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Language acquisition literature review
Research paper on teacher observation
Language acquisition literature review
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OBSERVING a classroom
One of the drawbacks of being a teacher is that you never really get a chance to observe and learn from the other excellent teachers around you. This year, I have had the rare opportunity to observe excellent teachers daily. I was happy to be able to use observation as an option for this coursework. This forced me to take a deeper look at what I was watching, and it also provided me the opportunity to evaluate the teachers with a handy new tool! During the past 6 weeks I have observed three English classes at Placer High School: Resource English 12, English 11 and English 9. Although all of the teachers were competent and fun to watch, the only teacher that followed the SIOP protocol (or at least much of it) was the
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The teacher did an amazing job of creating background information, helping to make connections, and motivating students. I was especially impressed with how well she was able to engage all her students even though they were at different academic and emotional levels. Her use of videos to help the student learn how to analyze text for rhetorical devices was great. It was engaging for the students, and it really made them think about the rhetorical devices and apply them to a situation. After practicing on videos, which was fun, the students had a pretty good grasp on the rhetorical devices which made it much easier for them to analyze texts. Since reading is difficult for all these students, it was a very effective method for learning the concept. This teacher’s methods would also work for EL students with few adaptations. The teacher provided a lot of practice using different techniques to make the concepts clear, however, if these students were ELs, she would have needed to focus more on vocabulary. For the most part, she helped the students with key vocabulary words as they came to them in the stories they read. If she pre-taught the vocabulary, it would have been more meaningful when the students came across the words in the text. The only other change that I would make is that I would have posted the content and language objectives and reviewed them with the students. I asked her about objectives, and she …show more content…
The teacher did not use many of the SIOP components, but he is nonetheless a very effective teacher for nearly all of the class. He effectively provided his students with background information before the class began writing their essays. He also broke the essay into chunks so the students could easily understand the requirements, and so that they could focus on learning the elements of an essay and apply their knowledge to future assignments. He used a variety of internet resources with examples and tips that the students could use to assist in writing the different parts of their essays (intro, body paragraphs, conclusion). The resources he chose were both easy to understand and easy for students to access if they needed to hear the information multiple times, or if they just needed a review. His use of the internet and access to reviewable information provided the ELs opportunities to listen/watch the information multiple times. However, to better serve the ELs in the class, I would have presented key academic vocabulary before giving the lesson had the students work with the new words while doing an exercise similar to English 12 class, where the students identify (and maybe label the parts of the essay). This would help the ELs understand the vocabulary, and it would help the rest of the class understand the material before they begin writing. I would also work with the ELs
I sat with her every other day for the first four months of the past school year, and gave her specific expectations and examples to ensure extreme clarity. This teacher became one of our most requested staff members this year, due to her successful implementation and the step-by-step planning of the newly adopted Common Core State Standards. She truly respected the time that I took to work along her side, even though I hadn’t taught Language Arts or History at the Middle School level. The wealth of instructional strategies that I provided, alongside her content knowledge served her Steadiness Personality and Behavior style that is motivated by cooperation and sincere appreciation.
While I find value in both sides of the argument on what effective instruction looks like I do believe that there is something to be said for a “something old and something new” approach. As an English teacher I appreciate the ability and encouragement for creative projects, collaboration, and the use of technology; however, I also have a great deal of appreciation for a more traditional approach such as handwritten rough drafts, research papers, and a novel study that is completed in class with students reading aloud portions of the book. In an ever-changing society I know that I must be open to change as no two days in the classroom are alike.
I teach 16 classes a week. Each of these classes contains 32 to 40 students, which allows me to engage with over 500 students per week. Getting to know so many students is challenging, but I make a point of finding the time to interact individually with each of them. During my classes, I cover the listening and speaking sections of the students’ English textbook. I then supplement these sections with my own lessons that complement and expand upon the information conveyed by the book. The students’ English abilities vary widely. With this in mind, I tailor activities to each class environment to engage the weaker students while still challenging the strongest students. I also play a large part in designing the students’ English mid-term and final exams. In this role, I work with the other teachers and carefully write and review questions to accurately represent what the students are learning in class.
Twenty-four children were observed for this study. Half of the children were male and the other half were female, all aged between three and four years old, and enrolled in a private southern California preschool that is located on a private college campus. They were all part of a racially diverse classroom, which I drew from in a manner that allowed for a representative sample to be derived.
On April 14th, I got the opportunity to observe Mrs.Osborne's 11th grade AVID class and her 12th grade AP Government class. Mrs. Osborne is a social studies and AVID teacher at Reynolds High School. She has been teaching for 33 years. In the classroom the desks are set up in rows facing the front of the room. Mrs.Osborne's desk is placed in the back corner of the room. On the left side of the room there was a white board and on it written out was each classes learning objective of the day, the days agenda, and what the homework for the day is. At the front of the room students grades are posted by student ID number on a board. The left side of the room had labeled drawers with supplies.
Evans, D. N. (2006). Models, strategies, and methods for effective teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.
Training future teachers is an important part in a good school system because it gives future teachers superior and inferior examples of how to teach. In college, teachers in training will only use textbooks to study. One problem with only learning how to teach through textbooks is teachers can’t see the process of teaching, they only read it. Cameras also benefit teachers because it shows them how they teach. Thomas Roberts an administrator at Hafen Elementary School in Nevada quotes what some teachers’ feedback is, “‘I didn’t know I leaned to the right when I speak. I didn’t know I focused more on the girls than the guys’” (Gray). By seeing and knowing what each teachers’ learning styles are, they can try to fix anything they don’t like. For instance, if a teacher realizes they lecture too long th...
Now that I have seen three different classrooms as part of my practicum observations, I still believe that there are several acceptable approaches and no universally correct teaching methods. However, my thinking has changed because I have seen that everything done ...
Teacher evaluation can be divided into two steps. First step is documenting the quality of teacher performance, while the second step is helping teacher to improve herhis performance in teaching (ref). Teacher evaluations seem can be beneficial for both the teacher and the evaluator(ref). Thus, the evaluators' role is to make the evaluation process a meaningful experience through giving useful feedback on classroom needs and the opportunity to learn new teaching techniques in order to make changes in the classroom. This paper includes a description of an observation instrument that I have used to write a reflective report on two teachers' classrooms management , and professional development plan.
After the conversation wih my CT, Kelly, I have gain greater insights on how lesson objectives, instructional methods and time management can be changed to cater to different claas profile. One thing that I noticed about the classes is that the students are motivated to learned and are participative in class.
I attended a second grade class at Smallville Elementary on February 22, 2014; the class began promptly at 0855. There are 26 children in this second grade class. There are 15 male students and 11 female students. The student diversity is 2 Hispanics, 1 African-American, 1 East Indian, and 1 New Zealander (White but with an extreme accent). Three children were left-handed.
The students that I observed in the classroom were of middle to high school. I went to see 8th, freshman, 10th , and seniors classes, they seemed excited and very curious to why I was there. The middle school was more alive and rambunctious while I observed them. The High school kids were more relaxed, more comical. Some were paying attention while others seemed tuned out to the lecture or involved in socialization with friends within the class. By the end of the class Mr. Hasgil had restored the attention of everyone by using tactics such as history jeopardy with candy as the prize with the high school kids. In both he middle school and high school the kids were mostly Caucasian with a mixture of black, Asian , and Hispanic in the classes.
Through classroom observation I was exposed to the different methods of teaching a lesson. The methods of teaching depends on how will the teacher execute the lesson well. I learned that modern learners today needs both modern and traditional way of teaching as for them to fully learned the lesson in a meaningful way.
For my observation experience I went to Southern High School in Harwood, MD. Southern High School has a special education department for the students with disabilities. The teacher that I met with for this classroom observation was Ms. West. In the classroom there were at least four assistant teachers that helped Ms. West throughout the school day. The assistant teachers helped Ms. West co- teach the class and were there to help the students if they needed extra help. The school also has a couple of student aides that come in to help the teachers and the students in the classroom. There were at least twelve students in the classroom. The students in the class had many different exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, Down syndrome,