Sarah+Goodsell

When starting this class I was really nervous because I was told that I would be working with people my own age and tutoring them. How can I tutor someone if I’m not always sure on what I’m doing? When day one of class ruled around I walked up and saw some people that I knew and that is automatically where I went. I felt comfort in what I knew. When we got into class we all sat in a row together, none of us branching out of what we knew. The class was full of people from all around. They were the ESL students we were going to be tutoring. Another panic rushed through me. How are we going to even connect, I really don’t want to do this, and why do we have to tutor people our age. We were then asked to pair up with someone from a 1010 class, and so it began. As we were given questions to start talking about it was actually really fun to get to know these students. I learned so much from them in that little time. I especially leaned that they are people, just like me. We talked about school and what we were going in to and we talked about how they liked in Utah. It was really nice to meet someone that had different cultural background as me. I have told myself that I’m getting my ESL minor so I can help more students. I said that culture is so important but I never realized how I have only concentrated on my own culture not getting to know others. In my future classroom I have to get away from that and teach about different cultures so my students won’t grow up only knowing one culture. When I was learning about the other people and their culture I realized that if we asked to pair up with anyone I know that all of us would pair up with someone from our own culture. We would have the common ground of knowledge of our country and language. I am glad that when we were given instructions to pair up it was with someone else. It was like that through the semester. Through the semester I learned many valuable lessons from this class. I know I would have never learned them if I was not here getting out of my comfort zone. There was a day when I was working with some students and we were talking about how the media influences people and what they think. When we are influenced we influence the people around us and the children that are around us. Hood shared with us a story about him shopping in Smiths. When he was shopping in Smiths we was just getting some grocery’s when a little girl walked up to him and got his attention. He turned around and the little girl looked at him and asked, “Are you going to blow up the store?” He didn’t know what to do so he turned around and finished his shopping. What a painful situation he had to go through because of the way the media and we learn to stereotype people. That opened my eyes for the rest of the semester. I wanted to get to know them so I would not have any of those stereotypes within me. These people have opened my eyes to something so special. I have learned that you cannot judge a book by a cover or judge a group of people on what one person did. “The sense of urgency for change becomes overwhelming… (because) there is no one size-fits-all…” While reading this book it has shown to me over and over again how important it is to be prepared to teach to the different learners I will have in my class. I have combined these two quotes because, to me, they go together. There is a huge urgency for a change in our teaching. There is a not one class that has all the same learners so we must be willing to adjust and adapt our lessons for the students in our classes. It might be overwhelming at times, because there are so many different learners in any class, but I know for me that the students and the progress and learning they will be doing is what I am striving for. I really liked how the book focused on the four domains of teaching: listening, reading, writing and speaking. They book talked about how important it is that the children are taught using all of these domains so that they may have success. I first thought that the four were covering everything that the children would need to be taught but when it talked about a fifth domain it seemed ridiculous not to have it, thinking. Thinking is such a vital thing in getting an education. If we do not teach our students to think on their own they will never learn to become independent and to succeed on their own. It is vital that we teach all of these domains to the ESL children. This is the first textbook that I have read the whole book word by word. It has so many ideas and explains so many things that I would otherwise be still confused about. I have been able to take ideas from this book and use them not only in other classes but I have been able to apply some of the things I have read in my field work. I know that this is one book that I will be keeping because it doesn’t only share the importance to know about ESL students but it shares about who they are, the urgency for teaching them, how children acquire the language, how to teach to them, connect with their families… etc. There are so many resources in this book that has only proved to be beneficial. I know that when I have read the book it made me feel inspired to get out there and teach these children that need me and my knowledge of what an ESL child and family needs to get to success.
 * __Sarah Goodsell__ __Final Paper__**
 * __Beginning Thoughts__**
 * __Valuable Lesson__**
 * How to Reach and Teach English Language Learners**