Mini Lesson Reflection

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

As a teacher, adjusting to teaching ELL students without any prior knowledge or guidance on

how to do so was the biggest challenge. My group and I struggled to create ideas that would help

an ELL student understand the objective, while keeping up with a standard idea. None of us

knew a language fluent enough to use in our lesson, therefore the silent option was our final idea.

While creating the PowerPoint, we made sure to use plenty of visuals as they would be a crucial

part in our lesson.

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

class?

While presenting the lesson plan, we initially did not know how to go about the “teaching”

process while using the silent method. Prior to teaching the lesson, we made sure to go over how

we were going to present the lesson, what we were going to add/take away if there was a time

crunch and what we were going to focus on heavily/lightly. When teaching the content, using the

silent method was strange and uncomfortable for us, but having the class understand and

participate in the activity made it lesson uncomfortable as it was clear they understood the

objective/lesson we were trying to present.

What did you do to “overcome” these challenges?

When we realized we presented the lesson too quickly, we were quick on our feet to add an

ending that not only had the students participating more but also was good for the teacher/student
relationship as we were able to learn students' favorite weather. We overcame the idea that you

needed to have a language to teach a lesson in. Visuals, sounds, examples are all great ways to

teach a lesson, especially to an ELL learner.

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?

Acknowledging each student both as a group and individual while incorporating visuals and

sounds helped simulate trying to instruct one or more ELL students. Our use in language was

visual pictures, movements and sounds. Teaching weather using these forms of “language” was

interesting to experience and present.

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

As a student, relying on visuals, demonstration and descriptions of tasks is something I rely on

heavily. If I do not know what is being asked of me, the help and description presented to me by

a teacher is a very useful resource for me. having the opportunity to ask questions and receive

explanations is very important when it comes to my learning.

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

an English-speaking classroom?

The constant processing and attempt to understand the lesson ahead/lesson being presented made

me realize the importance of how to teach and acknowledge an ELL learner. They are trying to

process everything in a new language/method that they are unfamiliar with, as is the teacher
trying to accommodate to their needs. The entire activity was a learning experience both for the

teacher and for the students as we were all put in both positions.

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

Overall, this activity was very interesting. Coming up with an activity to teach a lesson to

students who are “ELL”, was difficult but eye opening. Understanding the process and

experiences ELL students feel when learning something foreign to their language can be very

daunting and unenjoyable. Therefore, as a teacher you must adjust. This activity helped us all

understand what it could be like teaching to an ELL student while also experiencing what it

could feel like being an ELL student. We also got an insight on a few different ways to present to

ELL students', which could and will be very helpful in the future.