It’s hard to tell where to start when it comes to my experience with SEI. As I reflect on this class and my own career there has been real dichotomy of sorts. In the first half of my career I spent in a very culturally diverse community of Stoughton which had a very high ELL population with little no built in supports for teachers. In the second half of my career in East Bridgewater, there is a very low level of ELL’s with much more support. The biggest take away that I have from this course and my time in the classroom, is there are a number of tools available to teach children with a variety of strengths and weaknesses. Of the numerous tools available however, many if not most of the SEI tools cross these boundaries and work for students
…show more content…
I found it to be a rather profound graphic to explain some of the very basic issue that face our ELL population. My group was tasked with looking at terms such as norms, rules, gender roles and festivals. Using that analogy of an iceberg (which appeals the science teacher in me) where only 10% of the what you see makes up the complete structure this can also translate into how we interact with our ELL students. One such example i have seen with that this year was a with a student of Lebanese descent. Two of the concepts such as gender roles and expectations can help explain many of the issues that she is having this school year. Each of these are playing a part in this student's lack of academic success this year. Although she I a well mannered and polite young lady she has an absolute disdain for school and education. The irony is that she does well with the content and many of the new skills she is learning seem of a very limited challenge to her. However when you did a little deeper below the surface the role of young females in her culture are to be there to help take care of the family and education for females is often frowned upon. This young lady has embraced these cultural expectations and has revolted in school by skipping classes, not completing work and often missing day at a
I found it to be a rather profound graphic to explain some of the very basic issue that face our ELL population. My group was tasked with looking at terms such as norms, rules, gender roles and festivals. Using that analogy of an iceberg (which appeals the science teacher in me) where only 10% of the what you see makes up the complete structure this can also translate into how we interact with our ELL students. One such example i have seen with that this year was a with a student of Lebanese descent. Two of the concepts such as gender roles and expectations can help explain many of the issues that she is having this school year. Each of these are playing a part in this student's lack of academic success this year. Although she I a well mannered and polite young lady she has an absolute disdain for school and education. The irony is that she does well with the content and many of the new skills she is learning seem of a very limited challenge to her. However when you did a little deeper below the surface the role of young females in her culture are to be there to help take care of the family and education for females is often frowned upon. This young lady has embraced these cultural expectations and has revolted in school by skipping classes, not completing work and often missing day at a