Week 4 is in the books and I'm getting prepped for Week #5! I'm really glad that I started working with another 2 students this past week - it's provided a foundation to develop relationships with them as well as helped me to determine their exact need - which is mainly confidence in their speaking skills. They are both super quiet students and hesitate participating with the whole group. I'm hoping that with our 2 on 1 practice they'll feel more comfortable speaking with a larger group.
I know that other students would benefit from small group work as well; I just am having a difficult time figuring out how to make it all work with teaching skills AND monitoring their course work for other classes - all with only one hour a day. I am thinking that there might be some time next week to conference with them about their latest writing sample. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for that!
This coming week, I'm introducing grammar and phonics skills. We'll practice some decoding skills with prefixes and suffixes. And even though I've observed students getting frequent grammar practice in their English classes, their writing samples do not reflect the level of proficiency I would expect with said practice.
This week has got me thinking about the types of written language lessons that are taught in other countries. I just assumed that if a student had decent writing skills in one language that it would transfer over to a secondary language. For example, aren't capitalization rules consistent across various languages? Is this taught in the schools in their native country? I guess that just goes show that I really shouldn't assume ANYTHING! Ha!
And now for what I created and want to share with you, if you think it'll be useful for the students that you work with. I found that my class could make use of a scaffold to support writing paragraphs that helped them think of additional descriptions for the details of the main idea. The following document is what I came up with. You can get it as a Google Doc HERE.
I found that my students were typing their thoughts into Google Translate and then simply copying and pasting the translation into the Google Document without thinking about the sense of the sentence. I figured if they're going to do that, they might as well be forced to write by hand the words, phrases and sentences that Google provided. So rather than sharing the Google Doc through Google Classroom, I ran paper copies of the worksheet. I'll eventually get to demonstrating for them the imperfections of Google Translate.
If you find that this structure for adding descriptions to the details works for your students, it's easy to change the writing prompts to suit your needs.
I hope that your week goes well for you.
Offering my BEST -
-bethany.
It's unbelievable that practically an entire calendar year has gone by since I have last posted on this blog. Yikes! As I reflect on the reason why it simply comes down to what took place last year.
Sometime during the first quarter of the 2017-18 school year, I was asked to take over a class that I had never taught before. If you have ever taken over a class from another teacher(s), you know the challenges that can present themselves in regards to teacher expectations vs student behaviors, student work ethic, and student skill levels. But to no fault of their own, this group of students had as many as SEVEN different adults managing the class in a four week period of time. Such is the facts of life in a hard-to-fill teaching position (high school science) in a state that is now known nationwide for its low teacher pay (Arizona).
While I was happy to fill in, I was not anticipating teaching the class for the remainder of the year, which is exactly what ended up happening. And I just wasn't ready for it. But I had to do it, it was now my assigned job.
If I am being completely honest, I intentionally left the classroom full-time because I was completely emotionally drained. I love teaching and was willing to put 100% of myself into fulfilling my position with the best of my ability. But after 18 years, there wasn't much left in my tank. I had to make a change.
Fortunately, the position of Technology Integration Specialist opened up at an opportune time and I was selected to fill it. I loved the fact that I could focus my energies on teachers and making a difference in a different way than I had ever before.
But circumstances change and I had to adjust, no matter how difficult it was to do so.
And so, I find myself three weeks into the 2018-19 school year, once again doing something I wasn't anticipating, but thankfully, a bit more energized.
The title of my responsibilities has changed to Instructional Coach for Secondary Teachers. I get to work primarily with new teachers (Yay!) and providing professional development (Double Yay!). AND...I am still teaching one hour a day, but doing something I have never done before, providing support to our English as a Second Language learners.
The group of students I work with are at various levels of English acquisition and are from multiple countries, mostly Spanish speaking regions. By the way, did I mention that I am NOT bilingual? The group of students is small compared to regular classes (Whew!) and they are all supremely pleasant to work with (Hallelujah!) I am finding that I STILL have time to balance my other responsibilities of working with new teachers and planning PD, something that I couldn't balance last school year.
My goal for this year, is to be intentional about blogging more regularly, both for reflection and sharing purposes. I want to continue to grow as a professional as well as connect with other educators.
I wish you all the BEST for the 2018-19 school year!
-bethany
Have you ever been re-assigned in the middle of the school year? How did you handle it? What are you most looking forward to for this school year?
