As I've observed and interacted with more students in my classroom over the past several weeks, it has been hard to notice any true "troublemakers". Most of the students in both classes (they since from Spanish into English so there are two classes) cooperate and are willing to learn. There are a couple that tend to stick out more than the others, but to pick one student out from the rest is difficult.
In my observation this past week, I worked with two students who couldn't speak any English. I tried my best to communicate with them and do the basic reading and speaking comprehension, but I wasn't getting through to them. Eventually I had to ask for one of the other students to come in and help me with translating. However, even when that student came in to help, the students I was working with just wouldn't listen.
Choosing one of those two students, I will go with the student named Bella. From my first day there my teacher had warned me that she was very unfocused, easily distracted, and was difficult to keep on task. After working with her first hand, I unfortunately have to agree with that statement. I know that it's easy to put the ADHD label on students, but with her I genuinely think she has a type of attention deficit disorder. She wouldn't stop laughing, even when no one was saying anything. When I had the other student in there to help me translate, he had difficulty because she just kept saying things that either didn't translate well or just didn't make sense to him.
No matter what I did, I couldn't keep her attention for more than a couple of seconds. I understand that this is a second grade classroom. However, just that morning I worked with a different non-English speaker and he did fantastic. He was focused, stayed on task, and seemed like he really wanted to be there and learn.
With this, it was incredibly difficult to keep the other student that I was helping (not the translator) on task. This is due in part to the fact that he never had any formal schooling from where he came from, so to this day he had only had a couple of months of formal education. That made it difficult enough, but with the added distraction of this other student, I found myself feeling frustrated and dismayed. I had never felt that way up to that point, so leaving school that day I was a little disappointed.
That being said, I know that I tried my hardest to work with these students, and I will continue to do so because it is my duty as a future educator to provide these students with the best education that I can, regardless of their previous educational backgrounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment