1. As a teacher, what was your biggest challenge while planning the lesson?

- Getting started was difficult because I have never had to prepare a lesson in a

different language before. Starting a lesson is the hardest part, but once my group and

I had a plan, it was not difficult to find activities, a worksheet and a video to plan.

2. As a teacher, what challenges did you face when trying to teach your lesson/content to

the class?

- Not being fluent in Spanish myself and knowing the class did not know what was

being said most of the time was difficult. Also, not being able to explain it directly,

which comes naturally, was different. Engaging students was also difficult in a

different language since directing them and having them participate, without knowing

how to speak the language was eye opening and made me realize how difficult it is

for ELL students themselves.

3. What did you do to “overcome” these challenges?

- I was able to write down key words onto a flashcard so that I was able to look at the

words I was unfamiliar with when speaking to the class. Also, a lot of the

presentations used most of the same words, so I was reassured on some words that I

was not sure were correct to use.

4. As a teacher, how did this activity simulate trying to instruct one or more ELL students in

your classroom? How did you use “language” in your instruction?

 - This activity proved how difficult it can be to both instruct an ELL student and what

is felt like to struggle as an ELL student. I believe that this activity/presentation was

important to show the struggles from both sides. As a teacher, it is difficult to instruct

ELL students because the teacher may be unfamiliar with words of their first

language, making instructing and communication limited. This hurts both sides

because it sets the student back and the teacher. Seeing the difficulties from the

student’s perspective showed how difficult it can be to not understand material or

what is going on in an activity.

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

- I relied mostly on hand cues/gestures to understand what was being asked or what the

teachers were prompting the students to do. Also, with the cues, repetition of words.

The teachers would want the students to repeat what they or the video clip was

saying, so listening to what was being said and repeating it to the best of my ability.

6. As part of the “class”, how can you relate this activity to the experience of ELL students

in an English-speaking classroom?

- As stated before, this activity showed how difficult it can be for an ELL student to

follow along and or understand the material, along with what is being instructed.

They rely on hand gestures and if other students all stand up to participate in an

activity, looking at their peers to see what they are doing.

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

- The activity was a hands on task to show how an ELL student learns and what it may

be like to instruct an ELL student when you are unfamiliar with their first language as

a teacher.