Hello My name is Emmanuel Ogweta ,
I'm currently in my last semester of undergraduate at the University of Houston .
My major is Education and I'm working to get my certification to teach math 4th-8th .
I have been at the University of Houston for the last past 2 and half years .
I started of my education journey at a little community college called Richland College . Richland College is located in Dallas ,TX. During my time in the community college , I discovered myself being indecisive of what major I wanted to do . My mother has always wanted me to become an engineer . So I decided to follow my mother dream to make her happy . First year of college , I started of as a mechanical engineer major . I remember attending my first engineer class in college . The class was not difficult in my eyes. I have always been great in math .I just did not have a passion of pursing this career . Second year of college , I decided to switch my major to education . My high school basketball coach has inspired me to become a future coach one day . In order to become coach , I knew I had to learn more about how kids think . I thought education is the best major to learn more about kids . When I started taking education course , I fell in love with this major so much . I hope one day to become a basketball coach and a teacher .
ABOUT ME :
I'm not originally from this country . I migrated to the U.S at the age of 7 . Prior to arriving to U.S , I lived in Egypt for a couple of years . During my time there , I learned how to speak Arabic and also learned a lot about the culture . I was born December 28 , 1994 in Sudan , a country that is neighbor to Egypt . Sudan is located in the east part of Africa . I'm the middle child of the family . I have one older brother and one younger sister . I'm raised by a hardworking single mother , who has inspired me to believe in hard work . I love playing basketball and hanging out with my friends during my spare time .
Words that describe me :
I'm not originally from this country . I migrated to the U.S at the age of 7 . Prior to arriving to U.S , I lived in Egypt for a couple of years . During my time there , I learned how to speak Arabic and also learned a lot about the culture . I was born December 28 , 1994 in Sudan , a country that is neighbor to Egypt . Sudan is located in the east part of Africa . I'm the middle child of the family . I have one older brother and one younger sister . I'm raised by a hardworking single mother , who has inspired me to believe in hard work . I love playing basketball and hanging out with my friends during my spare time .
Words that describe me :
- Happy
- Humble
- Caring
- Energetic
- Passionate
Student Teaching : I'm currently in my second semester of student teaching . My placement is at Pilgrim Academy . Pilgrim is part of the Houston independent school district . The school has a huge number of Hispanic students . I work with 5th graders in a math settting . We have a huge amount of ELL and ESL students in our school . Everyday I learn
something new working with this type of kids . This student teaching experience has really develop me to become an effective teacher one day .
something new working with this type of kids . This student teaching experience has really develop me to become an effective teacher one day .
My philosophy : I learned that learning a new language can be very difficult for people . I learned this through personal reflection and also working in school setting that has a huge population of newcomers . In my school , we do a lot of pictorial models to teach our kids . I think showing pictures and using model can be very helpful when it comes to math . The most important thing I learned that doing the math is not the problem when it comes math . Most of our student have trouble understanding the story that is presented in the word problem . In class , we break down word problem by showing pictures and teaching them vocabulary words that they might have trouble understanding . This strategy seems to be helping a lot because our students are becoming good identifying the main idea of a question .
Learning a new language : I myself have mastered to learn two language in my lifetime . The first the language I learned to speak was Arabic . The second language was English . I learned to speak Arabic when I was just only 5 years old . I learned to speak Arabic by social interaction with my friends at school . English was tough to learn because one word can have so much meaning to it . Speaking English was not a problem but learning how to write it was difficult for me. I think the grammar part of English is the most challenging part of learning English .
So why is it difficult to learn a new language ?
I think learning a new language can build anxiety for some students . Working with ELL students in my school , the kids are afraid to to speak it in front of the classroom even if they have the correct answer to a question . When they are with their friends you can see the relaxation. Many of my kids fear is not knowing to share their thoughts in a full sentence because they do not understand some of the other words to gather their thoughts .
The best things you can do is ...
So why is it difficult to learn a new language ?
I think learning a new language can build anxiety for some students . Working with ELL students in my school , the kids are afraid to to speak it in front of the classroom even if they have the correct answer to a question . When they are with their friends you can see the relaxation. Many of my kids fear is not knowing to share their thoughts in a full sentence because they do not understand some of the other words to gather their thoughts .
The best things you can do is ...
- Use Nonverbal communication as much you can
- Allow students to interact with each other
- Build sentence stems
- Use Video to lecture
