Final Reflection
This project has shown me that each ESOL student is different and that some things work for certain students and not for others. I met Sang and was surprised that he was classified as an ELL student. Then I started observing him closer and realized why he was in the program. He had trouble forming coherent sentences, especially when he got overly excited about something. He also had a hard time finding the right words to use when trying to tell someone something. I chose to focus on all 5 aspects of spoken language; comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar.
I started with comprehension, reading short stories to Sang and asking him questions about them. The stories were actually on cards that the speech specialist uses, and they are only 3-4 sentences long. Sang struggled with the comprehension, answering all of his questions wrong the first time. I plan on working more in this area with him throughout the rest of the semester.
I continued the project by having Sang work with me on his fluency. In order to help him grow in this area, I would read him the beginning of a sentence and ask him to finish it. He couldn't complete any of the sentences without further assistance and prompting. He didn't seem to understand what he was supposed to do, so I explained it again. He still didn't get it. I plan on continuing this with Sang until he can complete the sentences without extra help.
After this activity, I chose to work on Sang's vocabulary by working on blending the weekly words with him. I noticed that when he would say the sounds on a word like Tom, he wouldn't be able to put the three sounds together to form the word. I taught him how to "cheesy" blend his words, drawing out each sound to help him hear the word as he is blending. This helped him so much with all of his blending words. I will continue to make sure he is using this method for blending as the semester continues.
For the pronunciation and grammar activity, I showed Sang cards that have pictures on them and asked him to give me a complete sentence describing the picture. I found that, while he knew what most of the pictures were, he had avery difficult time coming up with sentences for them. He would stumble with the right words to describe the pictures and when he would figure those out, he would pronounce them incorrectly. This is an exercise that I will continue to work on with Sang and the rest of his classmates.
This project taught me that even though an ELL student may seem to be at a high level but really need a lot of extra work on smaller things to improve their spoken language skills. I will make sure to include activities in my daily lessons that will not only help, but enrich the spoken language. I enjoyed working with Sang and look forward to working more with him during the rest of my time in this classroom.