week 6 assignment #1

The sky is the limit

presentation

week 6 assignment #2

In my observation classroom, I was lucky to be guided by my kids’ ESL teacher. She shared with me a lot of tangle materials, e.g. textbook, posters designed by her, handy websites, and demonstrated me how to teach ELLs, how to do reading and writing teaching. Furthermore, she invited me to join the discussion of assessment of a student’s ability to decide whether he can skip a grade from K to 2. One of these days, I had even tried teaching phonic to a Haitian girl as well due to her trust.

During the three-day-observation, I realized an ESL teacher faced many difficulties since she started her teaching in this school. She was very proud of herself due to understanding the needs of her students and fighting for their rights all the time.  She also shared with me the dramatic changes in this school district. Back to ten years ago, for instance, there were no Chinese-speaking students in this area, but now there is increasing population every year. "Apart from other students," she said," ELLs never have the discipline problem. They respect the teacher and study very hard." She added, "But I know there is still some discrimination on campus, that's why I stand up for them, and every teacher at this school knows that I am very, you know, it's better not to offend me." I did appreciate what this teacher had done, my children were also beneficiaries. Because her endeavors, the school district have changed some approaches during these years. 

First, they retrieved all ELLs from extended school to the main campus. The gathering of all ELLs made school think more and willingly provide the efficient and effective environment for ELLs.

Secondly, they placed the ELLs in the ordinary class all the time since 2016.  Now she just pulls out the ELLs to one table during the center period and reteach or reinforces them the concept in the same space. She told me she loved this idea, most of the time students didn’t recognize she was an ESL teacher, “ they just treat me as a co-teaching teacher. And honestly, I help other students if needed as well.”  When she taught phonic to a Haitian girl, she always reminded her to learn carefully and efficiently so that she could go back to her center. And the pedagogy was encouraging to this one-year-English-learning girl because she couldn't wait to go back to her peers!

The most important thing I have learned from this teacher is giving confidence to students, which is always her priority. When she rectified the ELLs' writing, she focused on content first. " I often need to figure out what they wrote by speaking out because, after some certain of time, they catch the idea that there are connections between sound and words." she laughed," when I read their sentence, I am so proud of them. Even there are so many wrong spellings. But we are communicating! And check this one(the sentence from the authentic American student),  he also made some mistakes, didn't he? We are all processing. Just give them some time, they are smart and grateful."

This teacher shared with me meaningful teaching materials. At this school, they have some specialists who decide which textbook they can use. But after the experiment, they would rather choose the package with fewer supplements( so she needs to prepare more.) but with more content-area meaning.  

With developing technology and more co-teaching strategies, I know she can do better. But her spirit and passion inspired me to be a good teacher. Not only teachings but bringing happiness and sense of safety to our later generations as well. When I saw her and the ELLs giggling together, I realize this is what I want in the future.

week 5 assignment #1

         I am not good at knowing religion, this assignment was made up by lots of references from websites. But this assignment definitely helps me clarify different religion and its taboo.

We're All the Same, We're All Different

week 5 assignment #3 Please help me to answer the question designed by me

Please,

1. Go to https://smile2.stanford.edu/#

2. Create an account

3. Go to "Most recent question" section and you will see my question as below:
   Do you think which period of time should students start to learn the diverse culture?

4. Click your answer and don't forget to rate the question!

THANK YOU!!!

week 5 assignment #2

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Evaluation

Reflection

week 4 assignment #1-2 Cultural Immersion Experience

      Even I speak Mandarin as Chinese, my experiences embodies that culture could be different within the same language, but the same language enables me to communicate with them smoothly and help them eliminate their vigilance naturally. And since this video related to Chinese descendant, I decide to pick up the target who is the Chinese family in this area.

  (1) Research the cultural background of students' families,

       My Chinese friends came from mainland China, they suffered the political persecution and applied for asylum a decade ago. The family first moved to Holland and had their only child over there.  Later on, they got some assistance and eventually fulfilled their dream moving to the U.S. In the beginning, it's difficult for them to fit the mainstream with the zero English level, they chose to dwell in Flushing which most residents are from China. They worked hard and didn't have much time to take care of their son's academic development.  On top of the language barrier, they felt helpless because the democracy was way different from communism, which meant the way people thinking, doing, communicating were all new territory to them.   On the other, their boy also strove hard in terms of living and schooling. His parent relied on him to translate and low expectation toward him from school didn't motivate him to achieve a higher standard.

  

 (2) Visit local community centers to find out about the cultural activities and beliefs of the students,

     Now, they move from Flushing to Orange County where they don't really have many Chinese countrymen in the local community. But my friends still make connections with other Chinese, they not only support the celebration of  Chinese traditional holidays but also organize a lion dance group to performance for parades or other local activities, let alone go visiting and shopping in the Chinese-run stores and continue presenting a petition for their belief.   

  (3) Tour students' neighborhoods to identify local resources and "funds of knowledge." 

      My friends' house is around 15-minute driving distance from mine. In their neighborhood, there is as few Chinese family as mine. They usually need to drive half an hour to buy Chinese grocery, get more information about Chinese newcomers, or get Chinese version newspaper at Chinese-run supermarket in another bigger town. Recently there is a new open tea shop in the same town and as I know, they often have gatherings there. And since there are 77% white people make up in this area, they even work harder to pay the tuition for their son to study in the English-Chinese bilingual private school.  And luckily, they figure out the way if they really need the necessary, they can drive back to Flushing or buy it online!

week 4 assignment#2 Describe your plan to involve families and communities with 3 specific examples

1. Language is not a problem

     I believe everyone feels comfortable when they speak the same language. I would like to organize some bilingual parents to have their own groups based on their languages. In the beginning, they can help me to write the bilingual invitations to the parents and make a call to encourage them to participate my open house time. And then, on the day, volunteers can interpret my teaching ideas for them and help parents express their concerns without the language barrier. After open house day, schedule out for family visiting with translators if they need further communication.

2. Blogger can boost communication

      I will like to form an atmosphere that every culture is welcome in the class and educate parents that any relevant activity, festival, the celebration is a portal for our children to experience the different culture. I will create a Blogger for my class and encourage the volunteer parents to share some information about cultural activities, ask them to provide some incentive to motivate parents to bring their children there. Through this platform, teacher, family, and community can collaborate, get know each other more and set a respectful environment.

3. Tell your  story, say your language

       I heard people mentioned the shortest distance between two people is a story. we should listen to a firsthand story from the person's lip not from the appearance or behavior even they do mean something sometimes. In my class, I would like to have all my students' families to prepare a family storytelling. The best part, I would invite parents to do the presentation in their native language and their children do translation simultaneously. Even students are the English speakers, they need to translate it in Spanish or Chinese depending what language speakers in the class.  I would cooperate with ESL teachers and other volunteer parents to help the students' script out when they need to translate in advance. There are two purposes in this activity. One is for all students to understand it's not easy to learn another language and hopefully, they can generate the empathy; the other purpose is to understand each group more and make minority family feel involved.