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Case: Change Style of Teaching? Mr. Taylor has been enjoying his first year of teaching sixth grade in a comfortable suburban setting. He has been implementing the new and innovative teaching techniques recommended for ESL (English as a Second Language) students. Mr. Taylor's sixth grade ESL students outnumber his English speaking students in the classroom. Mr. Taylor has been very motivated about the visuals and manipulatives he has added to his lesson information in order to enhance the learning opportunities for all of his students. The animated read alouds and the fun role playing activities certainly have been assets when presenting comprehension skills to the second language learners. Mr. Taylor feels strongly about his successful unconventional strategies that seem to close the language gaps and truly help make learning connections for the ESL students. While the school year is progressing smoothly, Mr. Taylor starts to worry about the conventional end of the year standardized achievement tests. He knows that these scores will be a reflection of his teaching profession as well as an integral part of his school's overall assessment averages. Questions: 1. Should Mr. Taylor change his style of teaching? 2. Is Mr. Taylor's concern about the end of the year assessments a valid concern? 3. Will the conventional assessments administered at the end of the school year reflect Mr. Taylor's teaching ability? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) Questions: 1. Should Mr. Taylor change his style of teaching? First and foremost, Mr. Taylor needs to have confidence in the teaching techniques he has been using as they are recommended for ELL , and these students make up majority of his classroom. However, his concern should be if these teaching styles are reaching those students who are not learning English as a second language. Are they getting what they need in order to pass the end of the year assessments? In my opinion, the teaching styles that Mr. Taylor is implementing should work for all students, because they are meaningful, and they give students the chance to interact with the content material. Meaningful interaction such as these makes comprehension of the content easier and more memorable. If the students are showing progress in the material with the use of these unconventional strategies, Mr. Taylor should continue teaching his students with these visuals and manipulatives. Unfortunately, only the teacher can make the ultimate decision in this specific case. Mr. Taylor should do his own personal assessments of his student's to track their progress, and maybe he could pilot two different strategies with content if time allowed. To me it seems like he is doing a great job using the strategies he knows works for ESL, and it is working well for the students thus far. 2. Is Mr. Taylor's concern about the end of the year assessments a valid concern? I think concern about the end of the year assessment is most certainly a valid one. It is natural for Mr. Taylor to be nervous about the end of year assessment as he is a first year teacher, and he knows that these scores will reflect back on his teaching profession. I personally hate the stress that testing puts teachers under, but I know that we have to have some system in place to hold students and teachers accountable for the information they learn and teach throughout the year. My advice for Mr. Taylor would be to take a deep breath, and to have confidence that his students know the material. Of course he should prep his students for the test using test prep strategies like practicing test questions, and making them aware of the format the test is going to be in. However, I think he has the hard part covered. Mr. Taylor has taught his students the content in an authentic and meaningful way. He didn't just teach the material for them to know it for the test, and this is something that should help his student perform better on these assessments. 3. Will the conventional assessments administered at the end of the school year reflect Mr. Taylor's teaching ability? The conventional assessments administered at the end of the school year may not ask questions like Mr. Taylor does during his lectures or on his own assessments. The conventional assessment also will not have the visuals and manipulatives that Mr. Taylor uses in his teaching every day, but the content on the assessment should seem familiar to the students. The students will know the content that is on the assessment; they will just remember it in a different way. For example, when asked a question about the Declaration of Independence, the students of Mr. Taylor's class will remember holding their very own Second Continental Congress instead of simply reading about it in a textbook. |
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