Prompt 3 CLAUDE GOLENBERG

During the time in my classroom I have not seen my teacher give many assessments. However while I am working with the students they will often ask me to help them with their spelling or vocabulary works. After spending sometime with the students I began to see the students who were ahead of the class, and the students who were behind. While helping the students with their works I noticed that the students who are behind in the class are a different set of words then the other students. For the most part all of the words have the same concepts, the long O sound for example, but the students who tend to be more behind have an easier set of words. Also being in the classroom for the spelling tests I have observed many things.

The teacher gives the test separately. The group with the harder set of words went first. I noticed that the teacher went fast through the test. The students did not need that much time to realize the word and it spelling. Also the teacher did not need to repeat the words that many times. When it came to the second test the teacher did things differently. She would say the word once, then she would say it again slower, she would give the students more time to think about the word, and then she would say it again.

I usually work with the group of children that my teacher refers to as the “slower children” I have observed that these children are the children that do speak other languages and have diverse backgrounds. Sometimes when given other assessments like reading or math these students are sent to another classroom to work one on one with other teachers. Because I have been working with these students I know that in order for them to be successful in what they are doing they need more time to do the work and more explaining of what to do. I think that being separated from the class and given one on one help really benefits those students.

I relate this to Claude Goldenberg’s Teaching English Language Learners. Goldenberg speaks about “academic English” that refers to a more abstract, complex, and challenging language that will eventually permit you to a participate successfully in mainstream classroom instruction. He goes on to say that student who are english language learners struggle with this. I see this in my classroom. The students who my teacher refers to as the “slower children” are those who english is a second language. The students struggle and are behind in class because while the children who only speak english are just learning the material the students who are ELL are learning the material on top of trying to learn the english language.