Incredible Ulearn 16

Malo ‘aupito! I would like to thank our Board of Trustees and the Principal for providing this awesome opportunity to attend this great conference. Ulearn conference is an inspirational meeting with innovative ideas for us teachers but it is up to us to choose from or ignore.

The first breakout that struck me most was the breakout on connecting with the students. The presenter were both European teachers talking about “where cultural literacies connect”. It started off with a youtube video. What a great start for the day, the room was so quiet with amazement. I was emotionally  inspired and also motivated after watching the multicultural group of students performs a Pasifika song with pride even though they were from other ethnic backgrounds. These two teachers weren’t the experts but they were influenced by their experiences. They reminded us to be culturally responsive by acknowledging and valuing what our students bring to class. They indicated that “children don’t come into our classroom as an empty vessel”. They come with huge experiences. This affirmed what I have learned at Uni, that students come with cultural literacies but it is up to the teacher to find ways to connect with their learner. Teachers need to value their experiences. We need to see our students using a different lens and try to connect with them. According to McKenzie & Singleton, (2012)”The culture of the child cannot enter the classroom until it has first entered the consciousness of the teacher.”

The second breakout was the breakout on accelerating reading progress of our akonga using culturally responsive practices and digital technologies. This was presented by two incredible teachers from Takanini School. They virtually talked about similar things like being culturally responsive but they used the devices to share their learning. I am already employing these pedagogies in class which my TESSOL study has affirmed and would continue doing it as it is best practice. So once again,a big “Malo ‘aupito” the Board of Trustees” and Principal for my first Ulearn conference.

Celebrating Tongan Language week @ Tamaki Primary

Malo e lelei!

‘Oku tau fakafeta’i kotoa pe he lava atu e hono fakamanatua ‘etau lea faka-Tonga ‘i Aotearoa he ngaahi uike kuo toki maliu atu pea lava lelei.

It has been a beautiful, proud day for our students to involve in celebrating our Tongan language week. Our Principal always reminds us about the all language weeks and participates very enthusiastically. It is very important to value students and their culture. As we saw on the day that parents do appreciate what we do as a school for their children so they left their work just to turn up to join the celebration. The children took great pride of who they are.

Once again, a big malo ‘aupito to Miss Aireen and her crew for their organisation which making it a success for the day.

A big thank you to you ‘Akanesi for your beautiful speech. You did really well and so proud of you.

The students from junior up to seniors looked stunning and performed gracefully. You all make yourself and your parents proud.

The children look fabulous and vibrant with their costumes and they performed with pride. " Malie tamaiki" "Well done guys."

A big malo ‘aupito to all the parents who always turn up and always lend a hand when it’s needed, your support is very appreciated. You are enriching Tamaki Primary with the Tongan spirit.

To all the staff, malo ‘aupito ho’omou tokoni. Thank you to each and everyone of the staff who helped in every way.

Culturally Responsive

I was just reading through my colleague’s blog so I decided to do my reflection on being culturally responsive. I think I am good at being inclusive of my learners and their culture. Looking back at some of the activities that we had done I remembered doing the activity about getting to know me each and every one of the student was talking about who they are and where they come from with a great sense of belonging and pride.

They even had said their introduction in their own language.

Every time we celebrate a language week I tried to participate to show my students that they are important and their language and culture is important too.

They all were proud of themselves to be able to share their culture. Below I have included some of the activities and video of my students.

Aha moment!!

I had an awesome day today.  I literally let out a big scream of joy at the end of my Maths lesson this morning. I had one of my maths’ group working with me on the mat, this is one of my group whom I have been trying to participate in a  discussion. Finally today they were sharing, contributing and having fun solving a fractions problem. Before I launched the problem we were talking about how we as a group need to work, participate and we were focussing on “two talk moves”. It was so great hearing them say “Can you please repeat that again?” and “How did you come up with that number?”

They were also able to notice the misconception and tried to identify where they get it wrong.

 

Earlier they said that they were not good at this and that they can’t do it. We started with as simple number 10. As we practiced, they gained confidence because they felt comfortable with the number and they started given me all the answers. It was so good that I have recorded everything they have said which helped them notice their mistake. I am happy to see my students achieve.

It was one of those “aha moment” that you just let out the joy and celebrate their success.

Class observation

In the first week of this term, I was observed teaching a Writing lesson. My WALT was aiming for the students to be able to use connectives to sequence their ideas. Prior to that, we had read a story and the students were highlighting all the connectives in the story. We discussed and listed all the connectives that they have used in their writing, getting them to talk through Think, Pair, Share then complete some sentences with the connectives and had time to reflected on what they have learnt and whether they have achieved their goal.

I thought that I have done a pretty good lesson until I sat in the feedback session and listened to the “students’ voice” or “students’ agency”. I  noticed that only one person out of the three students was able to answer the questions.

It made me realise that I need to have time to reflect by questioning the students to make sure they understand the WALT and co-constructed the success criteria, discussed the task and why we are focusing on that topic or genre.

Now every time I start  teaching a topic I made sure that everyone in the group understands what to do and why we do it. I do believe my students’ needed that repetition. Repetition is good because it provides them a chance to master that knowledge that is being taught and it increases confidence.

My inquiry

CALLA provides a 5 stage cycle which is not always followed in strict sequence.

Stage 1. Preparation

Stage 2. Presentation

Stage 3. Practice

Stage 4. Evaluation

Stage 5. Expansion

Question 1.

As a teacher how much preparation time of the CALLA cycle do you provide to your students and do you think this is an important step?

As a teacher preparation is vital and teachers do put a lot of time and effort to prepare because preparation helps “ elicits knowledge grounded in students” Chamot, A. U., & O'Malley, J.M. (1996)

Question 2.

Is there a cycle you use more than others?

We all agreed that we often use stage 1. Preparation, stage 2. Presentation and Stage 5. Expansion more than stage 3 and 4. We often focus most of our time preparing and trying to find different ways to present the information and also give time to the students to relate or connect but never give enough time for the number 3 ( evaluation) and 4 (Practice).

Most of the time we are so caught up with trying to relate their learning to their cultural backgrounds and to apply what they have learnt from the world outside of school without realising what giving the students enough time to consolidate what they have learnt. At the same time forgot about  the ‘student agency’. It is really important to allow them to evaluate their learning and reflect on what they have achieved and their next learning step.

Question 3.

Do you use the a similar model in your classroom now or will you move towards this model in the future? Discuss your answer.

We all agree that we use the same model and admit that we often used stage 1, 2 and five more than 3 and 4. The group agreed that time is the most precious part of our teaching. We do not have the time on our side to complete the 5 stages. We have now realised what we have been missing  stages 3 and 4  which are the Practice and Evaluation time. We do these stages but not to the degree that is required. Usually a lot of time is given to preparation and scaffolding and modelling of tasks. This is followed by presenting a task to the students who are expected to complete it. However, Teachers should take clinics for students who did not grasp the idea and still need support for in depth understanding of the task. Having the fixed timeframe to complete the curriculum specially before the assessment week leaves pressure on the teacher and hence stage 3 and 4 are not given justice.

Through discussions within the group we have come to a common consensus that we need to balance our teaching expertly so that we provide opportunities for students to go through the 5 stages for deeper understanding of tasks.

For example when we introduce a topic you have taken a lot of time to prepare it, and present it a way which it will appeal to the students, showing and modelling the different strategies that you would like them to use then you let them go and do the follow up activities. You can work with a small group or the whole class drilling in what you want them to learn within that short time that is given to you. Even though you that there are quite a lot of students who haven’t grasp the idea yet and only a few who has got it you still have to move on to the next step because you need to move on. Everything is being rushed because you need to cover the whole topic in the time frame given before the assessment week. Stage 3 is always get squashed in and most of the time we forget about stage 4.

The group agreed that we don’t have the time but we need to make time for number 3 & 4.

Our preparation and plan must be students centred

More scaffolding for the students.

Time is vital, time is the factor that we need.

We found our discussion to be very beneficial and the reading does help reminding us teachers about our planning and what we are focussing on. We were also identify our next step.

Having fun at Uni-2016

My TESSOL paper has actually started which I had spent the whole day at Uni on the 4th of March. It was an exciting day. This is my 3rd core paper which is the EDPROFST 373 Language Learning in the New Zealand Context. The learning outcomes for this session will help build on our understanding of :

• the elements of tasks and consciousness raising tasks
• Connections between task and language processes
• and how to create tasks for Second Language Acquisition (SLA).

The lecture for the day was focussed on the Language learning theories and their findings about Second Language Acquisition (SLA). We did the jigsaw puzzle where everyone had been assigned to a home group and then to their theory’s group and then back to home group to report about our discussion.

I read the Gardner’s Socio-educational Model and some of Gardner’s key parts presented were about the ‘ability and aptitude for language’ and two concepts that are part of the reason why some students learn the language faster than others.

‘Ability and Aptitude’ and Baker (1992) explained that there are two types of people who learn second language. People who have the aptitude and motivation’.

Group 1 learn language because they want to socialised with different ethnic communities or wish to join a cultural activities and the second group wish to learn the language because they want to acquire a job and earn money or want to further up their career prospects which is known as a motivational instrument. The first group is known as integrative motivation.

Maths PLD

Yesterday afternoon our staff had a PLD with Sue Pine. Her focus was on Book 1 (NZ Maths). We brainstormed all the strategies that we know about numbers regarding our children’s levels (year 3 & 4) and what they need to know by the end of this year. For example at the end of year 2 students should be able to work at Stage 4: Advanced counting and at the end of year 3 students will be able to work at the early stage 5 and at the end of year 4 they should be work at stage 5. We did our brainstorm and come up with these

This task makes me realised where my students are at and where to next and what I really need to focus on. Sue encouraged us to move away from ability group to mixed group so they can learn from each other using talk moves. What I got from today’s PLD is:

• Have mixed ability groups so that students learn from each other.
• Encourage students to participate in discussions.
• Have high expectations

Learning Samoan

During the school holidays, I took a Samoan paper. It was a great opportunity learning Samoan Language and getting to know more about the Samoan language and culture. It was a huge challenge sitting there listening to the lecture while the lecturer carried on talking to us in Samoan. On the first morning the lecturers introduced themselves and told us that the lecture will be delivered in Samoan, immediately I said to myself “ why did I ever take this paper”. At the same time, I thought about the students in my classroom which gave me the courage to take it. It was challenging but the best thing about Samoan language that I have learnt is that the words are spelled just like how they are pronounced. Not only that but there are some words in the Samoan language which are the same as the Tongan language though the meanings are totally different.