Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Field Experience
I am Physical Education major in my junior year. I haven't really had the opportunity to work with children that I wasn't related to or known through friends. I chose this major because I am very athletic and want to pass my skills and passion for sports on to future athletes. Though I haven't really thought about it up until now, I too will still have to teach English Language Learners. This brought on a huge challenge for me. How do you teach physical education to a child who doesn't speak English? In some countries they have sports that are the same name as ours however it may be a completely different concept. It would take a lot of research and patience to teach the rules and objectives to an ELL. Although it may be just a game, to that child it would be a whole new experience.
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2 comments:
Although I can't offer any advice about how to teach sports to ELL learners your situation did remind me of an incident that took place in a kindergarten i was observing in Elizabeth. Almost all the children were Hispanic and most hadn't been in this country very long at all. I was helping them take practice tests for the state tests that would be coming up. One of the questions asked the students "How many footballs are in the picture?"
Well let me just tell you that the picture had 3 basketballs, 4 footballs and 2 soccer balls. Atleast if you were from this country thats what you would have seen. The answer should have been 4 but of course every child put 2. Why? you ask. Because what we Americans call a soccer ball is actually called a football to people from practically every other country. those children answered the question correctly from their viewpoint. The teacher said "Look how unfair the test is, I cant blame them for choosing that answer because to them its correct."
So maybe when you do have to teach an ELL student you could keep in mind the language your using to explain the game and maybe find out ahead of time how the game is played in their country.
That is a great example that you just stated Jennifer. I love soccer and having a European background myself, I also refer to soccer as "football". Therefore, you can imagine all the strange looks I recieve from people when I use the words goalie and football in the same sentence.
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