I enjoyed reading about the differences between content based ESL and sheltered instruction in chapter 1. I feel that these subjects were a good review for me though because being a bilingual major we talk about these topics on a regular class basis. But the talking about the characteristics of the students and the statistics they listed was what really caught my attention. You hear about how the affects NCLB has on classes and schools but when reading it on paper in a profound textbook is scary. NCLB is not helping our students or schools, its hindering them.
Chapter two on lesson preparation was interesting to read about also because I liked knowing all the different content objectives for EL's. Ive briefly touched on this in other classes but learning about the standards that are aligned to state, local and national was interesting to read about. Something it also touched on which I feel is necessary in any classroom is to incorporate supplementary materials that are suitable for any given lesson plan. In the book it talked specifically about EL's but I feel it's necessary to have that for any child because you should be about to adapt lesson plans or incorporate as many things as you can to gain the most purpose out of your lessons.
Steph,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. We are both Bilingual majors and we go over this a ton, but it was nice because the author actually gave us practical scenarios to look at. I found it so surprising that Mrs. Hargoves did not even have language objectives when 30% of the student population at their elementary school are English learners. At ISU, we are being taught the SIOP model and it seems to me that current teachers (a few too many teachers) do not take the SIOP features into consideration when creating their lessons. It's a shame but the best that we can do is use our knowledge and bring it to our prospective elementary schools.