Michelle Lam's Blog
Hello, welcome to the first entry of my Blog! My name is Michelle Lam. I am pursing a Teaching and Learning Degree with a certification of 4-8th grade for Science at the University of Houston.
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When ELLs are pulled out of class-time, they are given face-to-face small group instructions – which allows the student to focus on the quality of their language development. According to Wright, “ELLs are entitled to (1) high-quality language instruction to develop proficiency in English and (2) high-quality academic instruction across the content areas” (Wright, 2). This quote stands to be true after through personal experiences and observing through field observations. Activities my elementary instructors used during these ESL sessions consisted of: analyzing a variety of stories to build main and sub-concepts, identifying homophone vocabulary as well as building content-specific vocabularies. However, I feel like not all students dealt with the same positive benefits as I did in ESL. In order to ensure the parents and students this benefit, I would communicate with both parents and ESL teachers to take note of how I could improve the learning experience for the students in my classroom and lessons. These notes or recordings can be done daily, weekly, or monthly.
Another point I would like to address is the Socioeconomic Status (SES). Wright stated, “…high rates of poverty are strongly associated with low levels of educational achievements” (Wright, 13). In reference to the quote above, I would like to have a classroom library for my students and the opportunity to research during classroom time. In my perspective, if I allow my students to be given these opportunities, they will also be able to ask questions from their peers and myself. For my classroom library, I would definitely like to include a few popular language dictionaries such as Spanish and Vietnamese- which is known to be quite popular in Houston, Texas.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.
