Entry 4

Growing up I was an English Language Learner. I felt like I understood how I learned a second language and what goes into learning a second language. So, I felt that I understood how it was done and it seemed pretty simple. Through this online course, I soon realized that it was not actually so simple as it looked. As I knew already, each child is different. Each child learns differently. Each child comes to you at a different level. The same goes for English Language Learners. They are all different but other things must be taken into account such as how their home language can impact how they learn and acquire English. Through my own experience, I, of course, did not know this. I did not know these little aspects were taken into account. There is so much that goes into teaching English Language Learners.

Through this class, I found out and learned that so much actually goes into teaching a second language. There are many different approaches in teaching students a second language yet, one approach cannot be pinpointed as being superior than another. Some of these approaches are best combined but the only way to know whether something works or not is by keeping up with research to see what researchers say. To teach a second language there is so much research that goes into and there is so much research that needs to be done. You really must keep up with current research to best teach your students. With the thought of keeping up with research in mind, that has really made an impact on my professional practice. According to Brown and Lee (2015), research is done in the classroom already when you ask relevant questions, hypothesize possible answers and solutions, try out your hypothesis, look for results, and analyze your results (p. 555). I know for sure that I have to keep up with research but also conduct research of my own, so I can better teach and aid my students in growing when learning English. I definitely will implement some of the different approaches and models that I learned as well in my future classroom.

In this class, I felt that it was very rich and dense. There was a lot to learn in such a short amount of time. The topics in this class were appropriate and flowed well. Each topic had a good amount of time to them as well. I liked the many different strategies used such as writing in a blog, quizzes, papers, using and making videos, listening to and make audio clips, and interviews. I felt that the many different strategies utilized really reflected how differentiated learning could take place. With these thoughts in mind, I feel like maybe alternative projects or assignments could have been given or maybe there could have been alternative ways in completing an assignment. Just speaking for myself, some assignments are hard for me to complete adequately in the way that it is required due to my student teaching schedule and the particular school that I’m at which does not have many English language learners. Other than that, I liked the many ways learning was differentiated for us and the fact that we were still able to learn from our peers through the use of blogging.

Overall, I was able to learn a lot from this class. I gained a new perspective and understanding other than the one I already had. Now, I am able to use what I’ve learned in my future classrooms.