Reflections

One step of creating the activities and the website was to test out the activities in

Harrisonburg City Schools and with a school located in Istanbul, Turkey. I also had the

opportunity to share my website and talk with graduate students in the LED program here at

James Madison University. I have a separate journal that has my reflections from each day and

experience I had implementing as well as creating these activities.

Smithland Elementary School

Between the months of November to December 2021, I went into a Kindergarten class at

Smithland Elementary School located in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The students I worked with all

spoke Spanish at home, but were fluent in English, so I was able to talk to them in both Spanish

and English. I worked with five different students from the Kindergarten class over the course of

this time. Over a 3 week time period, visiting one to two days per week, I was able to practice

and complete all nine activities with the students. This helped me see what I could change, what

worked, and what did not work with the activities. Some things that I needed to change with

some of the activities were the font of the words on the PowerPoint. I realized some of the words

were difficult to read and when it came to the “Identifying Letters in a Word” activity, students

became confused because the letters did not look like what has been modeled for them. One

thing that worked really well with the activities is that they were easy to explain to students and

easy to model. They all picked up on how to play or complete the activities easily and quickly.

The only thing that sometimes did not work with an activity was that not all students were able to

read. Instructors might consider that they will have to model and speak the word for students. For

this reason, all my activities have some sort of visual so both the student and the teacher know

what the word is.

 Once I completed each activity at the elementary school I would make changes and

finalize it. Personally, for me it was a fun experience and I enjoyed working on the activities

with the children. They seemed to have a good time and the activities were engaging enough that

many of them were able to stay focused. These activities do not take very long, so children are

able to concentrate while working on them. Teaching and instructing them was not difficult,

however a consideration is that I am a Spanish minor, so I was able to pronounce the words

easily.

Another beautiful opportunity I had from this experience is that I was able to see the

research I had read about in action. With one student I saw how their phonological awareness

skills transferred from English to Spanish. In their Kindergarten class, they had already learned

how to clap syllables, so when I introduced this to them in Spanish, they were able to clap out

the syllables for Spanish words with ease. Another way I saw the research in action was a

mother’s concern for her child losing their Spanish. The Kindergarten teacher I worked with

informed me that I should work with this student because the mom is worried about her child

losing their ability to speak Spanish since they are in an English speaking environment all day.

The student sometimes speaks Spanish at home, but prefers English since that is what they speak

at school. Language loss is a real problem and it was uplifting to hear that my activities could

help prevent a slight percentage of that. Overall, my experience at Smithland Elementary School

was probably the most beneficial experience out of all of them, because it helped me go through

all of the activities and see what worked well and what did not work well.

Graduate Students in LED Program

Another experience I was able to have with my project was presenting my website and

activities to a class of graduate students in one of Dr. Sarah Lupo’s classes. I joined over Zoom
and explained my project to them, then they asked me questions and provided feedback. They all

seemed really interested and liked what I was doing. It provided reassurance that my website

really is helpful to teachers and will help them in the classroom. All of the students in the class

are teachers in different schools across Virginia and I was able to send my website for them to

use. One of my biggest takeaways from this experience was the consideration that the website

and activities could be used to help parents and guardians. I had not considered this possibility at

all throughout this process. When I brainstormed ideas and solutions to teaching MLs and

building phonological awareness, it was always for the benefit of the teacher and the student. For

the teacher in the sense that the materials are provided for them; for the student in the sense that

they are the ones receiving help. The elementary school teachers at this meeting saw my website

as a tangible resource for parents to use with their children at home. For this reason, the purpose

of my project changed from only helping teachers and students to helping teachers, students,

parents, and guardians.

FMV Isik in Istanbul

Towards the end of the fall semester of 2021, Dr. Lupo and I began brainstorming

options for ways to get me out of my comfort zone with a language that I do not know. Dr. Lupo

suggested a school in Istanbul, Turkey that she had worked at in the past. Considering I do not

know Turkish I was open to the idea and was excited to work with this school. I would better be

able to understand what it would be like for the teachers instructing these activities in an

unknown language. The next step was to set up a meeting with a few of the instructors at the

school to talk through my project and get approval.

On January 13th, 2022, over winter break, I zoomed in with Dr. Lupo, Alyssa Bernard,

Sevgi Siranli, and Songül Erdoğan. Alyssa Bernard went to James Madison University and is the
teacher that I worked the closest with throughout this process. During the meeting I explained

my project to them and the importance of it. It was helpful for me to answer the questions they

had asked because it made me more confident and knowledgeable on the subject and with my

project. A few days after the meeting FMV Isik approved for me to work with Alyssa and a first

grade teacher, Özlem. The reasoning for working with both teachers is because Alyssa does not

know Turkish fluently, but her class is the one that I taught. Özlem does know Turkish and was

set up to be the translator of these activities. She would not be translating while I taught, but was

going to help translate the activities I already had made into Turkish. Due to outside

circumstances Özlem was not able to work on my project much and the director of the school

ended up helping translate the activities.

Barriers and Challenges. To shift topics a little bit, I believe the biggest thing I learned

from this experience is the importance of flexibility and understanding. There were multiple

barriers that delayed me receiving the two lessons in Turkish and teaching the lesson to the

students in Turkey. The first barrier was school breaks and overall timing. FMV Isik was on

winter break until February 7th. None of the break times lined up, which is not shocking, but it

made timing very difficult. James Madison University had spring break March 12th to 19th and

then immediately following I had immersion week, which is where I go into my practicum class

everyday for the whole week. That was two weeks where I was not able to meet with Alyssa.

Thankfully, we had met once before on March 2nd to discuss my activities and what I wanted to

do. The second barrier was COVID, other health concerns, and family emergencies. Both Alyssa

and Özlem had COVID during different times and over a month’s time period, combined

together. Since they had COVID they were not allowed in the school and also they were not

feeling well, so we did not work on the project. Family emergencies also impacted the project as
well. The third barrier was weather, specifically snow. I was scheduled to teach my syllable clap

activity to the students on March 11th, however it snowed in Istanbul and schools were closed

for two days. Unfortunately, I could not teach my lesson that day and then I went right into

spring break and immersion week. The last barrier was the time difference and this was probably

the hardest challenge to get around. Before March 13th (Daylight Savings Time), Istanbul was 8

hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. After March 13th, they were 7 hours ahead. This meant

that emails on both ends were not responded to quickly because someone was probably asleep in

the middle of the night. It also made it difficult to meet over Zoom to discuss my project, as well

as work around Alyssa and Özlem’s school schedule with my class and work schedule. The

hardest part with the time difference was figuring out when I would teach the lesson to the

students. Our only option was for me to stay up late at night because the students had their class

at 9 am GMT. However, I had to consider what night would be best for me to stay up that late, as

I have class at 8 am almost everyday. Thankfully, I was able to have two lessons created in

Turkish as well as teach the “Syllable Segmentation” activity over Zoom on April 1st, 2:15 am

EST, 9:15 am GMT.

Teaching the Lesson and Takeaways. On April 1st at 2:15 am EST I taught my syllable

clap activity to about 20 students in Istanbul, Turkey over Zoom. The students do not know

much English and I do not know any Turkish. A few hours before teaching the lesson I reviewed

the words in Turkish and how to pronounce them in case I needed to read the slides for the

students. Once I joined the Zoom meeting I explained the instructions and modeled for them in

English. Alyssa helped explain too since she was in person with them. The students, Alyssa, and

I went through the words and the students did a fantastic job clapping the syllables out. They

knew exactly what they were doing and barely needed any guidance besides having them
concentrate. At the end of the lesson one of the students said, “I did not know the words were

going to be in Turkish, I thought it would be in English. That is so exciting!” My takeaways from

this experience was that it is very possible to teach these lessons in a language unknown by the

teacher and I was able to see love and belongingness be put into action, as students were excited

and surprised that the lesson was in Turkish.