Today's Educational Climate

Due to what is happening around the world, I thought this would be a great time to find an article that discusses different learning and educational classes to do from home.  As many of us are teachers, we are panicking a little that we are missing a ton of instructional time with our students.  I can't even begin to imagine how ELL teachers are feeling with all the progress they were making throughout the school year and now it has all come to a sudden halt.  Hopefully, with what I suggest within this entry and the article I found, it will help create a learning environment at home.

One of the great suggestions the article made was to make sure there is storytime at home.  During this time the students could continue to work on their English skills by reading to themselves or out loud.  Of course, the educator would have to make sure the student has the appropriate level of books, but the more they read and practice the better they will become.  Then, as they improve they can work on harder books.

Another wonderful suggestion that the article made was to have the students have drawing classes at home.  By doing this the students could identify different words with pictures and/or they can draw how they are feeling at that moment.  After they draw their emotions then they could put in words how they are feeling and what the picture is depicting.  This could be beneficial for communication purposes.

Music is also another great form of communication.  ELL students can learn more about the English language through the art of music and song.  Singing does not only help soothe the soul but can be used to help ELL students learn English words.  Assignments could be made for students to work on translating songs from their language to the English language.

Finally, students could use technology at home to help learn the English Language.  The article states the use of Duolingo to help learn the second language.  Duolingo is an awesome app to use as it works at the user's pace and is fun and colorful for the student to actively learn the English Language.

Elementary Students celebrate diversity

The Elbridge Elementary School finds it best to try to celebrate as many different cultures as they can and introduce these cultures to all their students.  The latest celebration that commenced was the Chinese New Year.  The school brought in The Fabulous Chinese Acrobats to perform stunts, feats, balance, and more.  The principal, Mr. R. J. Hartwell, stated "Giving children access to different cultural performances develops their understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity."

Just as the principal was stating how this is a great movement for the school an ELL teacher also agreed and was quoted "Embracing the diversity of students and teachers is the first step on the roadmap to success. "  I would have to tend to agree with what this ELL teacher was saying.  In order for the students to fully understand the English Language, they must understand our culture.  But the understanding of cultures should be reciprocal.   Just as ELL students should fully understand the English culture, we should understand other cultures.

Understanding the culture will only improve the progress that the ELL students will make.  As Goldman stated in the article, "All students make significant progress when they are engaged in collaborative activities all day long.  Common goals and common language helps everyone collaborate.'  This could not be any more correct.  Collaboration goes a long way and when students are ELL students, collaborating with others will only help them understand the language better. 

I personally like the idea of the cultural observations this school provides its students with.  It's amazing to see that this school would do this and it makes me think that its a great step towards many goals in education and in social settings.  I wish other schools would follow this model.  Having students learn about different cultures is a step in the right direction of cultural acceptance.  Also, it will show the ELL students that English speaking students are just as interested in learning about their culture as the ELL students are with the English culture.  This will go a long way to understanding the language and the social skills.

Unit 7- Art Expo Expanding for the Inclusion of Hearing Impaired

Something spectacular is about to happen this March here in the Lehigh Valley.  The Young at Art Expo, that will be happening in the Lehigh Valley, is looking for deaf interpreters to have the successful inclusion of the hearing impaired.  This is a huge step for this expo as it is used to promote all sorts of camps that deal with the arts throughout the summer.  This will be the fifth annual event and it will be promoting camps and schools such as the Community School of Music, The Baum School of Art, The Civic Theatre of Allentown, Lehigh Valley Martial Arts, and many more.

During this event, there will be a booth sponsored by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing TaskForce.  They will be introducing children and adults to the form of communication known as sign-language and will be teaching them simple words to sign.   This is to make the public aware that even the hard of hearing can partake in all the events that are offered, and that communication is not difficult.

This is a fantastic cause and movement.  For too long have the hearing impaired felt left out and placed on the back burner.  Now, people are doing something about it and movements like these are popping up everywhere. 

I believe learning sign language is learning a second language which is similar to those learning English as a Second Language.  We all have to start somewhere and this is a brilliant idea.  The younger the children start learning another language the better communication skills they will have as they grow up.  This works the same way for ESL children.  We need to push for more ESL learning throughout schools and make everyone aware and accepting of the pursuit of inclusion!  What this Expo is showing that with the hearing impaired, and hopefully many other events and schools will follow suit.

Unit 6- Indian School Paints English Alphabet using Indian Sign-Language

I know this blog should typically be based on ESL topics, but I feel that this topic fully falls into this category for many reasons.  The article that I read was about this school in India that took the time and painted the English Alphabet with the Indian Sign Language on one of their walls.  This is to not only learn the English Language but to also build a sense of empathy towards the specially-abled.  This is only the beginning for this school district because the principal stated that she plans on painting more walls around her campus with this type of material so teachers and students can continue to not only learn the English Language but can also expand their languages to signing as well. 

Although most of their students are not of the hearing impaired Principal Pragya Singh stated: “It’s high time that we make education more inclusive and sensitive."  By having these paintings around the school on the walls the students will actively want to learn the English Alphabet and sign language.  

This is a great start that I think more schools around the world should be doing.  It will create more avenues of communication between many different cultures.  We should be painting other countries' alphabet on our walls too.  This way we are all sharing each other's language and I firmly believe that we would all be able to work together to better the world we live in.  Many ideas are lost in translation and I think this would be a perfect opportunity to start change and create more bridges of communication.

For our students who are learning English as a second language, having walls painted with our alphabet would only help them.  They would not only see what each letter looks like on a daily basis, but they can continue to learn how to put letters together to spell words, create thoughts using the English Language, and learn our sign language along the way.  

This can only better everyone and I think that this school in India has something special and we should all follow suit with this idea.

Unit 5- Is Technology getting in the way of Parenting?

Being only a year involved in the whole parenting game it is important for me to reflect, as a father, what I am doing and teaching my little girl.  One of the biggest things that influence my daughter is how much time I spend on my phone.  When I am in public, I see all these parents just looking at their phones and not paying attention to their children.  To me, these years are the most precious years.  These are the years that you get to see the true joy of the children and see them laugh at the simplest things.  All of this makes me reflect each and every day as to how much time I spend on my phone or my computer.  I am just as guilty from time to time being on my phone, texting someone, looking at Facebook or Instagram, or taking pictures and I just don't want my daughter to unsocial because she sees these habits of mine.  So I am constantly reminding myself to not be on my phone or computer when she is awake.  I only allow myself some phone time to take pictures of her because I do not want to forget these special moments.

Like the article, I read entitled Parents Glued to Their Devices During Storytime?  How to Encourage Active Participation in Library Programs really helped me realize all the different things out there to do with my little one.  Within the article, they too have witnessed a ton of parents on their phones and not truly being present with their children.  Social scientists have called this technoference.  The article states that children learn the best through face-to-face interaction and reciprocal conversations with trusted caregivers.  "In a 2017 study, researchers found that cell phone interruptions led to infants and toddlers learning fewer words" (Rachel G. Paines).  This is definitely something that I do not want to happen to my little one.  The article goes on to discuss why taking your children to the library for storytime is a great thing.  It helps social interaction and gives the parents an event to spend time with their children.  

Reading this article gave me the idea to do the same thing over the summer months.  I can't wait until the school year is over so I can take my daughter to the public library for storytime.  I know she will love that and it will be memories for me to hold onto down the road.  But until that time, I know I will continue to be mindful of how much screentime I have while my daughter is up and awake.   I want to make sure she has a wide vocabulary and is great with social interactions. 

Unit 4/ Blog 1- Pen Pals

After doing some readings of different articles, I found something that hit home for me.  There is this school in North Carolina that has a class involved in pen pals with a school in Columbia.  Both classrooms are participating in dual-language programs.  Just recently the students were able to communicate with each other via face to face over the internet.  This was a very special moment for the students because they were able to actually meet their pen pals and talk to them and ask questions about their culture.  The students from both schools were able to share some differences and similarities in their countries.

It is so nice to see that the idea of Pen Pals is still taking place in schools.  It is a great form of communication between classes and can really create great memories for the students.  I remember having pen pals within my elementary classes and it was always exciting when we would receive letters from them.  We were all excited to rip open our letters and read what they wrote to us.  Answering questions that they would ask and in turn asking questions about them and their class was always exciting.  

What makes these two classrooms even more exciting is that they are from different cultures.  This is awesome to read because they are not working on bridging the gap in communication but they are also learning what happens within different cultures.  This is beyond what my pen pal experience was like.  For me, my elementary classes would exchange letters with my mother's elementary class she taught in a different school district.  So we could compare different classroom things, but was not really able to talk and compare cultural differences.  During my time we also could not hop on the internet and connect with the other class and have face to face conversations.  I think it's amazing that these students had the opportunity to meet their pen pals over the internet. 

 Schools and classrooms need to continue to do these types of communications.  It gives students experiences in which they would not normally get.  These students are meeting new people and are able to talk and understand different cultures.  This not only will help bridge the communication gap, but it will help make our future generations appreciate the different cultures and we may be able to work together to build better futures for everyone around the world!