I don’t know how I feel after watching the second module. I was definitely a great lesson and I think kids of their age would really benefit a lot from a teacher and aides like these. Their activities were authentic and engaging, perfect for ELLs and native speakers alike. The skit is a great activity that encourages situational role-playing and encourages lingual participation in front of the entire class. I thought the guided discussion was great because it really brought each student’s cultural diversity to the forefront of the discussion. Each child’s journey was important to the entire class, which I think is a necessary feeling for children to have if they are to truly succeed. They also had the authentic task of making a travel brochure, which I thought was great.
My hesitation with this video is that there did not seem to be a lot of reinforcement of language skills. It was full of cultural exploration, which is wonderful, but it seemed like there should have been some focus on the actual language being used so that students could build up their language skills.
I completely agree that student journeys should be valued by the entire class. I know that in my classroom, I want my students to feel proud of where they come from and how they got to where they are. It is so easy for immigrant students to feel ashamed, but showing interest and allowing them to see that their journey is an important part of who they are can hopefully overcome those feelings =)
ReplyDeleteI watched and wrote about this module as well. I personally really liked how they taught the lessons like you also mentioned. Coming from an elementary ed prospective this lesson would work great with any class. It incorporates lots of learning styles and gets the students very engaged. From an ESL prospective, it did allow the students to talk about their journeys and relate things to themselves. I found that to be good and important, but like you mentioned it was not focusing on the language skills. That could be though because we were looking for basic skills like learning a word or term and reviewing it and using it. The students were using language skills to read, listen, speak and write. I felt this lesson did it in an interesting way that the students didn't feel like they were just drilling language skills. So I don't know, I see your point, but I also see what the video and lesson was getting at.
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