My Passion

      English wasn’t the only domain I was interested in. I was passionate about different forms of art. During my primary years, I was chosen to participate in “Dabki Folklore” show at the UNESCO palace in Beirut. My team won the first place among other Lebanese schools. My confidence to present on stage allowed me to take active roles in school parties and ceremonies. Later on, during my elementary years of cycle II, I was also competent and a higher achiever in most subjects. I was elected to represent the school in an Arabic Competition for Poetry in Dar AL-Hanan for two consecutive years. Luckily I won the third place and the first place respectively among the participant schools. During the same stage, my Arabic teacher discovered that I had a singing talent. He encouraged me by asking me to sing in different occasions.

    

A Journey of Perseverance

A bright future is a long journey of consistent trials for success. It includes ups and downs and might include failure.  But what is important to know, is that future success isn’t a step born in a moment sometime in the future.The future is an accumulation of moments, minutes, hours, days and years of perseverance starting from now, and perhaps it has started even before in the past. I’ve learned that if you want to create a successful future, you need to work hard, be persistent, seek opportunities and stick to your goals by never giving up even when obstacles arise and seem to block your way. There will always be light at the end of the tunnel. But those who allow the darkness of the tunnel to suck their positive energy, will, and determination, will remain stuck in the tunnel and would never dare to move forward to reach the light.

            

ZPD

  In schools, ZPD is the foundation of learning. Teachers play a big role in helping children discover new things, solve problems, achieve goals and be social.

  To me, I could provide sufficient support, or scaffolding to enable students to perform challenging tasks successfully by giving them steps to follow and then let them do it by themselves. Another way to reach students of different levels is by having students work in groups which would help students of lower abilities to learn from their fellow stronger peers. I could try to explain skills for students in different ways in order to reach all types of learners. 

In addition, students can be given some free time during long sessions in order to regain their focus and energy to continue. Games can also be used as a fun way to practice skills or words which students would enjoy yet benefit from them. 

Webinar: Dispelling Misconceptions about English Language Learners- Research Based Ways to Improve Instruction

I have attended a webinar for Barbara Gottschalk titled, “Dispelling Misconceptions about English Language Learners-Research Based ways to Improve Instruction”. She is an educator that has taught English language from first graders to graduate students in many schools. In this webinar, she described the reasons of the wrong misconceptions and suggested ways to make the instruction right in ELL. First, she shared her background then she started with the misconceptions. The first misconception was that many teachers aren’t sure who their ELLs are. She showed that ELL status doesn’t necessarily depend on birthplace. She presented a suggested home language survey questions that are identified by the US Department of education. She said that the 50 states used 9 tests to assess ELL’s English language proficiency. She showed using a scenario that speaking basic social English shouldn’t be confused with academic English proficiency. In addition, she showed how students could be organized as groups in an easy way and where students can speak with different classmates in speaking activities. The third misconception isn’t common but many teachers have which is “the speed at which ELL students become proficient in English varies. Some students pick up English more quickly than others.” She said that part of the statement is true but misconception is that students pick up English. She thought that Academic English isn’t something that can be picked up, it takes time. This depends in many factors such as the student’s age and his prior knowledge. Finally, she suggested ways to support home language when you don’t speak the language and you’re not in the home.

Since I’m dealing with ELLs, I don’t have most of these misconceptions. However, I have learned how to assign groups for speaking activities and how to encourage parents to speak in English at home. Also, I learned general information about the percentage of ELLs in the U.S.

EDUC560

Learning how to use technology in teaching or learning is really interesting and is needed nowadays. We as learners in university can use google forms for example to make surveys and use them in our researches and the masters thesis. Also, watching webinars is a new thing to us and it can teach us strategies and other things that we can use in teaching. Everything in this course can help us in a way or another to improve our computer skills. However, we were suffering from the internet problem at the beginning of the semester what makes working in the computer boring but from this day on, the problem was solved and we have a good connection. I think we will enjoy this course more as we learn more.