Samantha's ESL-Personalized Learning Environment

As technology continues to advance, so should the educational experiences we provide our students. As with teaching in any area, being an ESL teacher has its struggles. As English language learners need to be provided with learning experiences featuring accommodations and creativity. This is due to the manner in which ELL's are able to learn a new language best. Providing ELL's with many opportunities to learn from visual and audio resources. Podcasts are a great teaching tool in the sense that it provides students with an audio clip in which to listen and gain understanding of a specific topic being addressed. As society becomes more and more aware of the needs of our English language learners, we can also find more resources such as Podcasts geared towards both ELL's and their teachers. As a result I searched for available Podcasts such as these, to review in order to identify quality Podcasts for ESL teachers to implement in their classrooms and direct instruction. As I...

This week’s article is entitled “Embracing Bilingualism in the Classroom: What Role Will You Play?” written by Daniella Suarez. The author gives a vivid description of her own experience as a child receiving English as a second language. During which she was fluent in both English and in Spanish and was doing well academically. However, due to the lack of knowledge educators and our educational system have today, Daniella felt as though she was treated unfairly. She then goes on to describe the history of bilingualism as well as the process of learning the English language in today’s school systems. Daniella clearly expresses her concern for our educational system to clearly identify the difference between student’s who are in need of ESOL services from those who would benefit from a Bilingual educational experience. Shifting to promote thought in those who are educators in terms of the roles they play in demonstrating acceptance of their bilingual students. Highlighting various areas ...

I came across a great article this week based on a school named Knollwood Elementary which had the opportunity to host an ESL Summer camp. According to Savannah Morgan, the author of “Knollwood Elementary School hosts ESL Summer Camp” the program was a successful one in which students seemed to be enjoying themselves a great deal (Morgan, 2017). The ESL Summer Camp was designed for English language learners to continue to work on their English language acquisition. They focused on reviewing language skills learned throughout the school year as well as extending on those skills to further develop their second language acquisition. During the student’s time at the camp, they were given opportunities to work on their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills which are the four components measured in terms of English language proficiency. Although the Summer Camp was held in an educational setting, due to being held during the summer months, the teachers were able to plan fun and eng...

This week's Google alerts brought me to one interesting article, entitled "Technology in the Classroom." According to its author Kathy Turner, the Amazon company donated Kindle Fire Tablets to a Classroom within a summer program in Illinois. The "Project for Success Program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center" is now able to provide over 60 of their students with access to technology in the form of tablets (Turner, 2017). In doing so, they intend to increase their student's knowledge and skills in the science, technology, engineering, and math also known as STEM. Implementing the use of coding apps for children, teachers will be able to not only expose their students to technology but they will be able to encourage their interest in creating forms of technological programs and such. While this article has no mention of the donated technology having any impact on any English language learners enrolled in the program (if any) it...

Due to changing the key terms in my Google Alerts, this week I did not receive a sufficient amount of articles related to the use of technology within the ESL classroom or with English language learners. The one article that did receive an alert on related to our course is entitled, "Istation Named SIIA Education Technology CODiE Award Finalist" found on EconoTimes.com (2017). This article discusses a program named Istation which promotes students reading, math, and Spanish skills within PreK-12th grades. The program has been recognized for its effectiveness by receiving the award in "Best ESL, ELL or World Language Acquisition Solution Category" (EconoTimes, 2017). Geared toward teaching and assessing Spanish speaking students, this program was developed upon state standards. Thus ensuring students are being equipped to meet the grade requirements despite their language barriers. Data collected from student assessments indicates students reading ability increased o...

This week, I received a variety of articles on technology in the classroom. However, none specific to the ESL classroom or to English language learners in general. Due to the wide array of topics of the articles I received from my google alerts, I decided to choose the one article which peaked my interest. The article entitled St. Mary's to Implement 'Blended Learning' written by Raymond Daye explained how a private school will be implementing technology in order to differentiate instruction of their students within the classroom environment. In doing so, they believe that their students will have a greater learning experience as they have the opportunity to learn at their own pace, while still having the support of their teachers in their classroom. As students are provided with either iPads or Chromebook, they will engage in learning as they use a tool named ready. iReady provides instruction to the students in both reading and math concepts. The students are also ...