Week 3 at Lincoln Hall

It was another great week at Lincoln Hall! I continued to teach Spanish II five periods of the day and am starting to feel more and more comfortable each day. I feel as if I have started to get to know each student and their personality better, and, in turn, they have gotten more acquainted with me as well.

Last week, I set two goals. The first of my goals was to learn 75% of my students’ names. I’m not sure if I reached the 75% mark, but I’m getting close. I aim to work hard this week to continue learning their names. (I found it helpful to pass back papers to help me learn their names.) My other goal from last week was to have a good observation and to learn from the feedback I was given. I  felt like my lesson on Wednesday went well and was happy that Professor BC could observe me and give me feedback. He pointed out things I did well and then things that I can continue to work on. The things I will work on for the rest of my student teaching is trying to use students’ names to recognize that they did something well or if they need to change their behavior. Also, I need to work on saying “Does that make sense?” or “Are there any questions?” instead of just saying “ok?”.  I thought both of these suggestions were helpful and I will try to work on them.

My goals for next week are to finish learning all of my student’s names and to get my action research project going and iron out all the kinks.

The word I would choose to describe this week is “comfortable” as I continue to mesh with my cooperating teacher, students, and other staff members. I have grown to love Lincoln Hall in such a short time and have become very comfortable there. It is a great community and I am happy to have the opportunity to be a part of it.

As I continue to write lesson plans to go along with the review we are doing in Spanish II, I find that I’m having trouble with the Illinois State Standards. It seems like the standards don’t really apply to what it is actually like to learn a language. Standard 28 is the only foreign language standard that has to do with any sort of grammar, which is the foundation of a language. I have also found that because the standards apply to any foreign language, they don’t seem to line up with specific things that are important in Spanish. For example, it doesn’t mention anything in the standards about conjugating a verb, which is one of the most important things to know how to do in Spanish. I have talked to my cooperating teacher about the trouble I’m having and she has agreed. She even mentioned that her and the seventh grade Spanish teacher talked with the principal when the school decided to do standard based grading and they came up with their own set of Spanish standards which apply specifically to learning Spanish. I try to match the Illinois Learning Standards to my lessons the best I can.

In order to meet my students where they’re at, I discuss lesson plans with Miss Ricotta daily. If students aren’t responding well to something we’re learning in class, we change what we originally had planned for the next day so that we can review what they’re having trouble with. We have only really run into this problem once so far, because my students are doing a lot of review right now. Each day, after I teach my first lesson, Miss Ricotta also gives me feedback on how she thought it went and suggestions for what I can do for the other classes to improve the lesson.

In one lesson I taught this week, I had students do several different activities to help them learn the “tener” expressions in Spanish. I had them play charades with a partner where the other person had to guess which Spanish expression they were trying to use, then I reviewed how to conjugate “tener” in a sentence and explained how to use the expressions properly, then had them translate sentences from English to Spanish as they came up on the powerpoint I put together. This lesson incorporated several of Gardner’s multiple intelligences and met the needs of all of my students (I am hoping at least).  I tried to use some more technology this week in order to relate to my students’ life experiences and I look forwards to using even more in the future.

I haven’t run into any students that I know of yet that have IEP’s. I know of one girl in one of my classes that has a 504 for ADHD, so I have to make sure she is writing down her homework in her daily planner. We are also supposed to try to help her stay organized in other ways, such as with her locker. I do, however, always make sure to mention that students should ask if they are having trouble with anything or to stay after class to talk if they are having trouble understanding something I’m teaching. I want students to know that I’m available and I want to see them succeed.

My cooperating teacher has taught me that accessing students’ prior knowledge is essential. In fact, that is really the whole point of the last few weeks of our Spanish class. We have been reviewing what they learned in Spanish last year, because they went three months over the summer without using what they learned. While I am reviewing concepts and basic grammar with the students, I can tell what things come back to them quickly and what I need to spend more time on. Accessing their background knowledge and bringing all these concepts back to them have really helped so far as they are starting to be able to do more, with more accuracy, with Spanish.

I don’t always show my teacher my lesson plans, because we discuss them at the beginning of the week and then the night before I am going to teach them. If she has any suggestions after I teach my first lesson, I write in what she suggested on my lesson plan and use that to help me teach the next four classes. So far, this system has been working well and we haven’t ran into any major problems.

In the reading of the Schmidt book, I learned a lot about behavior and what drives it.  Schmidt suggests that “all behavior is motivated by one of two basic instincts: to seek pleasure or to avoid pain.” (p.45) So, when a student is acting out or not paying attention, we should ask ourselves which of these two the behavior is being caused by. By doing so, we might be able to help set the student back on track. When Schmidt talks about a student avoiding pain, she suggests that they may be acting out because they are “camouflaging” the fact that they can’t do what is being discussed in class. At my placement, I can think of one girl off the top of my head who is most likely avoiding pain and trying to camouflage the fact that she can’t do the work we give her. In class, or when she is supposed to be working on something, she sometimes just stares off into nowhere, but when I ask her if she needs help, she doesn’t really accept it.

Later in the chapter, Schmidt talks about eight different strategies for teachers to use to reign in their class. The first one is one that I, personally really liked and thought would be useful. That is, providing choices. (p. 57) When you give a student a choice, they are able to choose whichever one they believe their strength lies in, or the one that is the most doable for them. I think it might be helpful to the student that seems lost or like she’s struggling, because then she may feel as if she has more control over what we’re doing and more confident that she can do it. The only question I would have though, is do I offer the different choices to the whole class, or just her?

I also liked the strategy of deferring to the experts. Older, more experienced teachers have dealt with just about any kind of behavior we can imagine, so why not ask them what they did to help that student? In my placement, I find myself asking my cooperating teacher what I can do with some particular students, because I know that she has probably dealt with similar cases before. The ideas older, more experienced teachers give you can be very useful.

Body language is the last strategy that I’ll discuss. I really like the idea of using body language. For example, proximity. Just being nearby can help students feel comfort, because they know we’re available to them. While I teach, I try to use proximity. I want students to know that they can ask me for help if they need it. I am also able to give students advice or encouragement as I walk by. I also think eye contact is important as it draws each student into the class and makes them feel valued.