Final Research Paper  Simone+Janez

This artifact was produced in my ESC 760, Second Language Learning and Teaching class at Lehman College. This final research paper was produced by me and my classmate, Janez Ottley.

This artifact relates to the standard, in that, the paper focused on “The effect of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) on L2 vocabulary acquisition.” This topic gave us an opportunity to research second language acquisition and development that support ELL’s social and academic English language and literacy learning and content-area achievement. The artifact have demonstrated that I have met the standard in that I was able to evaluate if CALL works for L2 acquisition, and what age L2 development is most effective.

The artifact has contributed to my professional understanding, skills, and disposition in that I have learned that L2 children adopts the social aspect of the language first more times than the academic aspect of it. In that, I try to incorporate a lot of talk stems and sentence starters in my lessons so that my ELL’s will know the difference between the social and academic aspect of the new language. Completing this project has impact my own thinking in terms of incorporating CALL within the classroom. Yes, using programs such as Rosetta Stone and other foreign language softwares have come in handy. However, studies have shown that these programs are not the most effective because students often times get distracted if they are not being monitored, and the program itself is like a drill and practice program where students were not authentically getting to manipulate the langauge. As I have mentioned before the program serves it’s purpose in that it provides data in what the students are struggling with, which can help to inform your teaching as a teacher. Personally, I need to evaluate the students language data more, and use it to inform my practice. This has been proven difficult for me because all my students have different linguistic, social, and academic needs.

Yes, this artifact has impacted student learning in terms of my students code-switch or self correct to use academic language in class.

ENL PD

Parents Guide to ENL

The artifacts that I chose for Standard 5.b are demonstrative of me partnering and advocating for my ELL’s either single handedly, or with my other invested colleagues. The first artifact is a PD that my ENL colleagues gave last year to the staff on how to better incorporate vocabulary into their lesson for ELL’s. The second artifact is a PowerPoint that was put together by two of my colleagues and me for parents of ELL’s.

All  artifacts demonstrate how I have taken advantage of professional growth opportunities, and demonstrate the ability to build partnerships with colleagues and students’ families, serve as community resources, and advocate for ELLs.

In regards to professional growth I received an Effective on my formal observation. Artifact 1 showcase how I am able to advocate and collaborate with colleagues  to promote understanding of the characteristics of effective literacy instruction for ELLs’, while artifact 2 showcased Family Partnership. This was carried out in the form of giving a PD to parents on the tenets of ENL services at our school.

The artifacts contributed to my professional understanding, skills, and dispositions in more ways than one. Firstly, they all opened up a dialogue between teacher to teacher, and parents to teacher. In that, having these type of PD’s help to answer unanswered questions, and clear up any misconception that anyone might have on how to meet the needs of the ELL population.

Overall, I cannot say  for sure if any of these artifacts directly impacted any student learning, but I hope that the dissemination of information to teachers, parents, and administration will influence some change in the way that teachers teach ELL’s, parents advocate for their child/ren, and how administration delegate teachers to this particular population of students. In regards to my formal observation, I will merge what I know about ELL teaching with what my schools focus is.

Dominican Culture

The artifact I chose for Standard 5.a is a research paper that I did for ESC 769: Latinos in US Schools. The overall course allowed me the opportunity to read a variety of research discourse on the education of Latinos in the U.S.

The overall artifact focused on the Dominican Culture on the U.S, and how it has influenced educational and economic growth for this particular group. The overall project aligns with standard 5.a, in that, I had to carry out a research on children of Dominican Republic background in the U.S. By doing this research, I was able to gain a deeper knowledge of the political, and socio-economic history of this particular group.  Having first hand knowledge of this information allowed me to plan culturally relevant lessons, and most importantly, advocate and enlighten these students about the systems in place to help them as ENL students.

This particular artifact is pertinent to the standard because it not only focused on the history of Dominican Culture on the U.S, but it looked at the Education Implications for Dominicans living in the U.S. Upon completing this research it was found that students from the Dominican Republic are likely to be labelled LTELLs and SIFE due in part that they mainly come to the U.S as adolescents.

This artifact contributes to my professional understanding, skills, and dispositions that ELLs on a whole have their unique struggles when they come to the U.S. However, it is my job as an ENL pedagogue to keep myself abreast with what these struggles are, and to familiarize myself with the different mandates and policies that effect ELLs, and apply this knowledge to inform teaching and learning. In relativity to this standard, one area of my teacher development that still needs growth is staying current with judicial mandates, federal, state, and local laws and policies on the instruction and achievement of ELLs.

Overall, completing this artifact impacted my students to an extent. In that, the research was carried out on one particular group, and I have a diverse population of ethnic group in my class. Whereas, I have come to the conclusion that one hat does not fit all.

WST Curriculum Unit – Google Docs

Standard 4.c is from my ESC 766, Teaching ESL through the Content Areas class that I am currently taking at Lehman College. This Unit Curriculum is currently under construction and will be updated accordingly. The purpose of this assignment is for us to create a 10 lesson unit curriculum for a specific grade band.

This curriculum addresses all parts of the Standards in terms of using a variety of performance-based assessment tools and techniques to inform classroom instruction. With that said, the curriculum addresses the students’ Needs Analysis. Once the students needs were analyzed, the curriculum was tailored to meet this specific academic, linguistic, and special needs. In that, the curriculum asked for us to create a Needs Analysis, Essential Questions, and modifications for Special Needs Learners. Additionally,  the curriculum ask that we include: Lesson Topic, Content Objectives, Language Objectives, Key Vocabulary, Overview of Procedures, Scaffolds etc., and Assessment related to Objectives. These specific grids aid in helping us to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social and physical development of each learner.

The artifact contributed to my professional understanding by making me aware of the variety of assessment tools and techniques that are needed to inform classroom instruction and achievements. In that, when creating this unit curriculum, my partners (Jared Wood and Kimberly Thomas) and I put a lot of thought into what assessments  were necessary in allowing us to cater to our ELLs at varying stages of English language and literacy development.  Additionally, the Content and Language Objectives were two other areas that  was important to creating this unit, and meeting the different language and academic demands of our ELLs.

Relative to this standard, one specific area in my teacher development that needs improvement is the creation of  Essential Questions. As I have mentioned previously, the Essential Question/s is the steering wheel, and it is the driving force behind how we plan our lessons for our students on a day to day basis.

Hypothetically speaking, this artifact should impact student learning because it was created to meet the specific linguistic demands of our students while support learning content literacy.

Final Child Study

Standard 4.b is from my graduate class ESC 727 at Lehman College. The purpose of this assignment was for us to do a child study on one of our current student. The project asked that we gathered pertinent information about the student in regards to their ELL status, their family background, how the school’s overall snapshot informs how I teach this current student, how it influences their behavior towards school, and learning a new language; and how do I use this information to guide my teaching.

The artifact  addresses that I am able “to use a variety of standards-based language proficiency instrument to show language growth and to inform my instruction.” In order to assess language growth, I use the scores from the yearly NYSESLAT,  i-Ready and DRP to assess the students language needs and growth.

This artifact is relevant to Standard 4.b because it allowed me to focus and study one child from my class, instead of focusing on all my students. Being able to focus on this one student, I was able to use the student score on the previous year’s NYSESLAT to plan on how I would meet this child’s linguistic needs, and better prepare them for the upcoming NYSESLAT.  Additionally, I was able to use the child’s i-Ready and DRP data to assign tailored lessons for this student to complete twice a week. Also, the score from i-Ready determined what topics to focus on with this child whenever we conferenced.

This artifact contributed to my professional, understanding, skills, and disposition by allowing me to use a variety of standard-based language proficiency instruments to show language growth and plan instruction for this particular child, and my other students. Lastly, completing this artifact impacted the student and their learning because the student NYSESLAT score improved that year, and so did some of the student reading comprehension skills (main idea, Point of View, Inference, and Citing Text Evidence).

NYSESLATAnalysis-Final

Artifact 4.A. “Issues of Assessment for ELLs,” is from my ESC 761, Teaching English as a Second Language to Adolescents and Adults class that I took at Lehman College. This particular assignment asked that students write an analysis about the NYSESLAT exam. The aim of this assignment was for us to analyze if this particular  assessment was an accurate assessment of the necessary skills for academic success, of ELLs.” Additionally, based off of our responses, we had to write if the NYSESLAT exam is an adequate assessment of ELL’s ability to do well in mainstream content classes at the secondary level.

This artifact is pertinent to the required Standard, 4.A., where candidates had to demonstrate understanding of assessment issues as they affect ELLs. In this case, I got a chance to analyze the biases, testing, language proficiency, and accommodations in formal testing situations for ELLs. This chosen artifact demonstrates that I have met the required standard because it demonstrate my understanding of assessment issues as they affect ELLs.

The artifact contributed to my professional understanding by giving me a first-hand look at the issues, accountability, accommodation, and biases of assessments for ELLs. For example, all ENL students are required to take the NYSESLAT where they are tested on the four modalities of language (reading, listening, speaking, and writing). While this is pertinent to language acquisition, in terms of expressing one’s thoughts, making coherent sentences, and being able to use facts and ideas to express one’s self,  I do not believe that it thoroughly assess the students command of English, such as English rules, and grammar. This impacted my own thinking and understanding that not only should I teach so that the students can acquire the language, but to teach so that the students can do well on these exams.

Yes, completing this artifact impacted students and students learning because after completing an analysis of the NYSESLAT artifact I was able to differentiate how I teach to the NYSESLAT, and how I teach for the ELA state exam.

Lesson and Journal #2

Standard 3.C is from my ESC 725, Teaching English Grammar class that I took at Lehman last Fall. The purpose of this assignment was for us to tutor grammar to a group of ESL students. The first step to carrying out this assignment was to teach students how to create basic sentences. In order to do this, I created hands-on activities where students created simple sentences using subject and predicate.

The part of the standard that the artifact addresses is creating resources effectively in ESL and content instruction that are challenging, interesting, motivating, linguistically accessible and age appropriate, and supportive of student learning.” In that, I created hands-on activities, adapted worksheets, and provided students with resources that aided in their understanding of the lesson.  In the end, students had to use what they learned to edit their peers essay.

 This project focuses on improving the linguistic aspects of students where grammar is concerned in order to improve speaking, reading, listening, and writing.  The artifact relates to the standard in that, it was linguistically appropriate, and supportive of student learning. This artifact demonstrates that I have met the standard by highlighting how I have created and adapted a wide range of linguistic material as they pertain to grammar in order to help the students create basic sentences.

The artifact contributes to my professional understanding, skills, and disposition by highlighting the importance of basic grammar instruction for ENL students. I am a firm believer of teaching grammar instruction in order to aid in L2 acquisition. With basic grammar foundation students will be able to not only acquire the ability to speak and read the language, but it will also aid in their writing and listening acquisition.

Yes, this artifact aided in student learning to an extent. Most of the students have not explicitly learned grammar by itself, in which, it was hard for the students to comprehend at first. This activity can be implemented in my class whenever I am teaching writing or when we are doing peer edits.

Instruction Commentary-EdTPA

Artifact 3.B is my Instruction Commentary from ESC 609, Internship Seminar in TESOL where I justified Implementing and Managing standards-based ESL and Content Instruction.

The artifact addresses the different strategies and techniques for developing and integrating English listening, speaking, reading and writing for a variety of social and academic purposes. Additionally, supporting ESOL students to access the core curriculum  by teaching language through academic content.

The artifact demonstrates that I have met the standard because it summarizes how I have support ELL’s in accessing content and language. This was done by setting realistic content and language objective for the students to follow. In terms of content, students were provided with rigorous text that aligned to the standards, and in terms of language, students were provided with sentence stems, and talk stems to help them use academic language. Additionally, I used different scaffolded resources to help my diverse learning population to achieve both the language and content objective.

This artifact contributed to my professional understanding, skills, and dispositions in terms of proper planning. My planning was intentional in terms of the text I used, the questions I asked, the way I assessed my students, how I differentiate and scaffold for my students, and most importantly my language and content objective. My philosophy is that language should be taught in isolation, so it was hard for me to merge language and content in my lesson, henceforth, this is something that I stand to improve upon in future lessons.

Overall, completing this artifact impacted students learning because my planning was deliberate and all student was taken into consideration when I was creating the content and language objective for this lesson. In the end, the students were successful in completing the formative assessment and have shown improvement in the content and language objective. Moving forward I hope to incorporate more UBD in my planning, and consistently  incorporate language objectives into all of my lessons.

Simone Swaby

Professor: Ines Garcia

Course: 708

Context_For_Learning_

The artifact that I chose for Standard 3.a (Planning for Standards- Based ESL and Content Learning) is my Context for Learning from ESC 761, Teaching English as a Second Language to Adolescents and Adults. This particular class was in relation to the EDTPA, and focused on the different steps that we had to take in order to complete our EDTPA.

This artifact correlates with understanding, applying concepts, research, and best practices to plan classroom instruction in supportive learning environment for ELLs. This is evident in how my lesson was scaffolded to meet the needs of my LTELLS, SIFE, and differing language level in the L2 of my students. This was done by having the necessary sentence stems, visuals, and pre-teaching of vocabulary before the lesson. Additionally, I use a number of assessments throughout my lesson such as thumb up, thumb down, Exit Tickets, Do Nows, to assess what my students know going into the lesson, and what they have learned after lesson, which will determine if I move on or reteach my lesson. Lastly, in order to encourage discussion I ensure that I maintain a positive learning environment.

The artifact have demonstrated that I have met the standard because it shows that I understand that no one child learns the same way, and that I understand and plan to meet the needs of my diverse student needs, incorporate multiple modes of assessments, and maintain a positive learning environment.

This artifact contributed to my professional understanding, skills, and disposition in that, I am always mindful of the diversity in my classroom, and by being aware of this cultural, social, and linguistic diversity I am able to plan classroom instruction in a supportive learning environment where all student feel included.

Yes, this artifact impacted the students and student learning in that all students were better able to articulate their ideas with the use of the sentence stems, and students were engaged by the visuals presented in the lesson, whereas students used the visuals as support to recall what they had learned.  My take away from this artifact is to always know my students, and know what learning style best fit their needs.

Philosophy Statement on Teaching Diverse Students

Lesson Sequence 1-Only

The artifacts I selected for Standard 2 (Culture as it affects Student Learning) was a lesson sequence from seminar ESC 609, Internship Seminar and my philosophy of teaching diverse students came from ESC 769, Latinos in U.S Schools. The lesson sequence shows how I planned instruction based upon knowledge of content, students, their community, and curriculum goals. My personal philosophy artifact provides evidence of how I infuse culture, and self-advocacy in my classroom so that students will be readily equipped to thrive in their old, and new culture.

In artifact ESC 769 I wrote a letter urging parents to advocate for their children, and themselves. For too long, we have seen immigrant students assimilating from their home culture in order to fit into their new culture. One form of advocacy that I have taken on is to let parents know about NYC’s “Additive bilingual programs” and Two way immersion” programs for emerging bilingual students.  In the artifact from my Internship Seminar class, I created a lesson based off of the diverse L2 acquisition (Entering, Emerging, Transitioning, Expanding, and Commanding). I used this information to scaffold and differentiate my lesson to meet the academic and linguistic needs of my students.

All in all, I will continue to design culturally enriched lessons, and advocate for my students to get the right educational support that they need. Hopefully, by me doing this, it will continue to influence their self-esteem, heighten their language learning, and school achievement.  I know the power cultural inclusivity has on my students, and it is for this reason a group of my colleagues and I have taken on the job of keeping a cultural night event at our school annually. Our goal is for our students, parents, the community, teachers, and administration to know that when “cultural factors are recognized, respected, and accommodated,” then we will have a more unified school system.