Lesson Plan Reflection

Lesson Plan Reflection In this reflection essay, it will justify the content reasoning for implementing alliteration in a SIOP lesson plan for English Language Learners. For the most part, English Language Learners experience difficulties in their quest to obtain language proficiency because of their under develop cognitive skills, intellectual skills,efficient and effective exposure to the target language. Having this knowledge teachers have to realized that they should use differentiate instruction, provide visuals, and meaningful feedback to keep students motivated, and engaged in learning to obtain effective language skills that will help them in academic studies and life beyond . The lesson plan focal points is to help student improve in the four domain areas of reading,writing, listening and speaking, according to the ELD and Common Core Standards for that grade level in Language Arts. First, to justify the reasoning of the lesson we must first understand why should student learn alliteration.

Alliteration is an effective tool that excites and encourage students reading and writing skills. Alliteration is a creative form of poetry, that most students have already experienced in their early stages of life from nursery rhymes or lullabies told to them by the parents. However, by teaching the students alliteration it helps students to connect with prior knowledge, have a better opportunity to understand the contextual meaning of words,pronunciation, sentence structure,tone and the authors purpose. It is known fact that ELL students struggle with language acquisition because they have difficulties grasping those language concepts skills needed to met the standards. So by teaching alliteration students will have more opportunities to practice their phonemic awareness and time to play with language that will enhance the vocabulary and the function of language. Phonemic awareness is simply the ability to help student listen and identify words that beginning or ending sounds of letters. (Wilson,K.2011). Especially, when reading tongue twisters that have same begin letters sound.

The more repetitive practice the student gets with the sounds . It is likely that the struggling student will learn to speak,read and write. To give student more practice simply place students in small cooperative learning groups with peers on similar proficiency level or the teacher provide a more intensive direct teaching for that student. As the student continues to practice with phonetic sounds they will begin to decode,spell and read simple words. According to Robin Schwarz article,”Awareness with ESL students”, English pronunciation and spelling is very challenging for ELL students , but when provided the right tools to see the patterns it helps them to master words on their own.(Schwarz,R 2006). Next, let’s see how implementing alliteration in the classroom keep the students engaged in learning. To keep the student motivated the teacher introduce different arrays of alliteration poems like nursery rhymes, tongue twisters and songs that followed the pattern of alliteration, this is consider to be language play.

Language play is the art of providing positive interaction with peers and teachers, which in turn makes the learning a positive experience for the student. This takes away threatening stress of students having to worry about correct punctuation and sentence structure that might be challenging for the students.(Kramsch,C.2000). Because these are ELL student their must always be visual aid or diagram to show a clear objective of what the student needs to learn in order to reach that goal. Throughout the different stages of the lesson it is imperative that the teacher stops at various times to ask scaffolding questions to check for understanding and maintain the students interest in learning. By doing this, it provides meaningful feedback and a better opportunity for students to interact through listening actively and share their ideas with peers to what they believe the author’s purpose was in writing the different materials presented.

This is the key in making the transition from oral to written language. After the teacher has taught and delivered an effective lesson plan, the teacher can then assess the student learning by having follow up various activities that help student to utilize the skills they have learn in the lesson. The student’s were then able access their learning and create their own headline poem. They use various materials like magazines, newspaper and technology to play different word choices to help them to focus on the central theme of alliteration. It is my overall opinion that alliteration poetry has many positive benefits for students reading and writing skills. It enriches their vocabulary,teaches grammar and other linguistic skills. Helping them to build a better foundation in their abilities to read,write, speak and listen the new target language and obtain language proficiency in all subject areas.

References

Kramsch, C. (2000). Second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and the teaching of foreign languages,The Modern Language Journal,84(3)pgs. 311-326 Schwarz, Robin,(2006) Using Phonemic Awareness with ESL students, Retrieved on October 14,2014, from www.readinghorizons.com/research/teaching-esl-students-reading- phonemic-awareness

Wilson, K.,(2011) Phonemic Awareness and Alliteration,Teaching the kids, Retrieved on October 14,2014, from www.teachingthekids.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/phonemic- awareness-and-alliteration