Classroom Observation Paper

During my observations at Ibraham Elementary School, I learned about the importance of diversity in the classroom, and ways to help the kids feel more included. What I first noticed was the focus on the English Language Leaners, as they were in both classrooms. I also noticed that there were at least three different races in each classroom, so the diversity was high. Both teachers seemed to be very aware of the diversity and especially the English Language Learners. This led to the students being able to get the extra help that was needed.

When I walked into the first classroom I observed in the teacher greeted me, along with all her other students, with a bright smile. This made me feel welcomed right away and I am sure all the students felt

I learned how diversity should be handled and the right ways to do it. In the book it talks about English Language learns and it states “…failure of schools to build on a child’s first language during these early years may have serious consequences in the learning process” (Gollnick & Chinn, 2013, p. 223). This is saying that teachers need to help kids understand the curriculum in their own language and slowly start to use (like in the case of the first classroom I observed in) English more. If this does not happen and the student is just being taught in English then they have a high chance of falling behind drastically. The teacher in the first class I observed in did a good job at including Spanish into the curriculum, as did the faculty; like they did during the morning announcements. However, the first teacher seemed to have an approach similar to a transitional program. According to Gollnick and Chinn (2013) they explained a transitional program as a program that “…emphasize bilingual education as a means of moving from the cultural and language most commonly used for communication in the home to the mainstream of U.S. language and cultural” (p. 228). The book continues on to say that “The native language of the home is only used to help the student make the transition to the English language” (p. 228). This is saying that the focus is to move the child from their native language to the primary language of where ever they are, pretty quickly. Also, to only use their native language when necessary. Though in an article I read for class Miles Gullingsrud states that, “I work at learning and using Spanish. Just as we model reading and writing, so our English learners need to see us learning their language as we ask them to learn ours” (p. 31). In the first classroom I