L400/500 Instructional Issues in Language Learning

EDUCATION IS CHANGING: THE INTERNET DOES NOT LIE The irony of having to incorporate technology into my blog is not lost on me, considering my 11-year-old must help me with computer work more often than I’d like to admit.   There aren’t going to be any mind-blowing stories on how technology has helped me personally, but I will try to communicate how the ways Garcia and Kleifgen ideas on technology effectively help emergent bilinguals throughout their educational journey. The digital era we live in is changing the way students learn, and classroom technologies will continue to change and be more innovative as time continues. Since the 1990’s scholars have recognized the possibilities of enhancing learning through the use of technology, by using different modes of communication such as sound, image, and video (Garcia &Kleifgen), in conjunction with the more traditional written and spoken modes. This was discussed in The New London Group...

If you haven't seen it for yourself then you have probably heard about teachers giving up on their students due to a language barrier. For example, let's say there was a student name Claire. Claire just moved to the United States and was placed in Ms. Morgan's first grade class. Ms. Morgan was a great teacher and Claire was a great student but Ms. Morgan only spoke English and Claire only spoke Spanish. One day, Ms. Morgan was reading a picture book to the class about a little boy and his pet dog  who loved to play outside together. Ms. Morgan pointed to the picture of the boy playing with his dog and asked Claire what was going on. Claire knew what a boy was, she knew what a dog was, and she knew they were outside but she didn't know the English words to tell the teacher this. Ms. Morgan waited on Claire to answer but after a minute of silence from Claire, Ms. Morgan got frustrated and gave up on Claire and asked another student. This resulted in Claire believing Ms....

As Educators...We Can Show Em’ Better Than We Can Tell Em’!!! February 14, 2018 Tiffany Growing up, my mother would always say, “I can show him better than I can tell him” when referencing to my father.  My father was from Jamaica and had been in the states only a mere 5 years when they first met and had the honor of creating the “amazing me”!  There was a language and cultural barrier between them.  Just because they both had a brown skin tone didn’t mean they both spoke the same language.  When my mother would take the time to actually show my father what she was trying to convey, there were less arguments and misunderstandings.  When a person has not been raised during pivotal times in their lives in the country they are a part of in their adult lives, they tend to misunderstand and misinterpret situations that they find themselves involved in  like my father.  The same can be said about our country’s ELL students in our schools in toda...