For this week's blog, I interviewed Mrs. King, a second grade bilingual teacher at Don Jeter Elementary. Click here to view it!
Interviewing Mrs. King was very interesting. She
is the type of instructor that always makes an effort to make her lessons
relevant, hands on, and engaging for her students. As I was interviewing her, I
learned that although her students all speak Spanish as their first language,
they still come from many different contexts which affects their exposure
to the English language. Some of Mrs. King’s students were born and raised in
America but their parents only speak Spanish and therefore that is what they grew
up hearing in their homes. Other students have just recently moved to the
states and have had little to no exposure to English speaking individuals.
In our textbook, Ortega talks about
research conducted on school children that are learning a second language and
how their aptitudes in their L1 affected their success in learning an L2. The
research showed that, “first
language ability and the grammatical sensitivity component of foreign language
aptitude are related, but that first language ability and overall aptitude are
distinct factors” (Ortega, 2013, p. 152). Mrs. King agreed with this in such a
way that she believes that her students’ success is in a way based on their
literacy and fluency in their first language. It is also evident that Mrs. King
tries to keep all three dimensions of motivation alive in her students: effort,
enjoyment, and investment. She assists them in any way possible to ensure that
they build self-confidence and a love for learning English. She does this
through teaching them songs, color-coding vocabulary words, and she even
translates for some of her children and have them repeat what she says in order
to make them feel more comfortable.
Overall, I really
enjoyed interviewing Mrs. King and I hope you guys enjoy it too!
Ortega, L. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge. 2013
Hi Alya! I loved your interview with Mrs. King. She really seems like she cares about her kids and their success in school. She showed so much passion in teaching and in the success of her students. I also liked the ways that she motivates her students. The activities and the fulfillment that she wants her students to feel is so important because it allows the students to develop a sense of intrinsic motivation (Ortega, 2009, p.176). The students are learning because they want to and they find the activity enjoyable, not because they are being kind of “bribed” to do so. That’s a great attribute to instill in children, and I think that with that her students will be very successful in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Noor! I completely agree with you. Mrs. King is very passionate about creating a positive environment for her students, where they can build their confidence and have a sense of intrinsic motivation. The last thing any teacher would want would be for their students to fall into amotivation, where "their performance in formal learning
Deletesettings is predicted to suffer..." (Ortega, 2013, p. 177). She has even done other great things such as coordinating a Hispanic heritage night for her students and their families. Events like these are ones that her students will never forget about, and they surely will contribute to the success of her bilingual students.
Hi Alya! I loved your questions for Mrs. King and I love that she seems to have a general love for her students and what she does. You can tell that teachers that have a love for what they do because of how much effort that they put in with their students and that will determine how the students react to the teacher. I love how engaged she is in the activities that she prepares for her students. Mrs. King's desire to teach her kids really help motivate the students to learn. According to Ortega, "Desire to learn, which can be generally understood as how much personal investment in succeeding in the language people claim for themselves" (Ortega, 2009, p. 170). Mrs. King is very invested to see her students succeed and it pays off when it comes to the students learning from her.
ReplyDelete
DeleteHi Taylor, thank you for your positive comments! I definitely agree that the effort teachers put into their students’ success is what determines how motivated the students will be. Of course, every teacher’s duty is to deliver information to their students but the way that the teacher decides to approach a lesson delivery is what determines how responsive the students will be. As Ortega states, “Noels and her colleagues have found further convergent validity for self-determination theory in that instructional environments that are perceived to be controlling and thwarting self-regulation and autonomy erode levels of intrinsic motivation” (Ortega, 2013, p. 177). If the instruction is always teacher-lead and there are no fun and engaging activities incorporated into the lesson, then the students’ attention and motivation will not be at an all-time high. Mrs. King does a fantastic job at ensuring that her students are always having a good time!
Hi Alya! I agree with Noor, you could see her love for her students in her answers and her passion for what she does. I would like to become a bilingual teacher at some point and I hope I become like her! I loved that you both talked about failure in the classroom. I think it is important for students to understand failure and how to use it to do better. I am in a first-grade classroom and I have some students who will cry if they make a mistake. I try to remind them that it is ok to make mistakes and we are here to learn. I think this is important in a classroom. Mrs. King believes that her students' success is based on their first language. Ortega mentioned "Knowledge of the L1 can often have a positive impact on the rate of L2 learning" (2013, p. 42). If the students are fluent in their first language, then their ability to learn a second language will be higher. They will have the confidence, mentality and strategies to help them with the second language.
ReplyDeleteYes, Mrs. King's love for her students is definitely there! I do agree that it is important for students to know that not everything will occur perfectly, and sometimes failure will be something they have to face. Part of motivating our students is to make sure that they know how to cope with failure and use it to make them better. To do this, a child's intrinsic motivation should be at a high level and it is the duty of a teacher to help students build that type of motivation. Mrs. King did agree that the students who are more knowledgeable in their first language tend to learn the second language a bit more fluently. This corresponds to what Ortega mentions in our textbook. I think you will definitely be a great bilingual teacher one day!
DeleteHi Alya!
ReplyDeleteI love how Mrs. King was passionate about motivating her students. According to Ortega (2013, p. 190) "positive attitudes towards the learning context as well as the L2 community and culture (developed through prior positive learning experiences) and current satisfaction with teachers and instruction can boost motivation considerably." You can really tell that Mrs. King creates a positive environment where the student are allowed to communicate and share. The more that the students feel comfortable, the more that they are able to learn! When she creates an environment where mistakes are embraced, it creates a positive classroom community.
Hey Alya!
ReplyDeleteThis interview was amazing and so inspiring. You can definitely see Mrs. King is passionate in here career. She truly has love for what she does. I love how she does the impossible to make her lesson, hands on and engaging. This is very important because students may lack motivation when they are learning a second language. Mrs. King mentions how the students success is based on literacy fluency. I have to agree with Mrs. King, and say literacy will play an important life in the students success.
Hi Alya! I find it very interesting how Mrs. King keeps her students motivated by having them sing songs and I would assume dance sometimes as well. Ortega states that students learn a lot more when they have a motivation for learning their second language; otherwise they would have no reason to learn it. While I was conducting my own interview with my mom she said the same thing as the textbook. She said that students are motivated by things like wanting to talk with their peers about life, TV shows, and music. I also find it interesting that Mrs. King uses techniques like color coding vocabulary and having students repeat words. It is very important that students learn the correct vocabulary in order to truly learn their second language.
ReplyDeleteHi Marissa, I found it quite interesting that she uses things such as songs to keep her students engaged as well! As I thought about it however, songs are a great way to get bilingual students motivated and engaged because it is a fun and catchy way to learn new vocabulary. Mrs. King does a great job at ensuring that the activities are enjoyable to her students, and that they are able to build a sense of confidence through different means when trying to learn English. Also, a teacher should strive to keep her or his student's motivation high for the attitude of the students "contribute(s) to increased or diminished L2 motivation" (Ortega, 2013, p. 174). If the students lose motivation and therefore their attitude towards learning English isn't as positive, then that could jeopardize their success.
DeleteHello Alya! It was interesting listening to Mrs. King’s perspective about intrinsic motivation and building a community in her classroom. I can sense her passion when speaking about wanting to push her kids to make mistakes so that they could learn from them. From the interview, I can conclude that Mrs. King is pushing towards an attitude of enjoyment for the ELLs in relation to learning a language (Ortega, 2009, p. 170). As a future educator, I really have a hard time grasping motivation from students. However, I always see students become interested immediately when associating to their hobbies and/or competition. In addition, I believe this also ties along with the classroom environment at the beginning of the year. If teachers could show interest in the students’ lives, they are likely to enjoy the lessons and activities.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle! I agree with what you said, especially your last statement. I believe that Mrs. King is the type of teacher to create a sense of community in her classroom, for teaching students another language can sometimes be frustrating for students just as it is to learn any new concept. In order for them to feel motivated, Mrs. King finds ways to get her students to feel valued and confident in what they are learning. As student teachers, we are still in a phase where we are learning a lot about ourselves as teachers. I too sometimes have a hard time getting students motivated if the lesson is a bit on the challenging side. We must strive for our students to accomplish having all three types of motivation, or integrative motivation (Ortega, 2013), so that the learning environment we help our students create is always a positive one!
Delete