of the tool as well as see a picture of it. This is something we’ve learned the importance of a lot at ISU. I also found an article (the link is below) that reinforces what I've learned at ISU about using pictures with children who are English Language Learners. 

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ell-engagment-using-photos

EXCEEDS: included a link that goes along with my post.