Sight Lesson Implementation

Last Thursday, Brittany and I taught our lesson to the Preschool class at Brigham about the sense of sight. We sang a song about using our eyes to see, read "The Eye Book" by Dr. Seuss, and created our own cardboard binoculars for them to use during our "I Spy" game. As Brittany and I were thinking about our past experiences in the classroom while planning for this lesson, we had to think about the different accommodations we would have to make–not all students in the classroom are confident with speaking fluent Spanish. We decided we would be making multiple references to the part of our body we use to see by pointing to our eyes throughout the lesson. While Brittany was reading the book, I was trying to prompt the students to point to their eyes every time they heard something about "sight." I would point to my eyes when it would occur, but the students didn't seem to be catching on to what I was asking them to do. They were listening intently to the story, but just seemed to watch me as I was trying to implement these non-verbal cues. They didn't make the connection as to why I was putting my fingers up to my eyes while Brittany was reading, but at least the ELL students had visual cues if they needed them and didn't fully understand what Brittany was reading about.

This lesson certainly related to my goal that I developed toward the beginning of the semester: learn the struggles that the ELL students experience and learn how to better accommodate them. Through the different experiences in the classrooms at Brigham, I feel more confident overall about different ways to accommodate those students. It's one thing to aide a lesson and take notes about what the different accommodations that were used. However, when planning for your own lesson for the first time in a class of ELL students, it becomes much more difficult and takes a lot of close consideration.

One of my fears when Brittany and I were first preparing for this lesson was how to engage a group of young children when they may not fully understand what our directions and activities would be. A strong introduction would be key to a successful lesson, since their initial understandings and engagement levels would develop right when we sit down to explain the topic. It was tricky to think of an introductory engagement piece that would hold the interest of all of the students. When we decided to sing them a song to introduce our topic, it proved to be a great way to get the students excited about what we were going to learn about. The students are probably not sang to every day, so this was something new and out of the ordinary which definitely lead them to pay attention to what we were doing, more specifically the words we were singing. While our first verse we sang didn't have any participation from the preschoolers, I didn't panic at this point because I knew they were soaking in what they were hearing and getting their brains ready to work and listen. The second time we sang the song prompting them to join us and they seemed to try their hardest to sing with us even if they weren't confident about the words.

The binocular creations seemed to be the most exciting and engaging aspect of the lesson for the students. They were the most talkative during this point, and openly engaged in conversations with the teacher aides about what they used their eyes to see. As the students were working we would all take turns asking the students "What do you see when you look through the binoculars?" This would give them time to reflect on what sense we are learning about without trying hard to think of a clever response. They would say "I see you!" or "I see a window!" Whatever response they came up with first, that was what they shouted out excitedly. It was really exciting for Brittany and I to see the kids as engaged and excited as they were about their creations. Even if not all of the students completely understood the content behind what they were working on, we were accommodating for them by asking small talk questions that were disguised as lessons about our theme. They didn't even realize that we were assessing what they were learning! One of the main take aways from this lesson was that ELLs' accommodations don't always need to be an elaborate change in the lesson plan–it can be as simple as assessing them with basic level questions that they are excited to answer.

Another take away I am thankful for after implementing this lesson was that coming up with activities that all students can benefit from can help ELL students to feel included whether or not they fully comprehended the material prior. I noticed while the students were working on their binoculars that every student was thrilled to be making something so out of the ordinary from their usual activities. It was clear that this was their favorite part of the lesson-every student's favorite part. The realization came to me that sometimes language barriers are not an obstacle in engaging a student in the lesson. The student I focused in on was the confused boy that I had remembered from the first session. I informally assessed him for a few minutes while all of the students were at work creating their binoculars. This boy seemed to be so happy to be working at his own pace, independently, with his friends on something that he wasn't being "graded on." It made me very grateful to get to witness a student that happy with what he was assigned to do, whether or not he understood why he was doing it. His day time teacher can speak some Spanish to him throughout his normal routine, but while the 276 teachers were in charge I can see how he could easily feel defeated seeing as we don't speak enough Spanish to know how to successfully communicate in his home language to him. However, once he was able to break away from the formal routine and let his creativity shine, he became engaged in a way that I had not personally witnessed from him before.

There are so many aspects I have yet to learn when it comes to successfully accommodating ELLs in my future classroom. However, after the experience in Brigham and this formal lesson I feel much more prepared and have more concepts and ideas about effective ELL teaching in my schema that I will use later on in my teaching.