Say No to Monolingualism

Fostering learning and cultural acceptance.

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Summer Plans!

So I definitely am excited about this summer! I found a job at the preschool that I graduated from! I will be working as a classroom aide and am really looking forward to it. :) Even though it's not the most prestigious position, (I think I'll basically be helping wherever I am directed) I am thankful that I will be able to get some most hands-on classroom experience! It's a really great opportunity and I think that I will really like it! Most of the kids are either in kindergarten, or are toddlers. There are some infants but I'm not sure if I will be working with them. I haven't had much experience with infants. 

Can't wait to start working and earning some great money!

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EdTech

For some reason, I've been feeling really inspired by the technology that teachers can use! The 1 million Web 2.0 Tools that are available are awesome! I have found a great list for tools that Spanish Teachers can find useful, and have placed it at the end of the post! I can't wait to use these in my classroom and for my students to realize how easy some of these tools are to use! My by-far favorite of this group is Quizlet.com. I wish every school had the money and resources to have SmartBoards, but even if they don't, teachers can make great use of Web 2.0 Tools to help make their classroom more tech-savvy!

Basically what I'm trying to say is... use tech in teaching or you'll be lost.

Top 25 Web 2.0 Tools for Spanish Teachers

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How I feel when a student gets what I'm saying.

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App turns teachers’ smartphones into automatic exam graders

Quick Key is a new app that makes grading multiple choice papers quicker and easier, enabling teachers to spend more time fine-tuning their teaching plans.

No way! This is amazing...

Full Story: Springwise

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Playborhoods: Why Children Playing Street Games Is the Best Measure of a Healthy Neighborhood

- Mike Lanza wrote in Education, Living and Cities

Many decades ago, neighborhoods were bustling with life. They were also bustling with children playing in groups, with no adults supervising them. Today, most neighborhoods are dead boring, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find children playing in them.

All this is no mere coincidence. Children have always been the most prominent people in neighborhoods. In fact, in many ways, children have always acted as the catalysts for neighborhood life. In my childhood neighborhood in the Pittsburgh suburbs back in the 1960s and 70s, my activities with friends were constantly pulling my parents and my friends’ parents together. They’d call each other to discuss one kid eating or sleeping at another’s house, and then they’d end up chatting about other things.

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Today as a Teacher

Today, as I was helping out a student learn when to borrow and when not to with subtraction, I overheard a conversation between another student and my supervising teacher.

Student: "But I want to work with Ms. Laura!"

Teacher: "Ms. Laura is working with Amal, you'll have to wait your turn, but I'm sure she'd be happy to work with you after!"

Oh my goodness, what sweet kids I work with. I only have two more hours left in my field experience for this semester... I can't tell if I'm happy or sad. 

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This is deep.

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Sensitivity

I just recently read a post on the Spanish feed on Tumblr from a transgender student saying they refused to coordinate adjectives with their gender! This just fascinates me. I've truly never even thought about that...

What would I do if I had this student...?

This is going to make me crazy with trying to come up with an alternative or a way to be more sensitive to those students. 

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Every student needs one! Haha!

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Am I teaching or giving the answers?

Well, the point of this post I suppose is to reflect on my student teaching I did yesterday. I have been helping two students who are both 15, but have had no school whatsoever up until this year! (They are refugees from Somalia). Therefore, I'm teaching them the the basic building blocks of math.

They have online math lessons that take them through each step and they do problems as well. We were working on rounding whole numbers yesterday. I feel like I'm just giving them the answers! It makes me feel like I'm not really helping them at all. The student received a 10/10, but it was only because of me... But it is so hard to explain something that seems so obvious to me. It really makes me realize how hard it can be to reach each individual student. I was drawing pictures, number lines, showing the addition and subtraction, and sometimes she did get it, but other times I felt like I was doing the lesson for her!

I need to make sure that when I am helping these girls, I'm showing them how to do something, instead of telling them. I told her teacher about it and she said that it's okay, and she just wants them to be acquainted with the material before she formally teaches it. That was a relief; I didn't want them to be tested on something that I basically did FOR them! 

All in all, I feel that reflecting on this will help me improve! But I think that by not giving in right away when they don't understand something, they will be forced to draw the connections by themselves. I hope next week goes a little better. :)

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Here is the adorable classroom in which I am student teaching! Everything is labeled for these ESL kiddos. <3

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This is amazing...

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"To set an example isn't the main way of influencing people, it is the only way."

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The Ultimate List Of Educational Websites

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The countries in red speak Spanish! Notice: Brazil is NOT a Spanish-speaking country.

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What is Monolingualism?

Most of us know what bilingual means: the ability to speak two different languages. There is even a term for a person who can speak three: trilingual, or even more than three: polylingual. Just like these words, the term for a person who can speak just one language is “monolingual”. As a future Spanish teacher, I am trying to combat this, and have each student learn and appreciate the language. 

Language is a device for communication. The language spoken is one of the biggest parts of any culture, and I feel that to truly understand someone's culture, one must have at least some knowledge of the language they speak. Also, being that the United States is growing and the number of Latinos/as is increasing, Spanish’s use is increasing and will continue to increase for many generations.

Curing monolingualism is one of the nation’s bigger problems, and teachers are some of the most important people that can be catalysts for change. In this blog, I will be posting about education, Spanish, and my ideas and experiences as I continue my undergraduate program and eventually begin teaching!

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This is a really cool article about why technology in the classroom can really spice things up for your students!