Reflection 1

Standard 2 ESC 769

Standard 2. Culture as it affects Student Learning. Candidates know, understand,
and use the major theories and research related to the nature and role of culture in
their instruction. Because of the way cultural identity influences self-esteem,
candidates understand how cultural groups and individual cultural identities affect
language learning and school achievement. They use a range of resources to
discover more about their students backgrounds. Candidates know that students
learn more readily when cultural factors are recognized, respected, and
accommodated, and they demonstrate this knowledge in their curriculum planning,
material selection, and teaching. They involve students families and community
members in students learning.

In my course Latinos in U.S. Schools, ESC 769, at Lehman College, we
examined the educational issues affecting Latinos in the United States, with a focus
on the urban school setting. During this course I was asked to write a teaching
philosophy on TESOL with research to support my beliefs. At this time I took a close
look at the challenges culturally and linguistically diverse learners face, their impact
on language learning and academic achievement, and ways that teachers can
support and instruct these students. I learned throughout this process the
importance of keeping the students cultural identity in mind while creating,
planning, and instructing lessons. My philosophys foundation comes from creating
a safe, comfortable, and accepting environment for all learners and remembering
that each student has a different background and approach to learning needs to be
considered before creating lessons.
This artifact demonstrates my understanding of Standard 2 because I was
given the opportunity to think deeply on what my goals were as not only an
educator, but also an ESL educator. In this assignment I discussed the challenges
culturally and linguistically diverse learners face, such as parental involvement in
education. Many cultures often will keep away from their childs school and believe
that the teacher is always correct, however, it is my responsibility to invite and
welcome these families into the classroom and let them know in this culture we
base a lot of our education on family participation and presence.
This assignment has helped me understand Standard 2, but has helped me
prepare tremendously for my future classroom. It took my teaching philosophy,
tweaked it, and opened it up so that it the curriculum and learning goals were more
diverse and based on the student body and backgrounds. This seems like quite the
difficult task but I believe with practice, it could get easier over the years; the most
important part is that we recognize the culture each student brings into the
classroom, and how we can capitalize and display that.