Film Activity
Identify elements of the teacher’s pedagogy, that seem to be ineffective in teaching Moises and being responsive to his
needs as an English learner.
For each of the ineffective practices you have listed that we saw in the film, provide some ideas for pedagogical
approaches that would have been more effective for an English learner like Moises?
Ineffective Practices
 The teacher talks a lot about what
they’re going to do but, doesn’t model or
show what she expects of the students.
 The teacher didn’t clarify vocabulary that
has multiple meanings. Moises thought
she meant blocks as in the kind you might
play with or use as realia, but not city
blocks.
 The teacher keeps repeating “Can you
explain to the class how you got that.”
 Teacher initially brushes off his concern
about the test, ‘try your best, it’s not
important’
 The Principal said kids who don’t speak
English should not take the test.
 Took away his dictionary and said he
could ask her if she had questions.
Your Suggestions
 Instead of just saying what they’ll do have
a practice test so students can follow
along step by step. She tells them certain
things she wants them to write down but
doesn’t write it down with them.
Modeling the actions, we want students
to be doing can help a lot in certain
situations and make it easier to follow
along.
 Have a map or city blocks or clarifying
what kind of blocks could do a lot to
make the problem make more sense, a
lot of words in English have different
meanings and context can be hard if you
don’t understand the language.
 Instead of repeating “Can you explain to
the class how you got that.” She could
have written what he did on the board
and went through following his steps
asking him to nod yes or no if she is
understanding it correctly. Or let him
write his work on the board instead of
speaking since he was clearly
uncomfortable.
 While saying “Try your best, it’s not
important.” May seem like a comforting
thing to say to a student, it sometimes
doesn’t help and instead invalidates their
feelings. I think a better way of going
 about this might be saying something like
“I know you’re worried about this, I know
you’ve been working hard.” It doesn’t fix
the situation but it does acknowledge the
students feelings and doesn’t set them
up for false promise if you can’t get a test
in Spanish. Plus, it shows that you’ve
noticed their effort and realize that they
are trying.

 The principal shouldn’t have said that

point blank. Especially not in a space
where students could potentially hear.
That statement is not only wrong, but
obviously has a negative impact on
students who could hear it, like the
student who went to get ice cream
instead. Perhaps talking to the super
intendant and seeing if it were possible
to get tests in Spanish would’ve been a
more productive conversation and made
the student feel there is value in what
they know.

 If a test in Spanish was not available,

maybe seeing if it were possible to get
Moises accommodations to use his
Spanish to English dictionary.