Entry 3: Interview with an English Second Language Teacher
For my interview, I
chose to interview a teacher that is on my Student Teaching campus. While I
have not had a chance to work closely with Mrs. Vazquez before conducting this
interview, Mrs. Vazquez also allowed me to observe her classroom. It was an interesting
experience because I could see that her classroom was similar to my own, as it
had group settings for the students to increase their collaboration, but it had
much more visuals, such as anchor charts, around the classroom.
As for Mrs. Vazquez’s
interview, one major interest of mine that I also saw within her classroom was
her “Wall of Mistakes”. Mrs. Vazquez chooses to embrace mistakes in her
classroom because she mentioned that this instills a growth mindset within her
students. When they are afraid to fail, they also become afraid to succeed.
Ortega also mentions this when he talks about misguided myths, such as “one should
be able to study vocabulary and grammar and then speak or write without
mistakes” (Ortega, 2013, p. 202). Setting these unrealistic expectations for
students sets them up for failure.
Another interesting
aspect that Mrs. Vazquez brought up was that she kept her students in groups
because she liked to incorporate “Think-Pair-Share”. This concept of learning from
your peers and being able to depend on them is backed by Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal
Development. Gass and Selinker state that “independent problem solving and the
level of potential development as determined through problem solving under
adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Gass &
Selinker, 2008, p. 284). This shows that students learn best from their peers
when they are within their zone of proximal development because it allows them
to learn from an interpersonal activity that will develop their individual functioning.
Overall, it was an
amazing experience to talk to Mrs. Vazquez. While I have been intimidated to
teach English Language Learners, I am more confident that I can do it since I
have talked to her. She showed me that it doesn’t matter if you can speak a second
language or not as long as you have the passion and dedication to teach.
Hi, Chelsea. Motivation is very important in SLA because if a child isn’t motivated then it may be harder for them to progress in their second language learning. I like how the teacher you interview shared that she uses think-pair-share for her ELL students. Ortega mentions that “Support from significant others (including parents, siblings, peers and teachers), since believing that they want one to learn the language creates rewards and reinforcements that may be important in boosting motivation” (pg. 172, 2013). Being in groups or having peers to help motivate students can be important. If they see their peers making mistakes and keep trying then this can motivate them to do the same. If they are hearing and seeing their ELL peers sharing and participating then they will be comfortable to also share and participate.
ReplyDeleteHi Asia,
DeleteI also thought that it was quite impressive that Ms. Vazquez used Think-Pair-Share in her classroom. As you mentioned, it does create s supportive classroom environment where students can feel comfortable with their peers. I would also like to add on that Think-Pair-Share also allows individuals to practice speaking English to the point that proceduralization happens, which “and entails the conversion of declarative or explicit knowledge (or ‘knowledge that’) into procedural or implicit knowledge (or ‘knowledge how’)” (Ortega, 2013, p. 84). By constnatly practicing, students are able to build this automaticity, which may not be possible if only one student is responding to a question.
Hey, Chelsea! I enjoyed listening to your video. I really liked hearing about how Mrs. Vasquez uses a Think-Pair-Share technique to help get the students motivated. I hear from a lot of people that ELL's often find motivation from a social setting. I think the Think-Pair-Share is a great way to allow students to talk about things that interests them. I also like the idea of saying that failing is okay. I love how she has them write down the things they have failed out and then foster ideas on how to correct them. I think this is great encouragement and motivation for the children. Ortega says that the desire to obtain more knowledge is motivation in itself (Ortega, 2013, p. 176). I think having the children set goals for themselves helps foster this motivation because they students want to do better and succeed along with their peers.
ReplyDeleteHi Remy,
DeleteYou brought up some interesting points by brining up the Think-Pair-Share strategy and Wall of Mistakes. I was also quite impressed by her wall of mistakes. Like you said, it really helps create a positive classroom environment and develops growth mindsets within her students. Ortega also agrees by mentioning that Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning has six types, included metacognition, which is “‘having clear goals for improving one’s own skills’, ‘noticing one’s own mistakes’)” (Ortega, 2013, p.210). This goes to show that students need to be aware of the mistakes they are learning and develop plans to improve.
Hey, Chelsea! I think another reason the Wall of Mistakes can be useful is because middle school aged children are already rather competitive, so I think they'd do well simply so they don't have as many mistakes on the wall as other students. I like the connection you made about metacognition. Ortega goes on to mention in that chapter the theory of self-regulation. This states that endeavors are often goal-directed and intentional
Delete(Ortega, 2013, p. 211). Whenever the students put their mistake on the wall, the give themselves a goal to fix it. This ties into what we've been walking about as well.
Hi Chelsea, I enjoyed listening to your interview with Mrs. Vazquez. I thought it was really interesting how Mrs. Vazquez had a “Wall of Mistakes”. Some students in my cooperating teacher’s classroom are afraid of speaking up and taking risks because they are afraid of failure. However, I think that it is an important life lesson for students to learn. It is okay to make mistakes because no one is perfect. As long as you learn from your mistakes, everything will be okay. According to Ortega (2013, p. 175), “humans are growth-oriented and guided by their drive to self-determine their actions and activities.” When students develop a growth mindset, they are able to look past their mistakes and focus on what they can do to improve themselves and grow.
ReplyDeleteHi Angela,
DeleteYou bring up a great point about Ms. Vazquez’s Wall of Mistakes and a students feeling of failure. It is a good life lesson for students to learn that failure is something that comes with life. More than this, I would push students to realize that what they see as a failure is more of an opportunity to learn. Ortega mentions this by mentioning “Counterproductive beliefs about language learning (nicely explicated in Horwitz,1988) can also contribute to foreign language anxiety in a different way, namely by leading to high levels of disappointment and intense sense of failure” (Ortega, 2013, p. 201). Some of these misconceptions include learning vocabulary and grammar rules and then expecting to speak and write perfectly. It’s important for students to realize that there is a learning process, which a Wall of Mistakes does a great job of.