Becoming an ESL Professional...

Although I still lack 2 classes to complete my endorsement in ESL, I am very confident in saying that if you are at all interesting in working with ESL students, the add-on endorsement is a great option. I particularly appreciate that all of the work in fieldwork classes and others has been relevant and useful in my current classroom. Never once have I felt as though I was completing busy work assignments that would not help me become a better teacher. I think that this must certainly be rare in graduate studies. ;-)
I feel grateful to be able to finish my endorsement while also working to add a masters. Many other programs offer only the endorsement, but if I'm going to grow in my career, I need to be able to add a masters degree. The projects were also helpful because we have all created our own Wikis. They become a great resources for us and others. I know I will be using mine because how often do we forget something we have learned if we are not applying it constantly??? The Wiki is a great refresher even for those of us who have gotten our endorsement. I also am hoping to use the Wiki to help me organize my thoughts and processes for the Praxis exams.

If you are going to take on ESL, it is very rewarding. It's a huge challenge to work with students that are acquiring a second language while simultaneously trying to gain content area knowledge along with their peers. However, your life will be greatly enriched by all of the diversity that will come into your world. Enjoy your students and try to focus on doing what's right by them. Everything else will fall into place. :-)

Reflections on Literacy Circles...

In my early elementary world, ESL can be exciting but also a big challenge! In addition to teaching a new language, we are teaching the most basic skills and concepts and building the background knowledge and providing experiences that students will use in the rest of their educational career and lives! I did my literacy circle fieldwork with Kindergarten students who all had one year experience in school as former Pre-K students. I worked with 4 students, and I think the process can be really great for the students. They really enjoyed being the "stars" and sharing with each other their thoughts about the stories. Implementing the literacy circles with Kindergarteners is certainly a challenge because there are certain functions they will not be able to perform independently. We still read aloud the selection at this point in the year and some of the research function. If I were redoing this fieldwork, I would have probably started with something other than Christmas, because I was a little limited on some of the literary elements I could discuss. For example, I did not want to touch Fiction v. Reality. ;-)

As a foundation for literacy discussions and for future literacy circles in subsequent grades, the process can really benefit the younger students. I think it would be a great concept to implement across classrooms, content areas and grades. This type of activity would also benefit non-ESL students, and if it was a school-wide process, the students would become so efficient with the process. Their discussions could become really in-depth and great learning opportunities.

In implementing literature circles, I would urge teachers to remain patient! It's a learning process for teachers and students during the implementation process! I imagine that the students will get much better as they have more practice and being comfortable and confident in the process!