Bernice Garcia

Reflection for Standard 3.a Planning for Standards- Based ESL and
Content Instruction

My artifact for Standard 3.a: Planning for Standards- Based ESL

and Content Instruction has been selected from a curriculum map I
created for my second grade units. As I created this curriculum map I
was able to demonstrate my understanding in applying concepts,
research, and the best practice to plan classroom instructions to
supportive learning environment for ESOL students.
It is imperative for teachers to plan unit curriculum that connects
to all subjects. Creating unit curriculum that connects to all subjects
makes learning cohesive to all learners especially for ELLs (English
Language Learners). Being able to concentrate on one theme and build
upon it with every lesson through out the day provides many
opportunities for ELL students to explore vocabulary words, understand
and practice the content in multiple ways and have a unified classroom
environment that builds on.
This is why I like to create curriculum maps based on a unit that
include ELA, Social Studies, Science, Math and Word Study. I choose a
theme to concentrate for about a month that aligns to all the common
core standards I need to teach. For the beginning of the year I like to

start off with the theme communities (as shown on my artifact). I

connect the theme communities, to all five-subject areas. This helps
me create lesson plans that explore different aspects of communities
across all five-subject areas that build upon one another effectively to
reach each learning target all students, including my ELLs need to
achieve.
I believe that creating these unit curriculums has helped me
design structure lesson plans that support English language objectives
for my ELL students and a structure-learning environment.
When I create these units they build on my professional growth
because it provides the opportunity to develop planning that is
developmentally appropriate, interactive, and supportive for my ELL
students. It also helps me connect to all subject areas that offer
different opportunities for ELL students to explore and practice the
content. I also discovered that using all my subject-areas to teach one
theme has helped me connect the content to culture and language for
my ELL students. Therefore, this is an area I would like to keep growing
in. I would like to learn ways to implements culture and language to
subjects like math, social studies and science. I believe that growing in
this area will help my ELL students make connections to their home
language, build cultural awareness, value and respect diversity.