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Improve the Language Assistant Program
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Identify two aspects you would change to improve the Language Assistant program.
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Explain briefly how you would do it.
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So the two things that come to mind with regards to this question are relatively broad,
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and I don't have the best solution for them.
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But one thing that came up when talking to other LAs or ETAs is that you see a wide range
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of what is expected of ETAs and how hard we have to work
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and how much we have to contribute to the classroom
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and how much people are either there being an active grading disciplinary teacher figure
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or more of just like this floating dictionary in the classroom.
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And so one thing that I feel like would be very beneficial to the ETA program,
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not just with Fulbright but in the whole comunidad in general with all of the ETAs,
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It would be some sort of standardization if there were some, like, much more delineated rulebook of expectations that say, like, as an ETA, you will be doing this much work, and then all teachers that work with ETAs would somehow be on board with that.
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But as this would be a comunidad-large issue dealing with thousands of teachers and auxiliares, I don't know the best way to solve that.
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But on the level of just Fulbright, however, the issue of discrepancy was also relevant with regards to global classrooms.
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Because I was kind of fortunate in that I had a counterpart at my high school, and we worked four hours a week with two different classes with global classrooms.
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But I know some other students or auxiliaries really had to fight to have global classrooms times in their school.
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And so that put us all occasionally on an uneven footing
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when it came to the Global Classrooms Conference.
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And so if things could be somewhat more standardized,
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I think that would be beneficial.
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And then my second one is also,
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my second area of improvement is also pretty large,
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and I don't know the best solution for it,
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but discipline has been a persistent issue in my school
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and I think with other auxiliaries too.
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because as a language assistant or teaching assistant you're sort of in this limbo where
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you're not a full teacher who can discipline students with a parte which is the the form that
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they give students when they really act out and so any threat that we give students is kind of
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you know an empty threat like be quiet or else you know you can't follow through with it or else and
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So it can be difficult to maintain discipline
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in the classroom.
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And plus, you know, 20 to 30 teenagers
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is gonna be a rowdy group regardless.
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So I guess if we were given some more specific tactics
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on how to manage discipline at the beginning,
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that would be beneficial.
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So I think one aspect is definitely the English classes
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where the assistants are placed.
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So I have a lot of classes where I'm working with students
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with an extremely basic level of English.
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And I think sometimes it's not super useful
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for these students to have us in the classroom
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because especially since we are not speaking Spanish at all,
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it's kind of just another voice that they have in the room
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that they don't understand.
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And I think it's a little bit intimidating for them.
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So I think it's kind of best to really focus
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the, um, assistance on either the bilingual, um, side or with classes that have some sort of
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ability to have conversation or on a conversational level, because otherwise I feel like we're not
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really sure how we can be utilized in those situations. Um, maybe one other option could be
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one-on-one with some of these students, but I think just having us in a classroom of students
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that really don't know, um, even the basics is kind of a difficult situation. So maybe changing
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that placement. I think another thing might be really to foster more collaboration between
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the teaching assistants at the school. So I had two other teaching assistants and I think it took
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us until March or April to realize that we should be collaborating because some of us even had
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the same groups of students, but we weren't doing any collaboration. So I think maybe
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having the school set times for just the assistants to meet and kind of share activities,
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maybe encourage them to have some sort of joint folder, because I know we had that for Fulbright,
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but not really with the other assistants at the school. So I think that could be another
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really great addition to the program as well. Would you recommend the language assistant program
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to other English speakers in your country? Why or why not? I would absolutely recommend the program
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to other speakers. I know that many young Americans, whether university students as I was,
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think occasionally about whether we could become teachers, whether we have the stuff that it takes
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to become a teacher or a debate coach, whether we have the patience and the creativity
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and the collaborative capacity to do all of that.
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And what I discovered in Spain this year is that thanks to the language
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assistant program, I now understand what teaching really entails.
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It's not just about preparing a lesson beforehand and lecturing to students.
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It's also figuring out how to adapt the material to motivate
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students who have different motivation levels
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and different academic abilities
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and the answer for me in the end has been
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that I do think that the high school
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classroom teaching life will be the correct
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life for me and I have to thank
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the language assistant program for that
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so if there are young Americans
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or other English speakers who have an
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interest in education and want to
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see what those possibilities can bring
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for them and for their students
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then I think it would be a wonderful option
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for them to consider
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Yes, I would definitely recommend the program to other English speakers in the United States.
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I think I would say I would recommend it to people that like teaching and like working with children or teenagers because it's not easy.
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I mean, it's pretty stress-free.
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We get to test out the classroom.
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We get to be assistants and learn about teaching and not necessarily be stressed and in charge of our whole class.
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But you still have to think about activities you want to do. You still have to deal with discipline.
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You have to do work outside of the classroom to make sure that you're going to run the classroom well.
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So it's important that you like the work you're doing.
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And I think that I really enjoy going to most of my classes and that makes it worthwhile and it makes it really fun.
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But if I didn't enjoy teaching, I don't think I would enjoy being a language assistant.
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- Subido por:
- Ignacio A.
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
- Visualizaciones:
- 7432
- Fecha:
- 4 de octubre de 2016 - 11:40
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- Sin centro asignado
- Duración:
- 07′ 15″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
- Resolución:
- 640x480 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 30.90 MBytes