Professor Murray Educ 334 Field Experience Journal 1 April Ma 09/30/2013 Today, I went to the Lewisburg High School

for my first field experience. The class I worked with is an ELL (English Language Learning) class. Unlike other day classes offered at the high school, the ELL session is more like an extra aid session for students in need of extra English language help. The session is held from 10:30am to 12:00pm separated into 2 sessions. The teacher I worked with was Mr. Espinosa, an English literature teacher with ESL teaching certificate. Normally, there are three students in the second session that I worked with: Jen, a sophomore student from China; Oscar, a sophomore student from Puerto Rico, and Ricki, a junior from Russia. Ricki was absent today, so Mr. Espinosa worked with Jen whereas I worked with Oscar. At first, Mr. Espinosa checked their schedules and assignments online to make sure they were on track with the homework. Jen told him that she didnt understand the material covered in English class well, so Mr. Espinosa reviewed the class materials with her for the whole class period. I worked with Oscar with his math assignments for the first half of the period and his English vocabulary quiz on the second half of the period. Even though it is only Oscars second year with the ELL program here at Lewisburg High School, it is obvious that his oral English skills are solid enough to support his daily academic work. For the first half hour that we worked together with the math assignment, he struggled a bit with the complex absolute value questions like | 3t+3 | =

t. By looking at the previous questions that he did, I found out that he understood the principle of absolute value. He could get the answer for | x| = 5, x=5. Therefore, I gave him an example | 3x+1 | =5 trying to scaffold his understanding by creating an intermediary question. After thinking for seconds, he got the answer for | 3x+1 | =5 correctly, followed by the correct solution for the original question. As I am reflecting on this experience, I suddenly understand the idea of Vygotskys zone of the proximal development. The simple one step question is where Oscar was at the beginning; the complex 3 steps linear function is where he needs to achieve but is not able to by himself. Such disconnection in between challenges the teacher to develop effective teaching strategies, which in my case, was a 2-step sample question. In general, I really enjoyed todays session. It gave me a precious opportunity to work in a real high school classroom. Even though math is not my forte, I was able to help a student using the Vtgostkys theory of the zone of the proximal development. Whats more, the successful scaffolding I did with Oscar made me realize the importance of setting up small tasks before the final challenging assignment. It will benefit the students not just in natural science subject like Math, but also social studies, and art and humanities. For example, in language classes, if the student is struggling with composing a 200 words essay on directions, the instructor can assist the student by reviewing vocabularies about directions as an intermediate. Therefore, assessing where students are in terms of the essential understanding and adding steps in between will benefit students greatly.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience 2 10/02/2013 April Ma The reason that I have been determined to be a teacher since high school is the satisfaction and the fulfillment brought by successful transmission of knowledge. Today, by working with Jen, the sophomore Chinese immigrant child, I was fortunate enough to experience such thrill again. The class dynamic today was the same as the first session. At the beginning, Mr. Espinosa went over each students assignments and quizzes using the school online system to make sure that they were not left behind with school works. When he found out that Oscar, the sophomore student with Puerto Rican origin, did not pass the vocabulary quiz in English class, he started working with Oscar on those vocabularies. I worked with Jen with her English assignment, which asked her to compose an epitaph for a character in a story that they were studying. From the EDUC 375 (Methods of Teaching ESL) course that I took with Professor Hoffman, I learned the term BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CAPL (Cognitive Academic Proficiency Level). 4 years living experiences in the US have prepared Jen well in the development in BICS, but not CAPL. When I first asked her about the content of the story, she hesitated and kept silent. Realizing that she did not fully understand the story, I decided to go over the story with her by paragraphs. After reading the first paragraph together, which talked about the environment in which Simmon, the main character, was located, I asked her if she understood the paragraph.

She nodded her head. Then I asked whether or not Simmon was killed in this paragraph. She nodded her head again, but in fact, the death of Simmon had not been mentioned yet until the third paragraph. It came obvious to me that her English literacy was not able to support her understand the story. I decided to slow the pace and led her read the story sentence by sentence. By doing that, I understood why she was having trouble understanding the story. She didnt understand basic vocabularies like remind, curiosity, inspects, convince, and etc. A great advantage of me working with her was that I was able to translate those words into Chinese, her native language, to facilitate her understanding. This translation strategy worked successfully. With the Chinese translation, she was able to summarize the story in the end and compose an epitaph following a sample provided in the textbook. This experience made me wonder that how many ESL students are out there in the classroom remaining in silence, trying to understand the content, but are not able to due to the language barrier. Relating Jens silent nodding to theories of personal fable and imaginary audience that I have learned in the Later Childhood and Adolescence course, it seems like adolescence is a phase that students choose to remain silent, for the assumption that no one in the words could actually understand them and the reluctant of making fool of themselves through wrong answers. It would be dangerous for teachers to take students responses literarily: nodding as knowing the knowl edge and silence as not knowing the knowledge. The instructor needs to be patience enough to assess the students understanding to make sure they are on the right track.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience 3 10/08/2013 April Ma Today, I had my third field experience at the Lewisburg High School with the same class. As usual, I worked with Jen on her assignments. One thing about this tutoring is that I could never know what I should expect on the assignments that she needs help with. Sometimes, the subject goes beyond my knowledge zone, like today, working on a test for the driving license class. I myself had no precious knowledge about car or driving in my entire life. Therefore, at the beginning, I was not sure whether I could help or not. But as I looked over the study guide, I found answers coded in the textbook. The task was simply scaffold Jen to interpret the literacy from the textbook, with the challenge of a subject that she had no interest on. Before we started, she told me that she did not understand why she had to take this class given that she had no plan getting a driving license. All the jargon vocabularies in driving like ABA system and odometer gauge stressed her out. Based on the past experience of working with her, I knew that she had limited vocabulary list. Therefore, I decided to go over the text material with her paragraph by paragraph to ensure her understanding, then looking at the questions on the test. As teachers, one common but dangerous phenomenon is the blind spot hypothesis that reveals the tendency of assuming students are as skilled as we are. As a

result, we always tend to teach the way we learn. In todays tutoring, I had trouble understanding why Jen could not answer the question of what is the purpose of the odometer gauge? after reading a paragraph that clearly stated that: The odometer gauge is for recording the total amount of the mile driven by the car. It seemed to me that the reading materials from the textbook made no sense to Jen. She was getting frustrated and anxious. Therefore, I decided to use the Internet to find a model of car structure to vivify the concept as a visual aid. With the visual aid or what is called realia in terms of educational strategies, Jen exhibited more interest. Then I opened the book and explained the function of each car engines as the test asked. She gradually showed the sign of understanding. When being asked again about the function of the devices, she had the correct answer using her words. For the sake of time, we didnt get to go over the whole chapter, but I could tell Jen had a basic sense of how car functions. Overall, I enjoyed todays session and once again found the effectiveness of visual aid (realia) with ESL learners. After the bell rang, Jen stayed in the classroom and shared her high school life here at Lewisburg with me, in Chinese. She just moved to Lewisburg District a month ago and was having a difficult time adjusting the environment of the rural community. Because it was the time for lunch, our conversation did not go too deep, but I had a feeling that Jen found someone she can trust and share school experiences with. I am really glad I join this program and looking forward to seeing her soon.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience Journal 4 April Ma 10/10/13 Today, I had my forth field experience at Lewisburg High School. As I work more with Jen, it seems a hidden rule that she works with me exclusively. Mr. Espinosa even joked about it saying: Now Jen doesnt want to work with me anymore. She only expects you. Indeed, every time before I get into the classroom, I am excited to see Jen as well. Today, we worked on the same drivers license test as before for the entire class period because her drivers license test got postponed to Friday. I used the same strategy of using visual presentations of the car devices as a supplementary tool to the text materials. It turned out well and she was able to answer the questions on the test correctly. After todays session, as I was walking back to campus, I started pondering to myself the effectiveness of the ELL session at Lewisburg High School. It is certain and obvious that these three students benefit from the ELL session academically as an extra tutoring aid, and psychologically as an emotional support. However, they might benefit more if the ELL session could be more formalized into a language class rather than an after class tutoring. To be more specific, the teacher can make detailed lesson plans on English language as a second language addressing the English grammar, the English phonology, or the US culture. In Jens case, even though she is in 10 th grade, she writes

sentences like: She layed down, I talks him. She does not have sufficient English skills to support her academic reading and writing, which greatly impacts her other subject performances. But this does not mean that she does not have equivalent intellectual skills. What she needs is the systematic learning of the English language starting from basics like the third person singular. Guiding her finishing the assignments and giving her the answers for the test seems functional on the surface at school, but after school, she still has trouble doing the homework by herself. Based on Dr. Jim Cummins research on the literacy development of ESL learners, it may take seven to ten years for them to develop equal cognitive academic language proficiency as their peers. Therefore, ESL students do poorly on school works does not mean that they are not smart enough nor they do not work hard enough. Instead, they just need more time to catch up with their English before their academic literacies develop. Now, required by the federal government, school is obligated to provide extra support and program that ESL students need, like the ELL session at Lewisburg High School. However, there is a gap between providing the program that benefits the ESL students and providing the program that benefits the ESL students the most. Personally, I incline to a formalized ESL class rather than an extra tutoring session for ESL learners. On the other hand, I understand the difficulty of implement an official ESL class given the various linguistic and ethnic backgrounds of ESL student. However, I still firmly believe that education can make a difference.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience Journal 5 April Ma 10/16/2013 One thing that I learned from the EDUC 240 class with Professor McKenzie is the importance of a relaxing classroom atmosphere in an effective classroom management. Such atmosphere could be established in various ways like classroom decorations, friendly teacher and students relationships, collectivistic classroom culture, and etc. Therefore, every time I go to a classroom, I have the habit of observing the classroom settings and the interactions between the teacher and the students. Mr. Espinosa has done a great job in classroom decorating. The classroom for the ELL class is originally an English literature classroom. There are two big bookshelves on the side of the room with English literature books, dictionaries, and novels on them. Towards the back of the classroom, there is a red cozy sofa. I can totally envision students grab a book and read it joyfully on the sofa. Actually, during the break between two class periods, I saw students from last period (also an ESL session) hanging out around the sofa with students in my period. I am sure such light atmosphere has definitely imposed positive influence on students learning. Also, there are posters of famous figures in the world and two world maps hanging on the wall. Having such cultural elements in the classroom, Mr. Espinosa helps ESL students have a sense of familiarity and belonging in the classroom. One thing that I will do differently with the

poster if the classroom is exclusively used for ESL students is to make the world map bigger and have picture of each student highlighted on the their original countries. In this way, ESL students can feel that their home countries and cultures are valued in the classroom. Through my observation on Mr. Espinosas interactions with these three students, I can definitely see the easy and caring relationship Mr. Espinosa has established with these three students. He is familiar with each students extracurricular activities, and keeps track on each student progresses. For example, before working with Oscar on his assignments, the sophomore student from Puerto Rico, Mr. Espinosa asked Oscars football practices and talked about their favorite teams. During the class, Oscar has never showed resistance in learning or behavioral problems. Personally speaking from a L2 learners perspective, I am more willing to actively answer questions and not afraid of making mistakes when I know the teacher is patient and care about my progress. Therefore, I admire Mr. Espinosas efforts in maintaining a caring environment for these ESL students. I will definitely decorate my future classroom to make it inclusive for students from all backgrounds.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience #6 April Ma 10/21/2013 Today, I had my sixth field experience at Lewisburg High School. As Jen as I getting more acquainted, during the class session, she opened up with me more about her experiences at school and her plans for the future. Jen just moved to the Lewisburg district with her parents from Virginia during the summer because her cousin, the owner of the Chinese restaurant Peking Garden, needed Jens parents help in running the restaurant. Jen also has a younger brother who is 11 years old now. After school dismisses, besides helping cleaning up dishes at Peking garden, Jen also needs to babysit her brother and help him with his homework. Doing sports or hanging out with friends from school have never been included in her after-school schedule. For all these reasons, Jen to me is a very mature and hardworking student. She also talked about her academic life at school. Like the majority of the Asian students, she is really good at math. I asked whether or not she was considering applying college to further study math. She nodded her head. Then she asked me how much it would cost to attend college. I hesitated to tell her the tuition cost at Bucknell for the huge amount, but encouraged her to work hard in school to earn a strong GPA so that scholarship or financial aid may be available. Then it occurred to me that maybe I could take her to Bucknell for a tour so that she could have a better sense of college and

be more motivated to work hard in school. She was very pleased to take my invitation. Hopefully, if the weather is good on Friday, I can bring her to Bucknell. Using Arnetts concept of emerging adulthood, the age 17 of Jen is an age of possibilities. It is a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their lives, for example, maybe from working at a Chinese restaurant as waitress or dishwasher to a college student. From those stories Jen has shared with me, I cannot help to reflecting on the Immigrant Youth in the US course that I took with Professor Fruja. In that class, I learned the obstacles that the immigrant children have to face growing up in this foreign land regarding documentation issues, language barriers, cultural dissonances, identity crisis, and limited social mobility opportunities. So many immigrant parents give up their stable and all their social connections in their home country to come to the US for one reason: the better education and future for their children. However, as the parents send their children to public schools, they often neglect the academic and psychological struggle that were faced by immigrant children. In the case of Jen, I can totally see her achieve academic success in China based on her studious hardworking attitude, but seeing her struggle with decoding English language and the empty extracurricular activities, I have a sense of sympathy towards her.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience Journal 7 April Ma 10/23/2013 Today is my seventh field experience at Lewisburg High School. As I am walking back to campus after todays field experience with Jen, I could not help thinking about the possibility of working with Jen for the entire academic year as my cumulative experience for BA education major. She has all the qualities of achieving success in school: studious attitude, high self-discipline, and enough intelligence, but not yet because of the language barrier. For the majority of time, she is able to answer the question that she struggles before when I explain the concept or rephrase the question in Chinese. In todays session, we worked primarily on her biology lab report about cells. Since I took biology 121 my sophomore year and biology was one of my favorite subjects in high school, I was able to help her in understanding the differences between the plant cell and the animal cell. In the lab report, she left six questions blank. So our objective was answering those six questions together. The first question she did not understand was how did the plant cells differ from each other?. Because it was a lab report, I then asked her if there was any difference that she noticed from the microscope observation. She showed the a-ha expression and then took out the sketch that she did during the observation. The question then became a find the difference game that

she was able to accomplish by herself. As she was writing the answer, there were obvious struggles in spelling. For example, she answers the question orally: the location of the vacuole is different, but in writing, she responded: the luction of the vacile is different. Again, I wish she could get help with the systematic training in academic English. She also had trouble pronouncing the word vacuole. Honestly, as an English language learner myself, I always find myself having trouble pronouncing certain English vocabularies. What I normally do is go on google translate website. It will give me the standard pronunciation as well as the translation. So I showed this website to Jen using the computer provided in the room and asked Jen to repeat the pronunciation. From my experience, sometimes it takes more than seven times to get the correct pronunciations by following the computer, which may cause frustration and low self-esteem. Self-concept, which refers to ones objective understanding of their personal attribute and domain specific contents, is a major theme in adolescents development. Constant frustrations caused at school will result in low self-esteem, therefore, negatively affecting adolescents academic performances. Since English language is permeated at every aspect of school both academically and socially, ESL students face more sources of frustrations than other students. It is schools responsibility to provide more support and attention to ESL students to ensure their success at school.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experiences 8 10/31/2013 Happy Halloween! Today, I had my eighth field experience at Lewisburg High School with Jen on her biology assignment. The material is about cell and the osmosis diffusion, hypertonic, and hypotonic movements happened inside the cell. At the end of todays session, we solved a sheet of open-questions that she struggled with. What I reflect on todays experience is the content literacy development for ESL learners. As I was watching Jen going through textbooks, trying to find the answer for the questions, and copying down the answer from the textbook, I pondered to myself if she was really encoding the materials to her brain? So as she wrote down the answer for the function of the cell membrane by copying the exact words from the textbook, I asked her the meaning of the sentence. She shook her head. One of the answers was: The cell membrane separates the cell from the surroundings. She did not even know the meaning of the word surroundings. Besides, when she answers questions about hypertonic and hypotonic, after copying down the answer, she told me that she had no idea about the meaning of these two words. In this sense, biology to her is just copying and pasting English words. For the fact that I am also an ESL learner and learn all content materials in English, I can totally relate myself to Jen on her struggles. What distinguishes Jen and I

in our content learning experiences is that I have already established a systematic learning mode in Chinese. When I took BIO 121 at Bucknell in my sophomore year, I had trouble memorize biological terms like hypertonic and hypotonic as well, but I was able to understand the principle behind those terms because of the Chinese biology courses that I took in my high school. As long as I overcame the language barrier, I was able to answer all questions deriving from the principle of hypertonic and hypotonic. Even if sometimes, I couldn't understand the materials presented in class, I could always go on Youtube and found the Chinese version of the material to make sure I do well on the test. However, for Jen, even with the translation of content material in Chinese, she has trouble understanding the material because she had no prior content literacy training in her home language. Given the various ethnic backgrounds of ESL students, I understand the difficulties of implanting a bilingual program in which students have the opportunity to learn the content knowledge in their home language first. However, we are now living in a resourceful world thanks to the development of internet and technology. The teacher can always find various resources in students home language online to help the students achieve at school.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experiences 9 April Ma 11/04/2013 Today, I had my ninth field experience at Lewisburg High School. I worked with Jen on a biology exam that she failed by going through questions with her. The fact that she failed on the exam coincides with my observation from last field experience during which she mostly copied and pasted answers from the textbook to the answer sheet without coding the materials into her mind. Also she had trouble understanding questions during the exam. Therefore, she had no way to figure out the answer. What I did today was explaining the biological principles about osmosis, active transport, simple diffusion, and facilitated diffusion first to make sure she have the biological backgrounds, and then going over the questions together. I was surprised to see that she was able to solve the questions by herself right after I read the question out loud. Jen can get a pass on this exam if she gets all the answers right and handed it in later. I really appreciate her biology teachers effort in giving Jen more time to catch the materials. Another thing I noticed from todays observation is the difference between the classroom climates in the American High School and classroom climate in Chinese High School. In China, teacher is one of the most highly respected and highly valued professions. Since kindergarten, students are trained to be obedient and express the

highest respect to the teacher. At the beginning of each class, all students need to stand up, bow, and welcome the teacher to enter the classroom; at the end of each class, all students need to stand up again and eye-escort the teacher leave the classroom. The authority and the power the teacher holds greatly oppresses the rebellious and disrespectfully behaviors of the students. From what I have observed at the Lewisburg High School and the discussion with American students, the American classroom dynamic differs from Chinese classroom dynamic greatly. I saw one of the students in the class threw his body on the couch right after he entered the classroom, and played his cellphone occasionally during the class period. What the teacher Mr. Espinosa did was keep reminding him the rule of no playing cellphone during the class, but didn't work out too well. If such behavior happens in a Chinese classroom, the teacher can take away students cell phones and hold it until the end of the semester, depends on the teachers mood. Being determined to work in the American school, sometimes, I get scared by such huge difference in the classroom dynamic between US and China. I am concerned with my ability to keep the entire classroom in behave.

EDUC 334 Professor Murray Field Experience #10 April Ma 11/12/2013 Today, I had my last field experience at Lewisburg High School. I worked with Jen on her algebra assignment, which is an exam preparation worksheet that contains thirty multiple choice questions and ten applied word problems. Since math is her favorite subject as school, Jen already finished most of the worksheet and marked several questions that she was not confident with the answers. Reflecting back on the ten field experience I have at the ELL session at Lewisburg High School,