1.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while planning the
lesson?
As a group, diving up the work was difficult and determining who would
do what job. Only one of us was truly fluent in spanish, though it appeared
we all had at least some speaking ability. In the end, we decided to have one
teacher speaking so as not to confuse the students more than they needed
to be, while the other group members drew the math on the board and
assisted students around the room.
2. What was the biggest challenge you faced while teaching the
lesson?
While teaching the lesson, the biggest challenge was for me to
comprehend what Lauren was saying and the rate at which she was
speaking. I had difficulty matching my drawing to what she was saying.
Eventually, she decided to take over the writing portion, which I understand
given what we were trying to accomplish in 5 minutes. However, this is
indicative that ELL student interactions are even frustrating for the teacher,
who may decide it would be simpler for them to just perform the task
themselves.
3. What did you rely on the most during your instruction to
overcome these challenges?
As a group we relied on visual cues and the students bodys previous
understanding of math to get them through the lesson. I imagine most of
what Lauren said was missed by them however, a few key cognate words
and picture associations informed the class how to determine the length of
the hypotenuse.
4. Was communication with your students easier or more difficult
than you originally thought?
Communication with the students was easier than I thought, though
this is more in relation to them pointing and me correcting them. Many hand
motions, picture associations, and repetition was necessary to get across
only a single word. If this lesson had not so heavily relied on symbols and
math, the communication portion of the lesson would have taken up most of
the class time.
5. Do you feel you used co-teaching as effectively as you could
have?
Given our circumstances, I feel that my group used co-teaching to to
best of our abilities. We had a crutch in the form of a spanish language
teaching major and tutor in the language office. Although the students
missed most of what she was saying, her fluency and speed allowed her to

drive forward through the lesson and achieve a somewhat grade appropriate
objective.
6. Do you feel you achieved your objective? How can you be sure
you did or didnt?
We achieved our objective and were able to check this by going around
the room and seeing the students respond to the task of finding the
hypotenuse. Without having exact numbers, I would say over 80% of the
class understood what we wanted them to do and how to do it, which
achieves the criteria of our objective.
7. As a student of other groups lessons, what was the biggest
challenge you faced?
Remembering the words in languages im not familiar with such as pig
latin and sign language was very difficult even when covering things like
colors and making a pizza.
AAs As a student, what did you rely on most to comprehend what
was being taught?
I mostly relied on visual cues and hearing the assignment more than
one to recall how to answer each of the questions. Although I knew the
answer in English, expressing it in the other languages took time, which
could be perceived as not understanding to a teacher in a real classroom
with ELL students.