Pygmalion Observation

My observation of Ms. de la Fuente’s fifth grade class this week began during their math time after they returned from lunch. They had a short intervention period that lasted thirty minutes to work on unfinished assignments from earlier that day. After that, they worked with other students sitting at their table to complete a group assignment and then took a short math quiz after they finished that.
This week I asked my mentor about how many ELL (English Language Learner) students were in her classroom and how she scaffolded her lessons to accommodate those students. Her answer was that because it was a bilingual class, all thirty of the students in her class were ELL. To help ease their learning, when teaching a lesson she goes over the vocabulary
being used and utilizes visual aids to assist them in understanding the content. She also applies their background knowledge on the matter and makes connections so that they are more easily able to remember the information.
What I learned this week is that there may be many students in a classroom who struggle to learn the curriculum because they are not fluent in English and it is the teacher’s responsibility to make sure that they can understand what is being taught.