Wednesday 3 October 2012

Reflective Journal - 4


Wawo! Today I had no meetings but it was a really busy day because I had the following thing going on:


1- Helping the teacher with assessing children.

2- Presenting a lesson on numeracy (to help children make a yes/no chart).

3-Reading a book to complete the reading log #4 (in my break time).

4-help the teacher plan for next week (Desert in the theme).

 
In my busiest times I try always to think about children's numerical knowledge by taking notes and involving deeply in observing the smallest details when my MAT is teaching or reinforcing an outcome of numeracy.

I noticed a very important about second language that it can be a barrier between learning and teaching. This is because I had an experience today and yesterday with one of the children (Lula) whom I had in the small group making a (favorite fruit chart). Clearly, I have to explain the activity in English because all numeracy lessons have to be presented in this language.
 However, some students did not comprehend some terms or some parts of the task and my solution was to vary between Arabic and English and this strategy worked very well. ON the other hand, this girl (Lula), did completely a different thing of what I explained and when it was the time to clean up I told her that I will sit with her tomorrow to do it again. I also wrote a comment on the back of the chart sheet saying that it was her first attempt.
 Today, I sat one on one with her and I explained again the task gradually by breaking it down and using both languages Arabic and English. Surprisingly, (Lula) did the task and responded in both languages when she counted the numbers of fruits in the chart and I also wrote a comment of what happened behind the sheet which will help the teacher to assess her later.
This experience helped look at teaching using a second language from a new angle of being patient to help, support, asses and guide children if they face any difficulty.

1 comment:

  1. I really like your blog design, Aisha. Your comments about using Arabic to help students access the curriculum (numeracy, in this case) is very interesting. I think it is vital that you use Arabic in such situations, but that the Arabic use needs to be strategic not random. For example, don't just mix the 2 languages up, try to think when (in terms of students' learning)it is more profitable to use L1 and when L2.

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