Today we visited San Luis Primary School. It is a one-room schoolhouse with 23 children, 1st through 6th grade. The teacher for the class, Don Tito, is also the principal and secretary. When we walked in, we saw the main classroom, the secondary classroom built in, and the principal's office all in the main building. Next to that, there was a large building containing a concrete soccer field for children to play and a small concession stand. The building is used for recess and for community events. The last building was the cafeteria for the students to eat breakfast, snack, and lunch. The school serves a rural community in San Luis, in which most of the families work at farms. We got to talk for a while with Don Tito before and after working with the students. I learned that he went to university for six years studying to be a teacher. It took him a little longer than usual because he had to work while going to school. Once he graduated, he did not have any tests to become a teacher. He was placed by the Costa Rican government at another school, because teachers here do not get to choose where they want to teach. A permanent position finally became available, so he applied and got it. He ended up at the school at San Luis because he traded tenured jobs with a colleague. He also has to pay around $20 each month to a group similar to MSTA or NEA in order to be a teacher. I worked with two other students from Missouri State to teach a group of four students. We worked with the upper-grade students, equivalent to 4th through 6th grade. I had pictures of various "monsters" that the students had to draw to learn the parts of the body. One student would be at the whiteboard without looking at the picture. Then the other three students in the group looked at the picture and had to describe the monster to their classmate. The students were working on speaking in English, since they did not get much practice with English in school normally. We had many struggles working with the children that taught us more about working with all students, but especially ELLs. First, I learned that one must provide lots of scaffolds for students working in cooperative groups. With one group, we had to require them to take turns telling their classmate what to draw. We also had to help two girls feel more comfortable drawing the monster by allowing them to draw together, each taking turns adding to the drawing. Another thing I learned was that modeling is an effective way to help students learn and understand. We had to do a few demonstrations for the students to know the directions for what was expected. Last, I learned that correcting students is not always the best form of feedback. During this past semester of college, I took a class on working with ELL students. In class, we learned the most effective feedback is to elicit correction by restating what the student said as a question. For example, if a student said, "my favorite color are red," the teacher would respond with, "your favorite color ARE red?" In this way, the student can hear what they said and it gives him a chance to correct himself. The second most effective feedback is to revoice. With the same example, the teacher would simply say, "your favorite color IS red." In this way, the student hears what is correct and he gets immediate feeback. However, after my experience today, I have learned that sometimes the best form of feedback is not correction. In my experience today, I let students get by with incorrect grammar or pronunciation, because that was not the most important thing in the lesson. I could understand what they were saying, so it was good enough for me. I also did not try to correct their accent because I believe that is the thing that makes language unique. I would not want someone correcting my accent when I speak Spanish because it is the only thing that I am truly able to make my own. It was a great experience this morning working with these students. I have learned a great amount of information that will inform my teaching of every student, especially ELLs. I am looking forward to visiting the final school next week and learning more about the difference between public and private and urban and rural schools in Costa Rica.
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AuthorI am an MSU graduate and 4th grade teacher in Carthage, MO. This is just a collection of things I've learned that I thought were important enough to share. Archives
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