El Arbol de mi Familia Reflection! :)

1. Why Spanish? I chose to complete my lesson plan in Spanish because I wanted my classmates to change their perspective about English Language Learners education.  Not knowing correct vocabulary, conjugations, or English Syntax are just a few of the difficulties that my SEI students face each day.  My students are also expected to know every single aspect of the English Language, while their Native Speaking Counterparts can get by without knowing the definitions of a verb, adjective, etc.  I think the College of Education doesn’t provide a thorough education for teachers that want to teach in an SEI environment - BME 430 is the only mandatory class for NAU students.
2. Implementation

·         Good Things:  Two of my students were very engaged and willing to try completing paragraphs with their Limited Spanish Proficiency.  It was so cute reading their paragraphs and seeing the errors within each paragraph.  The amount of effort they put in without knowledge was great and I was proud of them for trying!  Considering their lack of Spanish, their scores for the Spanish placement quiz were good - Lindsay got a 6/10 and Amanda got a 5/10!

·         Bad Things: I had a student with a low level of Spanish knowledge and because of this, she didn’t want to complete the assignment.  It was interesting comparing her reactions to Spanish to my SEI students.  I guess no matter what age, no one like doing something they don’t know how to do and looking “stupid”.

·         Maintenance of Standards: My standards emphasized the student’s ability to communicate in creative ways through writing and speaking.  Throughout the lesson, my students were given the creativity to design their family tree and write about their relatives.  I provided the students with a vague rubric to ensure the highest level of creativity and personal expression could be used.  

·         Modifications During LP: Overall, I completed this lesson as I thought I would.  The only modification that was made was allowing one of the students to use Google translate to complete her assignment - she knew very very little Spanish and wouldn’t have completed the assignment without it.  First, I tried to tell her to introduce 3 family members instead of 5, but she found little success within that area as well.  However, I did tell her that the students in my SEI classroom didn’t speak English at the beginning of the year, yet they are expected to complete assignments as is.

·         Modifications: If I were to complete this lesson plan again, I would make sure my students had a strong foundation of Spanish adjectives, I would also grade my students writing and make them correct their mistakes and resubmit the assignment.  While I was in Spanish, my teachers love doing this step because it makes the students focus on their mistakes and understanding grammatically correct Spanish.

3.            Mechanics:

·         Technologies:  Our class used computers, Lucidchart, and Google docs.

·         How were they used: The students each used their own computer to create a flow chart of some sort on Google docs.  Once they were finished with their family tree, they added a paragraph introducing their family members at the bottom of the document.  Finally, the students could share their creations with the other members of the class and edit them.

·         Time Frame:  My lesson plan was within the correct time frame or ran a few minutes late.  This was because my students stayed on task the entire time and kept moving through their instructions - each of the students worked and their own pace and was successful in their own way.

4.            Assessment of Learning

·         Artifacts: I will be submitting the artifacts separately.  Each of my students completed family trees and paragraphs will be uploaded displaying their success.

·         Student’s Success: Overall, there were a lot of errors within each of my student’s paragraphs, but I knew they would be filled with errors.  As stated before, I wanted to change some of my classmate’s perspective about SEI education to help them understand how hard those students work.

·         My Success: I thought the lesson plan went well, and I achieved my overarching goal of making my classmates be English Language Learners.  I’m happy with my students results because they showed a level of attempting and wanting to be successful in Spanish.  If this was a real class, I think my expectations would be higher and they would have more Spanish knowledge.

·         Individual Reflection: I know I should have focused on building my students knowledge of Spanish, but I also think some lessons that need to be taught don’t come from the state standards.  Technically my lesson would have served its purposed based on the standards - just no with the people I taught it to.

·         Classmate Comments: One of my classmates was angry that we completed it in Spanish, but I assumed one of them would be angry that they had to write in Spanish.  The other two students had fun challenging themselves and remembering Spanish.  So, the amount of the Spanish my students remembered influenced how much success and pleasure they had completing the assignment.  As for the tech aspect, they all were successful in creating their family trees.