Change of plans

So lately I've been doing some reflecting on why I want to be an ESL teacher. I am a teacher to help students learn the language who need it, because they live in our country where it is essential. I want to help them to learn English so they can better themselves. 

I asked myself, why then am I planning on teaching in China? The only reasons I could think of were for myself. Rather selfish, right? 

If I want to be the teacher I've really always wanted to be, I simply can't teach abroad - not now. Maybe I'll go there someday. I don't want to make any sweeping comments and say I'll never teach there, but I know that is not what I'm set out to do.

Wish me luck on Libby's Job Hunt: Part 2!

Find on flickr. Creative Commons license. Picture by Tax Credits.

Almost Done??

Today I finished my last FULL week of student teaching. I have 3 days next week, then I am done. I have no idea what I'm going to do!

This week (and last) were absolutely amazing. I'm having so much fun teaching. I've said it before - I am so happy to know that I am doing what is perfect for me. I now know that I want to work with middle schoolers. I don't know what it is exactly, but I am definitely a middle school teacher.

I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before, but with one of my groups I am doing a Greek Mythology unit. We started this unit by reading 3 myths (Helios & Phaeton, Proserpina & Demeter, Echo & Narcissus) and doing a worksheet for each. The first worksheet I created absolutely did not work, so I made a new graphic organizer-type sheet. My cooperating teacher was really happy with it and said she would like to use it for all sorts of stories in the future (not just Mythology)! So after this part of the unit, my students are creating their own stories following the same format the Myths follow. They had to research Gods and then fill out a story map before writing. After that, I had them make a "book cover" for their story. We're finally close to being done (good thing too, as I'll be gone soon!), so on Monday students will start putting their story and book cover on a piece of construction paper and to be hung on the walls. I'm so happy with how hard the students have been working. I mean, seriously, I asked my ESL students to write a story with very specific parameters in their second language. That is huge! I can't wait to have my own classroom and do this unit again!

Today my cooperating teacher and the other ESL teacher in the building were both gone for a district meeting. So while there were substitutes in the rooms, I did everything. I was pretty sure I was ready to teach on my own for a while, but I know I am. Good feeling :)

3/4 Done?!??

I am halfway through my second student teaching placement . . . meaning I am about 75% done with my FINAL semester of college. This is completely mind-boggling. I don't think my education is complete, but it is nice to know I am almost done with the first major part.

I had to miss school on Monday because I felt pretty sick. Actually, basically all week I felt sick. Despite this, I had a terrific week teaching. I LOVE teaching the Greek Mythology unit, and the students are really engaged with it too. I will definitely include this in my curriculum in the future. I have the most fun working with my Level 2 students. The growth they have in their language is huge everyday. I'm able to teach the things I learned in my Phonology class, which I find absolutely fascinating.

I guess this is a pretty short post this week, but all that matters is that I am so happy where I am!

Lots and lots of news

What. A. Week.

I don't even know where to start! On Wednesday I found out I got a 3 on my TWS - the highest score you can get. Not only did I get a 3, I received full points on every goal from the rubric. Go me!

On Wednesday I also was able to interview with a school in Ruili, China. This wasn't exactly planned - earlier in the night I sent an email saying the times I thought would work for both of us (since there is a 13 hour difference) and about an hour later I get a response asking if we could interview right then. So I had to get out of my sweatpants and make myself look presentable . . . but I got the job! The school year starts around August 20th, so I think I'll get there around the 1st of the month.

Ruili is right on the Myanmar border, and is a good size for me(140,000, compared to another "small" Chinese school with a population of 6 MILLION!!). I have never been so excited for something. I can not wait to start my first teaching job!

I taught 3 levels this week. I taught my level 2 students the concept of prefixes and suffixes. When we went to their social studies class the next day, the word "reunite" was brought up. When the teacher asked what "re-" means, one boy said the answer and then pointed at me, "Ms. Sturgeon taught me that!" Such a little thing but it made me smile!

I went grocery shopping earlier today and saw a 2nd grade student from my last placement. She looked at me and said, I know you! And then asked me how I was doing. What a sweetie! It's the small things.

So Far, So Good

This is my third week at North Middle, and I am loving it. Middle schoolers aren't as terrifying as I first thought they would be. Actually, I don't know why I was so nervous to begin with. Before I started at the elementary school, I thought I wanted to work with middle schoolers. I think I'm back to that point now. This is the age I really learned how to teach while at UNI, but more importantly, I think this is the real reason I got into ESL in the first place.

I'm now teaching two groups of students, level 2 and level 3. I started working with level 3 on Monday. Because they just finished reading a novel (Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli), we're doing a short unit on reading strategies. While my unit is definitely not as motivating as reading a novel, the students have been very engaged and definitely have shown growth.

Today I started doing a unit on the book Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith with the level 2 kids. I'm with that class twice in the day, once in ESL reading (what I teach), and once in an ESL social studies class. This has really allowed me to get to know the students more. They seemed pretty excited for me to be teaching, and worked really hard on the activities we started today. 

Next week I'll start teaching my third prep, level 4. We're going to do a unit on Greek Mythology. I'm mostly excited for the end of the unit, where they will write their own version of a mythological story. We'll see how it goes!

I'm still waiting for an interview with the possible job . . . I'm so excited to see where this will take me! Ready for the weekend and plenty of sleep. Getting to school at 7:30 is not my definition of fun!

Happy Ms. Sturgeon Update

For a variety of reasons, I can say that I am a very happy person at the moment.

It's a little late for me to be writing about last week, but I didn't want to post until I could say this:

I am done with the TWS.

Wow, that still feels good to say. 43 pages and 8,678 words . . . it's my very last "real" assignment in college. Of course I still have lesson planning and job applications, but nothing that is graded!

On Saturday I went to a job fair, so before that I was working constantly on getting my online portfolio up and running. Visit it here if you're interested. My resume, letter of recommendations, and TWS is on it for the world to see. Not to mention, I took two videos of myself, which I find super annoying but others have said they're great. Since I took a basic web design class a year ago, I was hoping to write my own code, but I didn't have time for it. A little disappointing, but I'm happy it's done anyway!
So on Saturday I went to UNI's teacher job fair. I'm not going to say anything to jinx it, but one international position looks extremely promising.

As far as the middle school, so far so good! I'm excited to start teaching on my own. I start with a group of Level 3 (of 5) on Monday. My teacher left me alone with them last Thursday just to see how it would go. Since it was my first time being in front of them AND alone at that, I'd say it went pretty well.

Middle School Student Teaching!

I have had quite an eventful week! On Monday I took my final PRAXIS test (assuming I passed!) and Tuesday I had my first day of student teaching at North Middle in Sioux City.

And so far, I'm having a great time. There is definitely a learning curve going from elementary to middle school, but I think I'm catching on. 

Two summers ago I worked at a camp in Sioux City with kids who were fourth graders - and two of those kids are ESL students I see every day! Pretty cool. I even have a thank you letter still from one of them. 

I've already decided with my cooperating teacher what my lessons will look like. I'll start with one group next Wednesday, so I guess I really need to get planning! I'll be teaching Greek Myths, the book Chocolate Fever, and different reading strategies like finding the main idea and making inferences. I'm also observing a second ESL teacher for one period a day. She teaches a social studies class for the lowest level students we see. This is such a great thing this school provides and I'm excited to become a part of that. 

Soon I'll be heading home to help celebrate by 16-year-old baby brother's birthday! Then I have one more week at school and then spring break! See ya soon, Cedar Falls! 

Leeds Last Day

Wow! Today went by way too quickly. My last day at Leeds was so great, I'm really going to miss all of my students.

As a gift to my teacher, I got her the book The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney along with a stuffed lion doll. The students are allowed to use stuffed animals as long as they read to them. So I thought this would be a good present so they could still have the book we read in my unit. For each of the students, I made these word clouds from Tagxedo. I put in the student's first name and 3 adjectives I thought described them. I got them printed at Walmart and then backed them with card stock. They were a hit! I told the kids they could use them as bookmarks or hang them in their bedroom or lockers. Some said they would frame them!

A lot of the students wrote me thank you letters and pictures. They were all so thoughtful. Maybe I'm a sap, but one almost made me cry! "The student who get you as teacher when you become like Mrs. Miles (my cooperating teacher) they are really lucky. . . . You are really fun and I hope the other kids see it too." Another girl made me a little origami frog thing that she brought in, and another brought me a snack that she bought for me the day before. So sweet!

I am going to miss these kids so much! I didn't tell them I would come and visit again, because I don't want to get their hopes up if it doesn't happen . . . but I really would like to!

I start at the Middle School next Tuesday. Not only will I be dealing with raging hormones, I'm also going to have to adjust my sleep schedule AGAIN because I have to be at the school at 7:30 every day! It will be quite the change!

Google Lit Trips: How To

I have three more days left at Leeds and then will move on to North Middle after a short break. I’m definitely anxious to move on, but I’m sure I will feel better about it once I get there.

So my popularity as a blogger must have gone up, because I had a request to blog about something! (Okay, it was from my mom, but still! Counts for something.) I mentioned in another post about using Google Lit Trips, but I didn’t talk about how you actually use it. And since it’s not very clear how to use the program, here’s my understanding of how to use it.

Google Lit Trips are created by Certified Google Teachers. The books are separated into four categories - K-5, 6-8, 9-12, Hi Ed.

First off, it’s good to know that these are suggested to be used after students have read the book. While I think these could be a fantastic way to build schema before starting a book, these aren’t set up in this way. However, this isn’t set in stone and the teacher could certainly change how it is addressed.

So to do a Google Lit Trip you need to have Google Earth downloaded. After downloading Google Earth, choose your Trip and download it too. When you open the downloaded Trip, it will be saved in “Temporary Places” in Google Earth. It can be saved in “My Places” by dragging it into that folder. 

The next step is to edit the view in the “Layers” section below Places. The layers you select to be shown should depend on the time of the story. For example, stories set in current time will benefit from having the 3D Buildings layer selected. I would suggest experimenting with each of the layers to decide which are necessary and which are not. 

Once the layers are taken care of, you’re ready to start your Lit Trip. Open the entire trip by selecting the gray arrow next to the title of the trip. Double-click the first location without selecting the underlined blue link. Once the application flies to that location, click the link for additional information, videos, or outside links. 

And that’s basically it! Pretty simple, but the kids I did this with absolutely loved it. 

If you need more direction, I found the following pdf super helpful: Click the "Downloads, etc." link on the top of the page and click the "Basics of Viewing a Google Lit Trip.pdf" link. 

Good luck! 

Asteroids!

Once again, I should've written earlier, but oh well. 

I am finishing up my full-time teaching this week and I should be completely done with my last group on Thursday. I was supposed to plan for 10-day units, but because I see some groups more often than others, the groups I only see a few days a week are clearly much farther behind.

With my 4th and 5th grade groups we have been working on a Solar System unit. In the Sioux City district for science in the elementary schools, the use FOSSkits. These kits are supposed to be very hands-on, but they do not talk about the Solar System at all. However, this is a topic on the Iowa Assessment. So I decided with the help of my cooperating teacher to do a unit on this. 

Anyway, for the first 6 days of the unit we read short chapters and answered questions. The next day we did a relative size and distance lesson, which the students really enjoyed. After that we did a "scavenger hunt" research project on the planets, which the chapters we read didn't really go into great detail. Last Monday though I watched the news in the morning and saw something else about an asteroid coming very close to Earth and I thought it would be a great thing to show my students. I showed this video from CBS news and we discussed what we saw for the rest of class. The kids loved talking about it and really seemed very interested in their questions about what we watched. So while I was set back again on the unit plan, I thought this was a pretty important thing to show my students. I think I learned from this how important it is to be flexible in my teaching and planning. 

What I've Learned (Thus Far)

Well, unfortunately I haven't been quite as diligent in keeping up with this blog as I had hoped - which I expected would happen anyway! I have taught completely full-time for exactly 8 days and I love it. Some days are definitely harder than others, but overall I could not have asked for a better experience. I've said it before and I will say it again - I know this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm grateful I've figured that out as early as I have - some aren't so lucky.

I work with 9 groups of students, the smallest group is with 2 and the largest with 13. I am doing 3 different units with these groups. One is a Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), another is on the very basics of space, and the final is doing different text elements with The Lion and the Mouse fable. I am waaaay behind schedule on the Lion and the Mouse units, but otherwise am doing pretty good. 

I did have an eye-opening experience last week with one of the PWIM groups. The basic aspects of PWIM is to pull out vocabulary from a picture, categorize the vocabulary, use that vocabulary in single sentences and finally a paragraph. In the first week we did a picture of a city. At the end of that unit, we read the book Abuela by Arthur Dorros and did the Google Lit Trip on it. (Google Lit Trips are super cool, but I'm not going to go into that.) As you might be able to tell, Abuela has a lot of Spanish elements. One of the classes I did this unit with is made up of 4 students, 3 of them Spanish-speakers. The other boy is Ethiopian and speaks Amharic. While I realized he does not know any Spanish, the meaning is easy to understand because of context clues in English and in the pictures. 

However, when we began to read this book, this boy was far from excited. After reading the book together, he was asked what was his favorite part. His answers: None of it. Okay, the English part. 

Now, I don't think I picked this book to read because the majority in my class speaks Spanish. I think I picked this book because A) the library had it, and B) the Google Lit Trip. I've always wondered how as teachers we are supposed to show that retaining your first language is important while teaching English. I thought integrating books like this would be a great way to do it. But I do not think I will do what I did again. What I did was make that boy feel like a minority in the only part of his school day where he may not feel like one. The ESL classroom should be a safe haven for students, and I took that away from him. 
The next day before doing the Lit Trip, I introduced Google Earth. I showed the students parts of Sioux City that they are familiar with. Along with this, I showed some places in Ethiopia. However, there is no way that makes up for how I made this boy feel. 

So my conclusion is that if I have ESL classrooms that are totally homogeneous in their first language, I will use resources like this one. If I do not, I will not use these in instruction. It is unfair to focus on one language, where resources may be more easily accessible, and not on another. I do wonder how I can really show that my students' languages are important if I don't use them in instruction however. I do not think that providing books to checkout really is enough. But I cannot allow some of my students to feel like they are less important than others due to this problem. I definitely need to do some more exploring of this issue. 

Week 4

I only realized now that I forgot to post about this week, so I'll keep it short.

Friday was my first day of teaching EVERYTHING by myself, and man was I tired! It was good practice though as I take over all the classes for about 2 weeks starting tomorrow! I'm trying to not make myself too nervous - I'm prepared and excited! I just need to always remember why I'm doing what I'm doing.

I started filling out an application for a job in South Korea tonight. A few months ago I looked at the application and was very overwhelmed by the lesson plan section, but I got that part done in about 30 minutes. If that's not improvement, I don't know what is!

Maybe this week I'll post more than just once - I'm sure ill have a ton more to say!

Week Three

Third week is not quite over, but seeing as I thought it was Friday all day, I figured I might as well post now!

Yesterday my student teaching coordinator observed me teaching a group (who were very good for me, thank goodness!). Afterwards we met with the other Sioux City student teachers to discuss the monster that is the Teacher Work Sample. I feel a little better now about it because I realized I was ahead of where I was expected to be, and it seems like I am writing it correctly. It's still going to be a lot of work, but I know I don't need to concern myself too much with it as of now.

My cooperating teacher was gone at a Common Core meeting today, so I did nearly all of the teaching with a substitute teacher in the room. Overall, the students were really well-behaved - which definitely makes me feel better about teaching completely on my own! It was a good day.

I'm nearly done writing my lesson plans for when I'm full-time in one week. I'm very excited to get started. My only real worry is classroom management. I honestly never thought I would say this - but I wish I would have had the opportunity to take Elementary Ed classes. I know a lot of ESL teaching theories, but not practical strategies. I guess (hope!) this is just something I'll figure out as I go.

This weekend I'm very excited to celebrate my 22nd birthday back in Cedar Falls and home in Gowrie. Hopefully this gross January weather will cooperate! 

Student Teaching Week Two

My second week of student teaching went very well. This week I was much more involved in the classroom than last. I am working with two boys using the reading intervention model Whole to Part. Depending on the student's reading level, they do a different activity. These boys are in third grade but are reading at a Kindergarten level. We are working on letter-to-sound correspondence. We do a lot of movement with the activities, which is a good method for their level, but they also really enjoy it and think we're playing games (we're not!). 

Three of the groups are reading the book, The Jacket, by Andrew Clements. While they read, they are to answer questions about the chapters and look up definitions to certain words in the reading. I noticed that a lot of the students had a really hard time looking up the words. If they actually found the word, they did it in the most ineffective way. I talked with my cooperating teacher and the next day I taught lessons on simple dictionary skills. I first showed the students under the document camera how to best look up a word, then had a student show the same steps under the camera to the class. After that, I had everyone in the class look up different words themselves. Some of the students picked up the tips really quickly and easily, while others still struggled with them. I think while it wasn't totally successful, the students still benefited from either a reminder of what they already knew or a practice of skills that will help them later. 

Overall, I had a great week! I am missing Cedar Falls and friends quite a bit, but I'm so happy I'm finally actually doing what I love.

Student Teaching Week One!

It's finally here - student teaching! It's still hard to believe that I am one short semester away from graduation. I miss my home I've made at UNI, but I am so happy that I've finally made it!

For these first 8 weeks I'm working in a 2nd-5th grade ESL classroom at Leeds Elementary school in Sioux City, Iowa. Leeds is a fairly new school, and so much bigger than I'm used to! We see about 70 ESL students on a typical day. I'm getting to know them fairly well - translation: I know all of their names 95% of the time! (Which is quite an accomplishment for me.) I did a lot of observation this week, but I will start working with groups of students and doing lessons my cooperating teacher prepared next week.

One thing I did not realize before this week was how tired I am all the time. I wake up at 6 every morning, and the last couple of nights I've fallen asleep (on the couch) around 9 . . . oops! 

All for now - can't wait to see what next week brings!