Professional Development Reflection

This semester I have had the opportunity to attend several professional development
events. I attended four PLP meetings with a family studies leader, a two-day ELL training
seminar, and the ARA conference. I also stayed late on the first day of the ARA conference. All
four of these professional development opportunities were very beneficial to the development of
my career as a teacher. I learned a lot of valuable information at all of these events, and I know
that this new knowledge will help me become a better teacher.
At the four PLP meetings that I attended throughout this semester, I learned about the
strengths and weaknesses of my personality, how to communicate and convey bad news to the
parents of my students, the different parenting styles, and the different teaching styles. The most
valuable information that I learned at these meetings was the importance of family involvement
and how to communicate with the parents to make them feel comfortable in the classroom. Some
tips that I took away on this topic include beginning communication with parents at the very
beginning of the school year, forming a good relationship with parents, responding to emails as
soon as possible even if you do not know the answer right off, communicating face to face as
much as possible, and helping parents understand that they are the biggest teacher in their childs
life. When having parent-teacher conferences, I learned that it is important to start the
conferences with a warm welcome, always share something good about the student, be gentle
and factual when sharing problems, and end conferences by reiterating things that the student is
doing right. I also learned that it is important not to be too harsh or judgmental, not to overwhelm
parents with too many tasks to do at home, and not to accuse parents of being wrong. It was also
very beneficial to learn about the different parenting styles, which are authoritative parenting,
authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting, and uninvolved/neglectful parenting. It was helpful
to learn about these parenting styles so that we will understand how our students are disciplined
at home. Overall, I enjoyed learning about family involvement from the family studies major
who led these meetings. She was very insightful and intelligent in her field of study.
On Tuesday November 10th and Wednesday November 11th, we had the opportunity to
learn from Lari Valtierra about teaching academic language to English Learner (EL) students. I
am very thankful for the opportunity to learn more about how to teach EL students because this
has always been a concern for me. I took Spanish in high school, but I have forgotten a lot of
what I learned. Since I only know English, I have always wondered how I will teach students
who do not speak English at home. This training made me feel a little more at ease about
teaching EL students. It was helpful to learn about the phases that EL students go through when
learning English as well as learning about resources that will help us become better teachers of
EL students. On the first day of our training, we learned about the phases of the development of
EL students ability to receive and produce language in the four domains of languagelistening,
speaking, reading, and writing. In the first phase (the preproduction phase), students are silent
and communicate mostly nonverbally, so teachers should use as many visual aids and concrete
items as possible. The early production phase is the second phase. EL students in this phase will
begin to respond verbally using one or two words. When students get to the third phase (the
speech emergence phase), they often mix their first language and English together. They can
speak in simple sentences, and they can write with more detail and with different tenses. In the
fourth phase (the intermediate fluency phase), students can produce more complicated text, but
they still lack the academic vocabulary that native English speakers have. Students in the fifth
phase (the advanced fluency phase) can speak and write English using grammar and vocabulary

comparable to that of a native speaker. An important takeaway about the development of

language in EL students that I think all teachers should know is that while all children progress
through the same phases, the rate in which they progress through the phases is different.
Learning about these phases made me think about the EL students in my classroom at Trace
Crossings. One EL student in my class responds using only one or two words. This makes me
think that she is in the early production phase. Another EL student in my class has progressed
very quickly in her language production this semester, and I would classify her in the speech
emergence phase.
We also learned about the six WIDA levels of proficiency that correlate to the five phases
of language production. To determine an EL students WIDA level, they are tested in each of the
four domains of language. They are assigned a score ranging from 1.0 to 6.0 for each domain and
then given a composite, or overall, score. In Alabama, EL students are considered proficient in
their language acquisition, meaning that language is no longer a barrier, when their composite
score reaches a 4.8. After reaching this number, students no longer receive ESL services, but will
be monitored for two years. Although EL students are considered proficient when they reach a
4.8, they will still have first language interference and will still need scaffolding. One thing that I
took away from this part of the training is that it is important for classroom teachers to know
each of their EL students composite score as well as their score in each of the four language
domains so that we will know how to teach them. We can access these scores by looking at the
students access report. When teaching EL students, we can use resources from WIDA like
rubrics and can-do charts. I think that these resources that Ms. Valierra provided were the most
beneficial part of our training. I plan to use these resources in the future because I am sure that I
will have EL students in my classes. One last thing that we talked about on the first day of
training was the difference between BICS and CALPs. Our job as teachers is to teach academic
language, or CALP, to our students. These are abstract, higher-level words that to relate to the
content and require cognitive skills. BICS, on the other hand, is the social playground
language that is developed from interaction with others. Overall, the first day of training helped
me realize how important it is for teachers to know their EL students. When I teach, I need to
know which WIDA level my EL students are on and use strategies and resources to help teach
them the CALP words that they need to know in order to be ready for college and career.
On the second day of training, we learned about more resources and strategies that we
can used as teachers of EL students. This second day of training was helpful to me because Ms.
Valtierra brought everything together and focused on specific strategies for teaching EL students.
One thing that I found interesting was the i=1 method, in which teachers hold EL students
accountable for the can-do items in the proficiency level directly above their current
proficiency level. This is because learning only occurs when information is presented at the next
level, so teachers need to challenge their EL students and push them forward. This makes sense
to me, because if we held students responsible for the can-do items in their current proficiency
level, they would not grow and move on to the next level. Ms. Valtierra explained that some
teachers teach students using an i+10 method, in which they expect too much out of their EL
students. This is not good because the EL students will become overwhelmed and discouraged.
Therefore, it is important to only hold them accountable for the can-do items in the level
directly above them. Another interesting thing that Ms. Valtierra showed us was the WIDA
standards. I did not realize that WIDA had standards that EL students must meet. After first
hearing about these standards, I was a little overwhelmed because the thought of having another
set of standards that EL students must meet seemed scary. After Ms. Valtierra showed us these

standards, however, I felt much better about them because the WIDA standards are very general.
They basically say that students must learn and use CALPs in all four domains of language
(listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in each of the subjects. Mrs. Valtierra provided us with
the website for WIDA, where we can access the WIDA standards and learn more about them.
Something very surprising that I learned on the second day of training is that students
only learn about 400 new vocabulary words at school each year. Therefore, if EL students do not
speak English at home, they will quickly fall behind the other students in their acquisition of
vocabulary. This made me realize that it is so important to help EL students learn as much
English vocabulary as possible so that they do not fall behind their peers. Another interesting
thing that I learned on the second day of training is the sentence frame strategy, in which the
teacher starts a sentence for the student. I really like this strategy because it provides EL students
with the targeted academic language that you want them to use. It clearly shows them how you
want them to communicate an answer, and helps them demonstrate the content that they have
learned. Overall, I think that Ms. Valtierra used and taught us about great strategies that we can
used with our EL students so that they can advance through the phases of language development
as quickly as possible. The resources that Ms. Valtierra gave us will be very helpful when we
begin to teach EL students. I learned a lot during our two days of ELL training, and I am very
thankful that we had the opportunity to grow in our knowledge.
I had the great opportunity of attending the ARA Conference on Thursday November 12th
and Friday November 13th. Before attending the ARA Conference, I was not sure of what to
expect. I did not know who would be speaking or what the sessions would be like. After the first
speaker, however, I knew that I was in for a treat. The first speaker on Thursday, Jeff Anderson,
talked about ways we can motivate our students to write. I learned a lot in this session, but the
most memorable thing to me was his power writing activity. In this activity, students write as
much as they can, as fast as they can, as well as they can for one minute. They do three rounds of
this and count the number of words they wrote after each round. I love this activity, and I will
definitely use this in my classroom.
During Thursdays first concurrent session, I heard Todd Geralds, the author of
Woodlawn, speak. I have not read the book or seen the movie, but I loved hearing a first-hand
account of Geralds experience. I enjoyed hearing his story, but I also loved hearing about his
experience of writing the book. He had never written a book before, and he explained that the
hardest part was to sit down and actually start writing. He encouraged everyone who is thinking
about writing a book to take the time to do it. The next speaker was Dr. Elfrieda Hiebert, and she
talked about complex text and vocabulary. I enjoyed her session because she was informative but
funny at the same time. One point that she made was that the number of English words far
outnumbers the amount of time we have to teach our students, because it would take about 100
years to teach our students every English word. I was very surprised by this because I knew that
our language had a lot of words, but I had no idea just how many. Dr. Hiebert informed us of her
website, TextProject, where teachers can access free materials for their classroom and
information on literacy. I definitely plan to look into this resource more and use it in the future.
I stayed after lunch on Thursday, and had the opportunity to experience a dyslexia
simulation led by Ramona Rice. I learned a lot about the challenges and confusion that children
with dyslexia face. After trying to read symbols that made no sense and feeling frustrated when I
was told to try harder, I had a greater empathy for students with dyslexia. After this concurrent
session, the next speaker was Anne Marie Corgill. I was very excited to hear her speak since we
have been reading her book this semester. She was very real with us and gave us advice on how

we can keep our students at the forefront of our teaching. My favorite advice that she gave us
was to fight to do whats right for our students. I think this is so important because our job as
teachers is to serve the students and stand up for what is best for them. I was also inspired when
she told us to lie down at night knowing that we are making a difference.
The first speaker on Friday was Dr. Tommy Bice, the state superintendent of education. It
was neat to hear from him about the changes that are being made to improve schools and reduce
the dropout rate. I enjoyed hearing about schools in Alabama that are changing things to better
meet the needs of their students. For example, one school in Walker County has made it an
option for their students to take classes at night. This way, students who need to work to provide
for their families can still get an education and graduate. For the concurrent session on Friday, I
went to Dr. Denise Gibbs session on classroom strategies to reach students with dyslexia. I chose
this session because I had been so fascinated with the dyslexia simulation I had attended the day
before. At this session, I learned about different assistive technology to help dyslexic students
read and write. The last session I attended before I left on Friday was Dr. Diane Barones talk on
focusing on visuals during read alouds. It was neat to hear about picture books that she
recommends using in the classroom. Overall, I really enjoyed the ARA Conference and am
looking forward to attending more professional development conferences in the future.