blog #2

Blog # 2
Observation and Problem Identification
School: Flintville Elementary
Primary Language: English and Spanish (2 students)
Age of Students: 5-6 years old
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Time of Observation : 50 minutes
Date: 9-17-09

Mrs. Cagle was using picture cards for a phonemic awareness activity. She was using the picture cards to categorize beginning sounds. She would place three cards on the pocket chart. Two of the pictures begin with the same sound. For example, one set of pictures contained a bear, boy, and a skunk. As a group, the children identified the two pictures that begin with the same sound. After practicing the routine several times, the teacher let the students have individual practice.

There are two ESL students in this class. The female student choose between a hat, house, and a monkey. She provided the correct answer. The male ESL student choose between a mouse, a kite, and a kangaroo. He choose a mouse and a kangaroo. The teacher asked him if he was sure he wanted the mouse and kangaroo. The student asked, “What's a kangaroo?” The teacher showed him the picture. She handed him the kite and told him that kangaroo and kite both started with the /K/ sound.

After finishing activity on beginning sounds, she had the class participate in another listening activity. Mrs. Cagle read the story The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. In the story, different farm animals tried to get a spider to play instead of building his web. Mrs. Cagle did not show the pictures until after she read the page. Instead, she would read the first part of the page and have the children say the animal name after she said the sound. For example, she would say “Baa, Baa said the __________”
and the students would complete the sentence by naming the animal. The male ESL student asked another student to identify what animal said quack, whoo, and neigh. Without the visual clues, the student could not identify the animal.

The teacher was participating in activities to improve listening,. However, the male ESL student lacked the necessary vocabulary to benefit from the lesson. This student has a limited English vocabulary. Although he lives in a rural area, he may not have visited a farm and did not know the animal sounds. Also, it is difficult to match beginning sounds when a student does not know the English word. Even if the student knew the pictures in his native language, the word could begin with a different phoneme. With a limited English vocabulary, the male student struggled to answer the teacher's questions.

For lesson plans to help improve vocabulary for ESL students, please visit the following websites:
http://www.esl-galaxy.com/vocabularysheets.html, and http://a4esl.org/.