ELL Reflection

Lari Valtierra
11 November 2015
This training was extremely helpful and I will use this information
throughout my teaching career. I thought that everything we learned
was extremely important, but one of the most important things that we
learned would have to be that EL students should be taught in steps.
Also not all EL students learn at the same rate and they must be
taught according to their proficiency. This is extremely important to
me because I want all of my students to succeed and not just the ones
who are proficient in English. I know that these students will be
challenge, but I know that being a teacher isnt always about stickers
and field trips. These students will be even more of a challenge to
teach if the school that I end up teaching at doesnt have an ELL
teacher. I have learned in this training that not every school offers an
ELL class/teacher. This would mean that I would 100% be in control of
making sure that the students who struggle with learning English. I
also found it interesting that schools are required by law to allow
students to enter school at any grade, even if they cant speak or
understand English at all. Children are given the right to attend school
from age 5 to 21 and can enter elementary or high school at anytime
in those age ranges. I think that this presents an even larger challenge
for teachers because the older a student is the more he/she will have

to catch up on unfortunately. But if the student does have prior

education and is proficient in reading in their 1st language other than
English it will definitely help when learning the English language.
ARA Conference
November 12 & November 13 2015
I am beyond grateful for being able to attend the Alabama
Reading Association Conference! I learned more than I could have
imagined and I will definitely use and apply many of these things.
There were a few speakers that really stood out to me, and one of
them was April De Cesare. She spoke about centers and the
importance of them for students during reading time. I love the way
that she organizes each center for reading, the students must read the
story first and then write about what they read, then do an activity on
the reading, challenge, use technology and the explore the props. I
think that this would be a lot of work to set up on my own each time
for centers, but I might be interested in seeing if my future school
would be interested in investing in her services and products.
Another speaker who I really and truly enjoyed listening to would
have to be Dr. Tommy Bice. When he started off with a PowerPoint
titled Every Child a Graduate, I knew that I would enjoy listening to
him speak. It was interesting for me to learn that the skill that most
Alabama graduated lack is intellectual curiosity. As a future teacher I
know this is something that I can attempt to prevent. Even though I

will be teaching younger students, I know that trying to spark that

curiosity at a young age will make a difference in their future. I think
the best way to do that would be letting the students be creative and
learn in creative ways where the students are at the center of learning.

PLP MEETINGS
October 23, 26, 28 & 30 2015
We talked about each of our personality types according to our
test results and what we thought about the results. I was so surprised
of how perfect the results were on my personality type test. The
strengths and weaknesses that were listed for my personality type fit
me so perfectly! Today we also talked about conveying bad news to
parents of students in the classroom. This is one of the things that I
am most worried about when it comes to being a teacher. I know that I
can handle it, but when the time comes and I have to deliver bad news
about a student to a parent I know that itll be awkward and
challenging. She told us several steps that we can take for conveying
this bad news: Choose the time and place carefully, start with a warm
welcome, share something positive about the student, ask the parent if
they have any concerns, be factual and gentle when sharing problems,
dont try to convince parents to see problems your way, end the
meeting by reviewing everything thats going on and be sure to double

up on praise and positive news in the coming week. This was

extremely helpful, but I also know that you never know what questions
parents will ask you and that as a teacher I should be prepared to
answer anything they might ask me about their child.
Today we discussed the four types of parenting styles and disciplines. I
already knew that dealing with parents would be one of the hardest
things that I will have to deal with when Im a teacher, but I never
knew there were four types of parenting styles. The parenting styles of
parents and the way they discipline their children obviously has an
effect on the children. The way children are disciplined at home will
effect how they act at school and respond to disciple by the teacher.
The two styles that are the easiest to deal with in the classroom are
the authoritative and permissive. The two hardest parenting styles
that are the hardest to deal with are authoritarian and uninvolved
(neglectful). Authoritarian parents have all of the control and no other
perspectives are allowed. I cant imagine being a child and having
parents that are like this, there would be no room for children to be
creative and be themselves. Uninvolved parents dont have any rules
because they arent involved in the childrens lives at any capacity.
These children will have problems that follow them forever and thats
so sad because no child deserves to be neglected, all children need
direction and love.

Most Likely to Succeed

November 12, 2015
I absolutely loved the opportunity to not only watch the
wonderful film Most Likely to Succeed, but also to hear the panel
discussion after the movie. The school in the film High Tech High has
very unique teaching styles and ways of running a school. Honestly it
blew my mind hearing the things they were able to do and the freedom
of the teachers to help student explore their creativity. I think that
their educational program is great, but to some degree. I feel as if
they are so focused on team building and creativity that there isnt
enough substance in the teaching. I think that it would be perfect if
students were given a few hours in the school day to work on projects,
not the whole school day like the students did in the movie. It was
great to see that students learned skills that they wouldnt necessarily
learn in a typical classroom, but I think that students should also learn
content from the standards that public schools must meet. Although I
would love to be a teacher in one of the classrooms at High Tech High, I
dont feel as if they are preparing students for college. Yes, I agree
with what the film said in that these students will be prepared for real
life situations and how to use life skills needed in their future jobs, but
first they have to get through college. I think maybe these students
are skipping steps that they will have to catch up with when they do go
to college.