Introduction
This is a report based on the findings that were concluded after Angela D. Schaefer was interviewed by the English teacher of Orange Park High School. The teacher has taught the school for about seven years, and the school offers various ELL programs. In addition, this school is a public high school, which serves the orange park community and other students who study around the neighborhood of the community. From the interview, some questions were asked, inferences drawn and conclusions or findings were made from the questions. Primarily, learning English is as complex as that of other subjects because it has rules that the tutor must impart to the learners. The rules include grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and mode of teaching, pronunciations, punctuations, ESL, phonics, and tenses among others. Therefore, the essay focuses on the role of a teacher and the methodology of teaching linguistics in a school.
How Linguistics is Taught Directly in the School
A teacher usually performs a tedious task in making the students understand how she teachers linguistics. A placement test is a test that is based on matching a student’s ability to understand concepts with their levels of integrity. There are many things, which I concur with, based on how these tests are covered and the reason why the teacher conducts the placement test. This test is conducted because the main aim is to look at the needs that the students have in terms of linguistics and checking on the issues that needs to be looked into by the students. The issues are to be covered in the field of linguistics including phonics, syllables, and grammar and reading comprehensions.
Taking surveys of the areas of interest that students have is also a good aspect of this method that the teacher teaches linguistics. Conducting this helps in the identification of the weak points that is also encouraging. It was also noted that from the interview, the teacher starts with practicing pronunciation and as seen the practice is embedded towards many activities within the study of linguistics. First, there is emphasis on teamwork such as group work then finally individual work. From observations, this method of teaching linguistics is suitable and very much organized with the aim of expanding the skills that people have. Therefore, it can be concluded that the teacher does a very big work in ensuring that students have become good in the field of linguistics.
How Phonics is Taught to the Students
Based on the interview, the teacher’s approach of teaching phonics is much encouraging since it is taught across the curriculum. This is seen to be helpful because it will help students to learn pronunciation across all the subjects taught and not only in the field of linguistics. I agree with the teachers undertaking of making the rules to do with phonics to be an important aspect. Teaching rules on phonics is important and this is based on putting emphasis on the most dependable rules. It was also noted that from the interview the teacher put emphasis on the rules that do not apply to all cases.
According to the teacher, this helps to avoid confusions, hence making it become more agreeable when it comes to teaching linguistics. The teacher also noted that combination of phonics with vocabulary and comprehension reading was also important. It is believable that the teacher could be involving methods, which capture the attention of the students such as couloir shocking, modeling, repetition peer practice and finally the independent skills. This is important in learning because it would help in memorizing and possible comprehension of necessary concepts.
How Spellings are Taught to Students
I agree with the way the teacher conducts teaching of spellings. Spellings need a lot of practice to learn from and this is very good because the approach that the teacher takes is very good. From what the teacher said based on the use of spellings, is that students learn spellings through the practice in the word families and phonics lessons. In addition, on the issue of spellings, the teacher was clear that writing daily was important for building up the confidence of the students in a learning situation. Then it was also noted that spellings are taught in a systematic way that is beginning with the use of short phrases then as the level of knowledge the students have expands, they move to making sentences, which are grammatically correct that is with no spelling errors. The use of spellings is enhanced by the use of additional resources such as the dictionaries and the word banks. From the interview, it was also noted that tests are given to students after every two weeks to ensure that their understanding of some spellings and other word phrases. These tests are given after two weeks to see if the teachers can move to another aspect of teaching the spellings. The use of this systematic way of teaching spellings helps the students to move in an orderly manner as they enhance their spelling skills.
How Reading Skills are Incorporated into Math (Technical Math Terminologies, Skills needed to Interpreted Word Problems)
Even though I do not concur with whatever the teacher concluded on application of reading skills in mathematics still there are a lot of relevance in whatever she said.
From the interview, it was clear that English has a very big significant role in the application of mathematical concepts. This is so when there is the application of critical vocabulary. She encourages incorporation of critical vocabulary into problem solving skills, which is also very important. Mathematical questions are well understood when they are taught or done into small parts and this area is well shown or seen in the subject of the reading skills. From the findings is that the reading skills are made to have an interlink with mathematics on the aspect that it provides an opportunity for guided and individual practice
How Reading Decoding Skills are Incorporated into the Content Specifically with the New Terminologies that Students Might not be Familiar With
The teacher insists on the students being familiar with the decoding skills and this is recommended. From the conclusion on the interview it has been noted that the teacher encourages use of the reading decoding skills are incorporated into the study of linguistics by breaking words into syllables and examining where the accent. In addition, the reading decoding skills as per the English teacher can be incorporated into the syllabus by looking for words in the online dictionaries and by pressing the speaker buttons to hear the correct pronunciation of these words. These online dictionaries have been a good source of reading new terminologies that arise from obtaining the decoding skills. Another conclusion that can be drawn is that there is emphasis put on students to have a reading culture to enhance their decoding skills from the area of their interest. Reading new items is good since it helps in understanding new contents that are in the materials that students have. In addition, from the understanding of what the teacher said is that vocabulary is pulled from a story and the pronunciations of these stories are reviewed prior to reading whatever is in the content of these stories.
How Students are helped with the Comprehension Skills
Previewing vocabularies is also agreeable with how the teacher handles comprehension questions. Moreover, skills with this reasoning I agree with the teacher’s way of doing this. The teacher gave an advice to students to have a culture of making predictions and it is said that it is a great way of making the students to actively think and hence they are prepared for what they are about to do. It is also seen that the teachers are bent on putting emphasis on full concentration of some text features such as the titles subtitles, maps and even other drawings. These captions help in enhancing the way students remember some aspects. Other things that were said to help In improving the comprehension skills are the organizational patterns of some texts and another thing that is seen as important is the modeling’s that ensure students think aloud. In most cases, they will be able to understand whatever that has been put in the books and give that aspect of remembering. For purposes of comprehension, the teacher encourages the students to make personalized connections with the story they read. It can also be identified that class discussions regarding comprehension questions helps the students to enhance their comprehension skills.
The Methods that have Worked and the Ones that have not Worked
An analysis done on the teacher’s conclusions revealed that the methods that have been successful are modeling and guiding instructions in the study of literature. Discussions also have been noted to be a method that for time has worked out well. These discussions are dais to help the students in giving the students the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and hence subjected to this situation they do not miss out in important connections. This aspect of discussions has helped in the students to understand much of what has been taught to them. In addition, debates are seen to play another important role in facilitating the development of a child in terms of literature. Thus, it can be concluded that the active involvement of children as a method of teaching literature has really worked out well compared to other methods of teaching the students. The use of individual work has not been a good method of learning to the students.
Recommended Book / a Best Practice for Teaching English Learners
The teacher recommends various books to be used but still she does not give a lot of information sources that these students should use. It was recommended that students should concentrate their minds on using the Lanes English Pronunciation guide. According to the teacher, the book is an added advantage to the students because it has diagrams that have proved to be a good source of illustrations on the position of the mouth and tongue and it is said that most students love this resource. The inference here is that most students get an added advantage while using this book because it includes both the practical and the intellectual skills of the students within this field of linguistics. It also has an aspect of expanding the knowledge that a person has in the study of literature.
Challenges in Teaching Linguistics and Recommendations
In this section, the teacher is not comprehensive in the challenges she puts forth. She has to put all the challenges in order for them to be clearly understood. Obviously, the school is located in an urban center and hence has a lot of importance when it comes to accommodating students who are from different natives. Hence understanding the natives of some students has been seen as a major challenge in the study of linguistics. Another challenge that is noted is the different levels of comprehension by the students. However, some recommendations were given first of all being the use of a resource known as Rosetta stone. This book helps students to learn basics and combine words with pictures and hearing voice read messages a lot. Another recommendation is that the teacher took an initiative to help the students who are from different natives learn how to use artifacts and pictures that will aid in communication. The teacher says that being that some students are from different natives and understanding them I a challenge still that cannot be a disadvantage in them knowing how to learn linguistics. The only important thing is that this would have improved their language proficiency at the end of it all.
Whether Direct Teaching of Linguistics is Emphasized or Not
I agree with the teacher’s way of teaching the linguistics as a subject. The teacher does not encourage a lot of direct learning but she is geared on improving the student’s chances of excelling through indirect learning. The idea of the teacher should be borrowed because it is of critical importance. The teacher in this aspect explains the root meaning of words that’s how the prefixes and the suffixes give meanings of words, and also they are taught thru emersion in the language. The teacher says that most students try to learn English on the easy way out context, but in most cases, this is hard English requires vigorous processes. It is also seen that the teachers teaches the English primarily through applying models and using meaningful dialogue. This is so done by ensuring that the students engage well with their teachers and hence they can remember what they have been taught from the answers they gave to their teachers. Another way of indirect teaching is writing practice of real life situations. It is always said that practice makes perfect and plus combined with real life situations all goes well hence this study of linguistics becomes a better aspect.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the interview of the linguistic teacher was precise and that all the information obtained from the teacher are seen to be good in enhancing the skills of the students. The interview is relevant to the education theories because it tries to expand on the thinking that most people in the education theories have said about population. The education theorists such as Jean Rossew and others have their ideas integrated into the interview. I agree with most aspects that the teacher talked about, for example, the issue of indirect learning, continual everyday practice, systematic learning and giving tests to students to check on their progress. The way the teacher teaches phonics and spellings is also recommendable.
Some aspects that are not much in terms with the course texts is how the teacher took an approach of interlinking literature and other subjects like math. I do not agree with this aspect because there is a lot that needs to be done to ensure that the students are well conversant with whatever they are taught at school. Another aspect that that I think needs to be added or improved is the texts that the students use. To say the texts are very important and the available one is a very good but students need to explore from different sources and not only on one book alone. From the teacher, various aspects can be borrowed, and I would apply them by encouraging the students to use online dictionaries to get the correct pronunciation of words. Moreover, the use of models on teaching the students is a very good aspect, which can be borrowed in teaching students.