Portfolio Final Reflection

By Mrs. Catherine Andino Santiago

Once a project comes to an end it is imperative

that we all reflect on the journey. Learning aims to

shape and mold us into greater beings. Once an

individual has devoted 12 months into learning new

skills, strategies, and activities; it is necessary to recall and connect all the acquired

knowledge so that we can be transformed in better teachers and hence better a better

person. Teachers are set every day in an enclosed space with maturing minds that

watch us and follow our commands. Teachers have to the power to make someone

fall in love or resent the learning experience. We must make these choices every day.

Sometimes its just about painting a smile on our face or expressing how satisfied we

are with the students progress. Yet, sometimes, it’s just might be about pulling up a

chair and sitting next to a student and letting them know they are doing ok.

Standards, expectations, rubrics, assessments are well placed in the minds of our

students, yet what they know about learning is an experience, a gratification, or a

failed attempt. Therefore, a teacher’s devotion not only to professional development

but to the human being that sits on that desk everyday is the holistic view of the

students and future society members that we teach.

 Language learning hold no other parallel in the education curriculum. The

goal of second language learning is to broaden the scope of a students, making them

the recipients of possibilities that will help their future choices. Teaching ESL

provided students an alternative way of thinking that includes listening-speaking,

reading and writing. Another tacit goal is to communicate with others. Their ability

master the skills of the second language will provide them with the courage and the

will-power to present themselves in situations they might encounter in the future.

During these last 12 months, we have gone through the process of learning

valuable skills and getting on contact with outstanding professional that love the

classroom as much as we love. I believe that the balance throughout the course

selection was adequate to our teaching needs. All professors not only demonstrated

the mastery of the different themes in the courses, but also the strategies to adapt the

materials to our contemporary classroom and population. Granted, some courses

required a much more ‘hand-on’ approach, yet I believe it was well balanced. The

aspect that I enjoyed the most was sharing these learning experiences with

colleagues that are also present in the classroom. We developed rich, pertinent

conversations and discussions where we took away strategies and techniques also

from our peers.

The curricular framework from the Department of Education, as revised this

past year, merges the skills of listening and speaking. I believe this is an
advantageous change because these skills are naturally bonded in nature. A concept

that stuck with me during the last course with Dr. Kevin Caroll was the concept of

“comprehensible input”. This refers to input that students can use to make

connection to their first language. All the other skills needed to master, come because

of having abundant comprehensible input. We can note that this concept allows

students to connect their native and first language and make connection that help the

learning process. Most English teacher that I encounter fear that because of lack of

understanding, they are forced to occasionally speak Spanish in the classroom. To

this day, some people still consider this to be inadequate and that this practice will

intervene negatively with the language learning goals. During the workshops I

learned that this practice, not made a habit, will greatly allow students to make

substantial connections in class, allowing them to participate and engage with the

language. Ultimately, the teacher aims to engage the student in such a way that

students become aware of their learning needs.

In speaking a second language, the most recognizable barrier is the accent or

intonation that Hispanics possess while trying to speak English. In particular, Puerto

Ricans are a proud people and have yet to allow themselves to the flexible in their

pronunciation. This is a significant challenge when fostering conversational skills in

the classroom. As Prof. Elenita Irizarry Ramos stated in her podcast, it is inevitable

to separate our colonial and political stats from the stigma of teaching English in the
schools of Puerto Rico. The learning of English in school is still a questionable and

debatable subject in popular culture. Therefore, the roles of teachers, not only as a

model for language skills, but also for attitudinal approached to the language is

imperative. This is not to say that both languages ‘compete’ but that we can all be

better Puerto Ricans by learning not only English but by becoming multilingual

professionals.

The single most significant concept that I learned thorough the DECEP

courses was the concept of Translanguaging. Oh, this brought joy to my heart! It had

been quietly siting in my consciousness. Being able to hear, professional educations

on the doctorate level, speak about this topic and encourage us to incorporate it in

our lessons was very satisfying. Translanguaging allows teachers to reward critical

thinking regardless of the level of proficiency of the student. It has been my

experience that all students wish to be heard and considered. Translanguaging allows

students the ease of connecting to the second language without the fear of making

mistakes and being help accountable for them. Essentially, it allows the flexibility

of the L1 language to be respected and incorporated into the discussions held in the

classroom on a day-to-day basis.

Most of the schools in Puerto Rico are focused on reading comprehension. It

has been spotlighted on the META exams and the curricular framework of the

English Program. Most of the teacher planning time is consumed by looking for
resources that are not only adequate to our students’ academic needs but also to their

cultural needs. We learned from Prof. Fiorelys Mendoza the need to have available

a wide array of reading choices so that our students can select literature that best

suits them. This is clearly a situation in our schools. Libraries in schools are mostly

nonfunctional and grade-level literature targeted at our students’ specific needs in

practically nonexistent. Most of the reference material that is provided in our

classroom met state requirements but are not pertinent to our student population.

Not only are there hardly any books available in stores, but there is also a lack of

cultural appreciation to reading. Therefore, English teachers that want to promote

reading in the classroom must make it an intentional systematic approach to reading

and to exposing students to books that are adapted to their needs. It is no secret that

most of our students are well below in grade level reading. I believe that the

Department of Education needs to consider this in the reference material they

provide the teacher.

Reading and writing are well connected skills. It is highly unlikely that a

student that has not been exposed to sufficient literature can write adequately.

Writing required not only clear content but also the mechanics of the second

language. Most students refer that this is the hardest of the skills to master, yet it is

a highly prioritized skill. Most of our classroom dynamics centers on how well

students can express their communicative ideas in written form. I believe that most
English classroom teacher have had the experience of a students telling them that

they “know the answer” to a certain question, but that they don’t know how to write

it down, either in their notebooks or on a test. Translanguaging allows a little

flexibility in this sense, but as teachers, our goal is for students to also be competent

in expressing their ideas in written form. This is also a skills that requires

scaffolding and careful planning so that students can produce authentic pieces that

express their ideas appropriately. This takes time. It has been the practice over the

last few years to allow students revision tools like translate software and other apps

to help them write. Most students become frustrated and resort to these app I believe

because they are required more that what they are adequately authentically do. This

poses a real issue for teachers who recognize the problem yet need to meet the

curricular framework requirements. There is a wide array of auxiliary devices, but

students mostly use them as input and output of whole material. I believe this does

not help the students and can transfer a message that there is no need to learn new

words, word functions or word structure. Writing also requires an abstract set of

skills such as planning and selecting content. For persuasive writing, a clear mindset

must be the basis. These issues might delay the development of well-rounded skills.

In the courses, I have learned that observation, practice, and the application of

consistent learning strategies aid breeching the gap that our students present.
 In the practical aspect of teaching, I learned to refine my lesson planning

skills. Mini-lessons that can incorporated into unit lessons allows teachers to target

the specific needs of a group. It targets areas where teachers recognize and identify

an obstacle that can be interrupting the general lesson plans. This allows teachers the

autonomy to determine which aspects of the learning cycle they need to target

withing a group of students. Most of the teachers that I know are stuck between what

the curricular maps state and the needs that they identify in their students. The ability

to be able to integrate a minilesson within a broader span will help the student and

will target those specific areas that might have been left behind or maybe have never

even been targeted.

My minilessons were all targeted at aspects that I believe are overlooked at in

the secondary level. For my listening minilesson, I decided to target, what has been

my experience, one of the most difficult sounds to master, the short /u/ sound. It is

the vowel sound that causes most students to default to Spanish. For my speaking

mini-lesson, the intonation and word order of questions within a conversation was

targeted. This is also a skill needed in conversational English, It can help listeners

decode more words within a sentence by recognizing intonation within interrogative

sentences. My reading mini lesson aims for students to mingle between third person

and first-person narrative conventions. These are proper to narrative and persuasive

styles and are greatly targeted in the secondary level. It also aids in language arts
conventions of personal pronouns usage. My last min-lesson in writing, was targeted

at persuasive paragraph writing with the use of sentence starters. It was a lesson

designed to scaffold the construction of a persuasive paragraph and proofread with

the aid of a checklist. I believe these minilessons can and will be used at my current

teaching grade level.

I have been teaching ESL for 16 years, in the private sector for 14 and just

recently for the Department of Education. I believe in John Dewey’s theory that we

learn by doing. I have just recently finished my bachelor’s degree in education and

am eagerly expecting to also be certified as an English teacher. It is what I do.

Teachers are made in the classroom. Every group of students that we meet teacher s

something, makes us adapt to something new. Generations change, but teachers

adapt. This is our driving force. I feel much more equipped and much more confident

in my teaching skills. I still feel like I need to improve the area of management of

the curricular maps and paperwork. I would also like to target more conversational

teaching lessons because I believe this is what the students mostly want to.

For new teachers, it is all about creating a balance in the activities. ESL will

definitely prove to be more challenging with the struggles that this generations has

endured so we should all keep in mind that small progress is still progress and that

most of the fruit of our work will be seen in the long run. Be patient with yourself

and be optimistic about your students because they will learn something with you!