Kaylee Evans

Educ 359
Professor Reilly
August 31, 2022
Mini Lesson Reflection
As a teacher the biggest challenge while planning the lesson was trying to figure out
what language we wanted to do. I suggested ASL, but I was the only one who knew it, so we
decided to just go with Spanish because we all took it in high school. We also thought that
there was a deeper understanding to the assignment and were just confused as to what it was.
Another challenge that we faced was time management because we wanted to have enough
but not too much that we could not get through it all.
The challenges we faced as we taught the lesson were miscommunication errors
because they just could not tell what we were saying or that we may have been speaking in
Spanish the wrong way. The way we negated these issues were through pictures (which was
very helpful). We also used a lot of hand motions and pointing to try and get our point across.
To help us with the time management aspect, we kept a timer of our own, but I believe that as
time goes by and we get more and more practice it will come easier to us.
As a teacher this really put into perspective how hard it is to tend to the needs of every
student in your class. This activity simulated trying to instruct one or more ELL students by all
the confusion that occurred. It just makes you (as a teacher) work harder to get the students to
understand what they have to learn. We used “language” in our instruction through pictures,
body movements, and through Spanish (if some students knew it).
Now in the perspective of the student, I relied most on body movements, hand gestures
and other people in the class to comprehend what was taught. This is because I could not
understand what they were saying due to the lack of not knowing the language they spoke.
I can relate this activity to how ELL students feel in an English-speaking classroom
because we were being taught in a foreign language that we honestly could not even put
together. Through this activity, it showed exactly how those students feel and ways we can help
them into understanding even a section of the lesson. Sometimes you just don’t know where
every single student is coming from or their diverse backgrounds. You just have to take time
and be more considerate of those who are struggling a little bit more than others
.
Challenges:
- Hard to tell whether the students are understanding what the teacher is saying or
just getting the information from our peers.
- Making sure directions are clear and concise
Stuff we relied on:
- Visuals
- Hand gestures
- Body movements