The Deep Extent of Language and Culture Diversity
Chapter 5 Reflection
This chapter captured my attention as it continued to go in depth with language development and flow into immigration. I learned a lot about how to tackle certain areas of literacy and what to do with certain situations of teaching academic language and when responding to different dialects. Now when I think about the term academic language, I think of it as teaching an entire new language to people that need to understand the aspects of in order to succeed in their schooling environment. It's also another way to prepare the students for professional situations and advancements in the future. When teaching students with different dialects, I learned that even though a few pronunciations and vocabulary sounds may sound different, they are not errors or incorrect. I also enjoyed reading about the four student profiles: balanced bilinguals, monolingual/literate students, monolingual/preliterate students, and limited bilingual.
My Experience with Create, Evaluate, and Relate in Chapter 5
Create: Supporting Emergent Literacy
This website has award winning children’s books that can be used to teach reading and help struggling readers. There is also a wide variety of book topics ranging from the letters A-Z. Most of the topics focus around the world of literacy. This is my favorite website to look through for literacy development. It’s amazing how it separates into book types for all kinds of literacy challenges and situations.
AdLit - Award-Winning Books
This website has award winning books that are targeted towards adolescents. It consists of a variety of books that can be used while working with “Tweens and Teens.”
This website promotes literature and language development through the specific use of classic books. This site also divides the books into categories that are self-explanatory when looking for a specific book type. The resources on this website also range from infancy to elementary.
Children’s Books Guide - Top 100 Books of all Time
This website displays the “top 100 books of all time” in which teachers use in their classroom at some point in time. It also shows popular book lists, separated subjects, and books that are targeted for those who have social & behavioral issues.
Children’s Books & Reading - Begin & Improve Reading
This website has a ton of other website links to located all types of books. The best part of this website the sections where it displays what to do when beginning to read and reading improvement. It provides a few strategies as well as books to use for beginners and improvers.
Evaluate: Addressing the Needs of Gifted Students: “How does your State Rank?”
My own state (New York) is a state that is not mandated and does not have funding available for the Gifted Programs. This completely surprised me, I didn’t think that New York would lack funding for Gifted Programs. I think that political issues as well as budget issues are the primary cause of no funding.It’s hard to think that a school does not have enough money in their budget to foster necessary Gifted Programs for all student’s success, but unfortunately, some schools are in that situation.
Relate: One Month in the Life of a Recent Immigrant
Dear Diary,
It has only been a month and I am already noticing the many differences between here and back home. I feel out of place here, but I am sure that I will adjust. I miss my home and my family, I think I’m actually feeling homesick. I’m sure that this experience will be worthwhile and quite the accomplishment in the long run, but I am starting to have doubts about staying here. I was thinking about going home, but I didn’t want to give up.
I don’t want to be seen as just an alien who recently ventured my way to America, I want to look the part and fit in.The other day, I decided I wanted to go for a walk around the city, but it was so crowded there was barely any room for me to walk. I also noticed that here in America, there are a lot of different languages that pass through the streets. I don’t understand some of the people as they walk in the city streets specifically because I don’t understand the language that they are speaking. I think I’m going to start trying to learn the basics of some of the languages spoken here so that I can at least understand a little bit. Speaking English is somewhat of a problem because as a Spanish speaker, I don’t know how to translate some of the words. Also, the sentences in Spanish are backwards when translated into English, so I have to remember to switch the order around while translating. While I was walking through the streets, I almost got lost and couldn’t find my way home. There are so many turns and streets in the city, it’s hard to keep up because I’m in a new surrounding.
I noticed that by an app called Duolingo, I can learn some of the basics of the language spoken here. I am excited to learn so much. I need to practice walking and driving through the streets of the city until I learn my sense of direction and how everything moves. I think I will get a map and use the GPS map on my phone until I can learn how everything works. I am currently in search of a job, but I’m not exactly sure where I can go to work. I have to job search all this month. It’ll be tough, but I know that I can get through it.
My greatest concern and fear about living here is that I won’t be able to find a job and end up going to live in a homeless shelter. I really don’t want to see myself in that type of predicament. I know that as a new immigrant, it may be difficult for me to find a job here in the Big Apple, but I won’t give up. I have to just take baby steps and take it one day at a time. I know that I will be alright. So, I will write again soon, until next time diary.
Chapter 6 Reflection
This chapter surprised me with the content that was written in it. Although there were several concepts that peaked my curiosity, the specific aspect that really caught my attention is located in the picture below. I admired how culture was compared to an iceberg, I honestly would of never thought of that particular comparison. I also enjoyed reading the small scripts of specific students experiences because it reminded me of a book that I read called "AND STILL WE RISE" by Miles Corwin. It's such an interesting read about twelve seniors in high school who are trying to successfully reach their dreams of graduation, but have to over come the obstacles that stand in their way. It was based on a true story and it's something that reminded me of the students stories in this chapter.
My Experience with Create, Evaluate, and Relate in Chapter 6
Create: What is your Community?
Evaluate: The Internet as a News Source
The current event topic that I decided to search for is Michelle Obama’s new leadership campaign called “Let Girls Learn!” The two articles that I looked at are Michelle Obama Stresses Girls’ Education in Visit to Liberia and Michelle Obama: For girls, a heartbreaking loss -- and an opportunity. The first article is an article written by the associated press of The New York Times newspaper. This was the beginning of the first lady’s trip to a few destinations to establish her campaign. This article was brief and it mentioned how thrilled Mrs. Obama was to start her journey. It gave an introduction of what this campaign is about and a little bit of information about the places Mrs. Obama was going to venture to with her daughters. The second article was the major article that was posted on CNN directly by Michelle Obama who explained how she felt on her journey and what she is planning to accomplish. It started off with two stories of two girls that she had spoken to in Liberia and Morocco. She learned that there are so many girls who want to strive with passion in their educational studies, but are unable to do so. This is a process, but she claims that she will never give up and this is something that she will work on for the rest of her life. It was an amazing, inspirational article to read. The major difference between the two articles is that the first article is from a bystander’s point of view while the second article came directly from the primary source of the current event. I think that it’s important for this campaign to fully take wing and expand it’s boundaries to greater heights. I would love to be a part of this campaign and in the second article, Michelle Obama posts a link for me to be able to do it. I’m very interested and eager to learn more about “Let Girls Learn”.
Relate: Hidden Biases
How do you think most teachers would do on the tests you took?
I took the ‘Young - Old’ IAT and I think that most teachers would probably have the same results as me when taking this test. This test just looked at a person’s visual understanding between young/old facial features and good/bad adjectives. I think it might also reflect on the age of the teacher who is taking the test, it is a psychological visual recognition type test.
How would the context in which you teach (suburban, urban, rural, early, middle, or high school, etc.) influence your answers on this scale?
I don’t think that any context would influence my answer on this scale because it depends on your psychological representation of a younger person compared to an older person. It’s based on your personal opinion.
How do you think a teacher’s hidden biases could influence students? At what point developmentally do you think teacher biases become influential to a student?
A teacher’s hidden biases might influence students by favoritism, always correcting the child, always blaming the child, or always looking for the child to see if the child is going to do something to be scolded for. A teacher might not realize that this is occurring, but they could be spiteful towards the child due to a hidden biases from another situation that has nothing to do with the child. At any point in time in the child’s education career, a teachers biases could reveal another side to the teacher towards that student. It could even occur in a day care.
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