This year I've been taking courses at ASU as part of the TELAC program. The program is designed for content area teachers to improve their teaching for English Learners. It's been quite an adventure this year as I've had a coach/mentor working with me in my room to improve my practices, and even done my own research on strategies to improve student vocabulary learning.
I'll be presenting my findings along with my fellow teachers on April 19th at ASU. I'm really looking forward to it because I have had the chance to examine student perspectives about learning activities and it's been quite meaningful for me. I'll post my work here too of course when it's complete!
I have also found through my research that it is difficult to get good print resources for my students that focus on math vocabulary. One of the strategies that was the focus of my research is to have students analyze information about vocabulary terms that they find in both print and digital sources and synthesize their own definitions from what they have found. The only stumbling block is finding quality Math Dictionaries in print. I've setup a project on Donors Choose so that I can start collecting resources to improve the activity for future students, and I'm hopeful it will get me to the next step.
This is a word card created by one of my students in our project.
This past weekend I had the chance to present the needs of my students at the ASU Dual Language Conference. One of the challenges that ELs (English Learners) face is that the current law in Arizona often results in a loss of Math, Science, and Social Studies instruction in the early grades because they spend four hours a day learning English. Some of the schools here are piloting programs in which parents sign waivers so that the school can have a bilingual approach and teach students both English and Spanish along with Math, Science, and Social Studies. The goal is for students to leave Elementary School fluent in two languages as well as getting a chance to learn the important content they will need to do well in High School. These programs have a lot of potential for our students and I was happy to have the chance to highlight their impact on long term student success.
I'll share more with you soon! But for now it's back into my world of linguistics!
