lallison
03-29-2010, 03:56 AM
This is a professional statement about my philosophy in working with English Language learners.
My ideas about how to teach ESL, and teach it well, are heavily influenced by two thinkers whose ideas continue to grow over both education and the humanities as a whole. The first is Noam Chomsky and his theory of Universal Grammar. The idea that humans are naturally wired to acquire language has enormous implications on ESL teaching. Language is best learned in an immersion environment, and ESL students, particularly after passing the beginner stages, will gain the cognitive academic language skills they need to succeed in school more readily when included in the mainstream classroom. In such an environment students can develop their English skills while simultaneously learning content in classes such as Social Studies or Science. When teachers target language fluency and vocabulary and create a safe, immersion environment, students can rapidly acquire English, smoothly transition out of the ESL program, and continue on with academic success.
The second idea that breathes daily through my instructional practices is Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Students develop by being lifted slightly past their skill capabilities, thus gaining a little more than they had before. It is the nature of the teaching profession to facilitate development by scaffolding class materials and activities to reach educational objectives. To acquire skills, my students engage in authentic activities targeting those skill objectives. Peer collaboration and mixing language abilities also allows students to facilitate growth in one another, lifting classmates past their present development zones. Vygotsky helps us understand why the group as a whole is greater than the sum of all its parts.
Within my classroom, I strive to create a safe, multicultural environment where learning is free to blossom by modeling interest in diversity and encouraging all attempts at the use of new language in ways that promote development of the learner. It is also my belief that collaboration between students can be best taught by modeling collaboration between teachers. When an ESL teacher and mainstream teacher work together in an inclusion classroom, it has the potential to create a dynamic environment of cooperation and differentiated instruction that one teacher alone would have difficulty creating. Being informed about current research and methodologies is vital to effective teaching practices, but understanding the philosophies driving these practices lifts us up to becoming exceptional practitioners.
My ideas about how to teach ESL, and teach it well, are heavily influenced by two thinkers whose ideas continue to grow over both education and the humanities as a whole. The first is Noam Chomsky and his theory of Universal Grammar. The idea that humans are naturally wired to acquire language has enormous implications on ESL teaching. Language is best learned in an immersion environment, and ESL students, particularly after passing the beginner stages, will gain the cognitive academic language skills they need to succeed in school more readily when included in the mainstream classroom. In such an environment students can develop their English skills while simultaneously learning content in classes such as Social Studies or Science. When teachers target language fluency and vocabulary and create a safe, immersion environment, students can rapidly acquire English, smoothly transition out of the ESL program, and continue on with academic success.
The second idea that breathes daily through my instructional practices is Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Students develop by being lifted slightly past their skill capabilities, thus gaining a little more than they had before. It is the nature of the teaching profession to facilitate development by scaffolding class materials and activities to reach educational objectives. To acquire skills, my students engage in authentic activities targeting those skill objectives. Peer collaboration and mixing language abilities also allows students to facilitate growth in one another, lifting classmates past their present development zones. Vygotsky helps us understand why the group as a whole is greater than the sum of all its parts.
Within my classroom, I strive to create a safe, multicultural environment where learning is free to blossom by modeling interest in diversity and encouraging all attempts at the use of new language in ways that promote development of the learner. It is also my belief that collaboration between students can be best taught by modeling collaboration between teachers. When an ESL teacher and mainstream teacher work together in an inclusion classroom, it has the potential to create a dynamic environment of cooperation and differentiated instruction that one teacher alone would have difficulty creating. Being informed about current research and methodologies is vital to effective teaching practices, but understanding the philosophies driving these practices lifts us up to becoming exceptional practitioners.