Blog 4

Prior to this class I had no idea how much strategies and techniques go in to teaching English Language Learners. I never thought about how or what teachers do to modify lesson plans for these students. I have learned that teachers not only have to create lesson plans for students and modify that lesson plan to meet the learning needs of their students. Students have different learning styles like visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic learning in the classroom. Teachers also have to modify their lesson plans to meet the needs of English language learners. I had always thought they were in different classrooms that catered to their needs and not in the general classroom. This class has impacted me by opening up my knowledge and understanding the needs of English language learners. The educations laws that require teachers to not only to modify lessons to meet the needs of the students protect these students, but they are also qualified to teach them. They have going through specific training and testing to be able to teach English language learners. There has been much research to finding the best methods for teaching students whose native language is not English. I have gained an even more respect for teachers because they have to put in more work than most people think they do. Teachers have to strategically plan for all of their students to ensure they are learning the material that works best for them. Texas education system truly does care about each of it’s students to make sure they are protected and receive proper learning they deserve regardless of their native language or learning disability they may have. Students receive the opportunity to be taught and learn just as the student next to them. I have also learned how much technology can have a positive impact on teaching. Most people talk about how technology is taking over the world and consuming the mind of the new generations. Technology can be use positively to aid teachers when teaching students with different needs. There are so many different programs offered through technology for students. I think it is great that students are getting to use technology in school at a young age because most people use technology for their career. It is opening the doors and setting a foundation for students to learn how to use technology. Using a blog in this class I was skeptical at first because I have never done it before or seen it done before. Over all I think it is a great tool to use! It is like creating a portfolio of your learning over a period of time, and you get to see how your knowledge expands. It gives you the opportunity to express your opinions over what you have learned, and you also get to read about others as well. Over all this is a great class and has truly taught me so much and has open my eyes and knowledge to English language learners, and all the techniques there are to teaching.

Blog 1

Click here to see my blog! http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/kbeard-3239177-cuin-4361-blog/

After taking two years of Spanish in high school, I feel like the reason for not being able to use the language today is because of the time period given. I can't imagine anyone being able to learn another language in two academic years. My teacher in high school was using the repetitive technique as his teaching method, but we would focus only on that one particular topic for a few weeks and move on from it, for example the alphabet. In our book it says, "A variety of techniques are important because of limited language capacity "(As cited by Brown and Lee, 2015, p.142).  My teacher should have added some different teaching methods into his lessons that would be more beneficial to the student’s retention of the information. I don’t remember ever doing any group or paired work and from the research it shows the using different techniques can help students learn different languages more efficiently. So when I left his class I knew alphabet and basis beginner level functions, but since we only took the language for two year and weren't required to continue exercising the language I began to forget all that I had learned. If we want students to learn second languages, why wouldn't we adjust the time frame from elementary to high school? I believe we would have a better outcome of students graduating high school being bilingual and more successful in their lives. I strongly believe that bilingualism is a great asset to have, especially in Texas. We have so much diversity in Texas, and with our previous history of being part of Mexico. We have many Spanish history and a great percentage of Texans speak Spanish, especially our cities close to the boarders such as San Antonio, Laredo, and more. Since we do have many Spanish speaking citizen’s jobs are looking for bilingual employees and most even get paid more for speaking two or more languages. After reading the article The Cognitive Benefits of Bring Bilingual by Veronica Marian and Anthony Shook I realized that being bilingual is more that making more money it actually makes your brain activity increase. “For instance, when bilingual people have to switch between naming pictures in Spanish and naming them in English, they show increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region associated with cognitive skills like attention and inhibition”(Marian and Shook). For people that are bilingual in their brains are constantly being exercised between their known languages, which can allow the brain to strengthen and be able to process words faster. Being able to process words faster means they can get more work done in a shorter amount of time, therefore making them a more beneficial worker. I have said it in my video blog and I will say it again, I believe that our education systems should make learning another language a requirement starting in elementary school to high school. We will be setting up our future leaders for success in their futures.

Marian, Viorica, and Anthony Shook. “The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual.” Cerebrum: the Dana Forum on Brain Science, The Dana Foundation, 31 Oct. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/.

Brown, Henry Douglas, and Heekyeong Lee. Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Pearson Longman, 2015.