Professor Reilly

Mini-lessons reflections

As a student, what did you rely on most to comprehend what was being taught?

- I relied on the hand motions the most, especially when the teachers were asking the

students to repeat or speak, they would act it out. The teachers also counted numbers on

their fingers to make it easier for students to comprehend. Each group of teachers used at

least one hand motion to help guide the students. Hand motions are extremely important

because it can simply put a student who is lost back on track with the lesson.

As part of the "class", how can you relate this activity to the experience of ELL students in an

English-speaking classroom?

- ELL students bank on certain things in the classroom to help them understand the lesson

being taught. For example, by using visuals such as songs, videos, pictures & etc, an ELL

student will be able to follow along with the other students and teacher. This activity

showed us different ways to interact with those who are ELL students so we can

accommodate to them in the future.

Overall, what do you think was the purpose of this activity?

- I think the purpose of this activity was to show the difficulties EEL students go through

trying to learn academics in another language. Everyone seemed to struggle with

different parts of creating the lesson plan because it was not in their native language. I

was only able to participate as a student, but even for me I struggled learning the lesson
and relied on the hand motions and visuals being presented as well. Doing this project

gave me a new perspective on how truly hard these children have to work just to keep up

with their class and academic standards.