Blog #7 (FINAL BLOG)

This article has a lot of them same messages that we have talked about all semester such as “Some people see language issues as right or wrong: That’s it. No flexibility.” Which is something that I strongly believe; this course had really made me think hard about how I wanted to go about teaching English and language. [Using a semi colon because my first sentence was not a sentence that contained a subject and a verb therefore it was a fragment and using a semicolon didn’t fully end the sentence] After everything I have learned this semester I have come to a conclusion and a mindset that I want to go about as a teacher someday.

I want to really try to open my students mind and their hearts and I think that students will try more with grammar when they’re writing about things that they are passionate about. I know that I clearly will have to talk about grammar and teach them the different ways to use punctuation and the different aspects of grammar, which is really a hard thing to do without lecturing—which is something I am not exactly a fan of—[using dashes instead of parenthesis also known as parenthetical dashes, which happen to be my favorite way of punctuation] but obviously students have to be aware of something in order to use it.

Other than that I plan on using project in order to bring out the students minds and get them involved; something that my class did in high school (advanced communication- senior year, which is what I want to teach) we read the book “Glass Castle” the teacher defined the word glass castle after we had read the book—glass castle meant a place where you feel the most safe and comfortable— we were given a colorful piece of paper and told to either draw or take a picture of our safe place and describe it. I still remember mine and this activity was 2 years ago, I took a polaroid of my bedroom an wrote something basic because I wasn’t exactly sure where was my safe place because I felt safe and comfortable everywhere. When it came to presenting our Glass Castles a lot of students didn’t have it as easy as me, some colored pictures of their small rooms and explained how they have to take care of all their siblings and parents all while working 2 jobs and there was a place to debrief and relax. I like the idea of this project because no matter what culture or background you have, you are equally as able to do the project. This project was clearly not to correct peoples writing, considering we only had to write a brief paragraph, but it was to help people of all cultures and backgrounds relate to the text that we were reading.

That same teacher, for our final project, was to make a video with no words that conveyed a clear message. I absolutely loved this idea –and after coming to college and learning how to teach different cultures—saw how open this was to everyone. We are all passionate about something; whether it was like me who made an emotional video on boy bands breaking up, or like another student who made an inspiring video of amputees going through physical therapy and being able to play sports. The videos ranged from funny, to heartbreaking, but what I really appreciated about the activity was that we were allowed to research what WE as students enjoyed individually. Student are so much more excited to learn when they are able to talk about things that apply to them, and that’s why in the classroom I plan on having free range on assignments an let students write about things that they actually want to write about, and with that, I think they will try new things grammatically.  

Blog #6

As a teacher you never know the backgrounds of the students walking into your classroom—rich, poor, religious, etc. Teaching these different backgrounds can become extremely difficult when it comes to making sure that every student is getting the education that they require. There are many factors that go along with this such as; the teaching of Standard English is today’s education system, the different subject that students are required to learn about, and the different levels that students may be at—learning wise—compared to other students; these are all factors that can make or break how much a student is able to learn in the classroom.

In an article “Teaching Standard English: Who’s Standard?” by Linda M. Christensen, Christensen uses a personal example of when a teacher pointed her out in the middle of class to say the word “lawyer”; She proceeded to say the word “attorney” because with her language that’s the word that they used. The teacher “Delaney” let the whole class burst into laughter, Delaney never corrected Christensen but used her as an example as to why you cannot use your own home language in the classroom. Although Mrs. Delaney thought this was a brilliant idea, this entire essay is to prove opposite. Teaching Standard English is a really good thing, the author (Christensen) also states later in the article that she too continues to teach Standard English, or else she would feel as though she was cheating her students. Standard English is something that is used for professional writing, such as this essay that I’m writing right now. In a way it is good to have one common language that everyone is taught, but why limit it to that? As teacher we want our students to enjoy writing, after all, for many it’s therapeutic. In order for a student to enjoy writing and to really feel comfortable they have to be able to use a language that they are most familiar with, therefore using slang or using words from their own language can really make students write from the heart.

Growing up everyone learns about the same thing—whether you went to school in New York, or Washington state. There is nothing wrong with this considering it is good to all be on the same level as we enter college, but are we really teaching subject that are equally as challenging for each student? Each culture has their own set of ideals and rules that many teachers don’t understand. We read books that have predominantly white characters and are expected to write essays on things that many students have 0 background knowledge on. Examples from “TeacherVision.com” that can be very resourceful for teachers; “Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among the students' cultures, Build relationships with students, Focus on the ways students learn and observe students to identify their task orientations, and Teach students to match their behaviors to the setting.” All these strategies will really help when it comes to teaching a culturally diverse classroom because it really depends on the students you have. I really like the idea of using more broad subjects for writing, such as having students write about their traditions that them and their family or friends do. This often excites students, and can really bring out a lot of culture.

Students come into the classroom at every different learning level with all different kinds of knowledge, leading a class that is challenging every student the perfect amount when it comes to language can be very difficult because of this. Theres many different factors as to why a student isn’t learning at a sufficient rate and may not have very well language skills; the best way to go about this is not to mark the students paper wrong and move on, but helping the student understand his/her mistake. 10% of all children live in poverty (Woolfolk, 216.) which means that not all of your students are going home and focusing on working on their grammar and the way the spell, which means classroom time is critical for many students education. This applies to students who don’t speak English at home at all—maybe their parents are only able to speak Spanish so after being home all night and coming to class they are having to constantly switch languages, being patient with students ad helping correct errors rather than punishing them is how students are really able to learn.

You are going to get students of every race, gender, and religion in your classroom, the main focus is to get every student on track and excited to learn in your class. It’s not always going to be equally as easy for each student, but as teachers it is our jobs to help students individually learn to the best of their ability.

Blog #5

I noticed that a lot of these articles were about adapting to another language in America. That is something that this class, as well as a lot of my other classes have been talking about, which means I have really put a lot of thought into all this. I really was struggling with what to write for this blog because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of this. I referenced other people’s blog for this because I needed some inspiration because I had some writers block with this one. The article that stuck out to me the most is Language Diversity in Teacher Education and In the Classroom because this is something that was brought to my attention a huge amount this year as I enter my teaching classes. I never thought about having to teach other cultures/languages as I decided to be a teacher—I always just pictured classes like mine in high school, which was diverse but we didn’t have any students (that I knew of) that didn’t speak English. Although, as I think about it—I never had any opportunity to read other students papers so maybe in theirs writing a slang came out that I was never able to notice.

Anyway, I really am intrigued to learn more about teaching more culturally diverse. The main part of the slam article that stood out to me was “In today’s society, grammar is often considered an indication of one’s class and cultural background”. This really caught my eye because I never thought about someone’s class affecting their language. As I think more about it though I can completely see how people may not be as well at speaking and writing because maybe they weren’t always able to put their full efforts into school. This year has opened my eyes to so many things you have to think about as a teacher and it actually is really scary because when I chose to be a teacher I was wanting to come in and try to make English exciting for kids, and for them to be able to write with their full heart without being scared of judgement and it just makes it that much harder when you realize that some people might not be comfortable because of their culture or class. Another thing that is difficult is that I am planning on being a high school teacher, which for a lot of people is the end of their education journey so any habits that a student has acquired in their last 11 years of schooling will be extremely hard to correct in just one short year.

The authors writing style was Standard English but also had a personality to it which I enjoyed, as for grammar there were a few things that I enjoyed that the author did. Towards the beginning of the article the author uses parenthetical dashes and I literally love parenthetical dashes because they really bring your eyes to that sentence. This is the example “… it seems that—unless there is effective…these teachers’ attitudes—“zero tolerance” will be there order of the…”

I really don’t know what attracts me to using dashes so much, I think it may be the fact that I never really got too crazy with my grammar and the craziest thing I usually do with punctuation is over use commas; therefore I get excited when I use dashes because I feel fancy.