Education
The 21st century form of classroom has changed due to the issue of diversity that has created numerous difficulties mostly to the teachers who may not have experienced this diversity while they were students. I am doing my practicum in a second grade class room. There is a girl from Mexico who speaks Spanish as her first language. She is one of the four English Language Learners in the classroom. However, she is always quiet, speaks in very low voice and is too shy to ask questions, even if she cannot understand what the teacher is asking for. What she does is observe what her peers or desk mate do, and imitate them. In some instances where she is familiar with the routine, she seemed to follow all the instructions very well but without this familiarity she failed to follow the instructions. I can tell that she gets very nervous and uncomfortable every time I sit beside her and try to help her doing the worksheet or read with her. Whenever I ask her to chose a book that we can read together, she always choose the book that has only few words in each page despite the fact that she has already read it many times.
As a teacher during my practicum observation on the Mexican child, I have learnt that differentiation approach in teaching is an essential as well as an effective way of giving out instructions to the diversified class. This practice of differentiation thus enables a teacher to separate instructions so as to be able to address the precise standards while responding to each and every child’s needs (Felder 2005).
In my practicum period, I have made some efforts to offer class materials that reflect a variety of the students’ cultures as well as their home settings in-order to make the learning experience better. So as to meet the special needs of these children, it is important as a teacher to develop some of the routines that will allow these students to get the special assistance that they need from the teacher while the rest of the children have something to keep themselves busy.
References
Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2005). Understanding student differences. Journal of engineering education, 94(1), 57-72.
