8/29

Anthology Chapters 1 and 2

I found the most beneficial part of chapter 1 to be about the diagnosis, treatment, and assessment of English Language Learners. The paragraph about diagnosis taught me how to recognize if a person has a need for language instruction. Then, after reading about the treatment, I felt like this was something that I was more familiar with and had learned about last year in my education classes. I had never seen the list of the ten strategic investments for language learning/teaching, but I found them make a lot of sense and I understood why they would be appropriate in certain contexts or with specific students. Chapter 2 was much easier to follow along and was interesting to read. It was shocking to me that "effective teachers" are considered ones that have students who perform better on standardized tests. In all of the education classes that I've taken I've been taught that teachers shouldn't "teach to the test" and that standardized tests are ineffective ways to assess students, especially ELL's. In general, I believe that a variety of approaches should be used to teach any students whether ELL's or not. I could see myself using several of the approaches mentioned including the value-based and art-craft approach. In my opinion, all students learn differently and should be given several ways to learn the language and content.