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4. The School Environment
Teachers recognize the importance of situating support programs for English language learners within the context of the school and community to ensure their academic success.
Throughout my coursework and student teaching, there has always been a component of culturally responsive practices in all my classes. Not only do these practices help ELL students, but it helps all students in the classroom feel safe, included, and valued. The artifacts below demonstrate my awareness of building a community environment in my classroom and within the school culture and community. These artifacts include a sample welcome presentation for the beginning of the year where students work together to create classroom commitments, my thoughts on culturally responsive practices, my ESL philosophy, and photographs from the classroom and school display boards where I did my student teaching.
Artifact 1: Photos of School and House Community Activities
Below are two photos of activities we completed as a house or school during my semester student teaching. The first was a house project where students were divided into groups and researched climate change in each area of the country. Then the groups came together and share information and created visuals of that information which were displayed on the House display board in the hallway. The second was part of a school-wide initiative where students watched videos and learned about bullying. In an effort to promote an anti-bully culture students created posters that were hung throughout the school.
Artifact 2: Beginning of the Year Welcome Presentation (Attached Below)
This is an assignment from my first course in my ASP sequence, where I was to create a beginning of the year presentation I would use in my classroom. I focused on trying to create a culturally responsive, inclusive environment from day one, where the students have input on the commitments made for the year.
Artifact 3: Culturally Responsive Class Reflections (Attached Below)
This is a reflection paper I wrote in my first class during my course sequence. Reading it now almost a year later at the end of my student teaching I see that my reflections have not changed in my opinions of creating a culturally responsive, inclusive classroom. If anything has changed, it is that I have more strategies to work with and am aware that I can always research more. Creating a culturally responsive, inclusive classroom is critical for ESL students. ELL students need to be able to feel included and know their culture and background is acknowledged and respected.
Artifact 4: ESL Philosophy (Attached Below)
This artifact is my ESL philosophy I wrote in my last course for ESL, ESL Curriculum Design and Assessment. Looking back on this, I see that my philosophy remains the same. I just now, after student teaching, have more strategies to use to help my ELL students learn language and literacy.
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