Elementary Practicum JournalKindergarten Spanish Immersion ClassKirkman Park Elementary SchoolHigh Point, NCThis journal focuses on topics studied in the FLmethods classroom as seen depicted duringmy practicum experience.Discipline and Behavior ManagementDiscipline in the classroom, or behavior management, is important in order to maintain lesson/activity flow, keep students on task, and maintain a safe classroom environment. Discipline at the Kindergarten level is especially important regarding small safety detailssuch as carrying scissors, walking speed and care in the classroom (to prevent slipping and tripping, etc.). The immersion classroom requires special attention to points of safety—it is imperative that students understand the meaning of safety directions so that they can use that information as behavior guidance. My general assumptions regarding behavior management in the immersion settingwould require more animation of tone in order to create immediate meaning comprehension in the student in order to support what is actually being said by the teacher. As in any class, students require reinforcement and scaffolding of behavior as well. This means that all students should be praised (with appropriate tone of voice) when they are doing something good (which is done at the elementary level even in non-immersion settings—Oh Sally! That is so nice of you to share. DeShawn thank you for working so quietly at your seat. I see that Marcia is being a good listener. Thank you, Marcia.). Withdrawing privileges from students is a way to teach them to behave appropriately.I heard a lot of praise and reinforcement of behavior during this initial observation. However, the teacher also neglected to give positive reinforcement for goodbehaviors exhibited by one particular student who was treated as a “problem” student. This student was clearly being ignored in order to teach him a lesson. The teacher shouldnever withhold praise of a problem student when he or she is doing well; in fact whateverproblem students do that is good should be praised to reinforce and scaffold the behavior. Next, I noticed that the teacher changed her voice as I would expect when reprimanding her students. What was clearly evident, however, was the cultural difference between herchanging tone of voice and what I expected. Her tone was more angry than stern. She was more demeaning than simply making statements when she said, “I don’t hear students that yell at me.” Or “I don’t talk to students who are not in their seats.” “Am I talking or are you talking? I’m talking.” She also yelled at students for not completing their work, for continually coming to her and asking questions, for playing with other classmates, and for not properly carrying scissors. I think that this class needs more guided practice in order to stay on task, stay in their seats working, ask fewer questions, interact less with one another, etc. I acknowledge that the angry tone of the teacher may be a natural way to correct a child in the culture of the teacher/ target culture; however it is necessary for the teacher to recognize that the culture of students may view that behavior as aggressive and have adverse affects on the student’s performance and motivation regarding school in general. It is possible that the teacher is trying to teacher them this part of cultural communication through her actions/reactions, however I am not sure that I would feel comfortable treating a child in the same manner. Gestures for comprehensible inputThe use of gestures in the classroom is very important in order for students to obtain comprehensible input in the second language class. This is especially important when there is an information gap that can be filled without use of the first language of thestudent because what they need to be doing is connecting meaning with the language. Gestures can also be great reinforcement of what is being said. Students should learn gestures used in the target culture because this is also part of communication. Another reason why the use of gestures is important is because when this visual element of communication is added to the auditory element of language it is more likely that students will transfer this information to working memory and then to long-term memory,acquiring the language so that after enough input they will be able to output. I think that I have taken the use of gestures for granted in the classroom for granted because I have always assumed that that is what should be done in order to convey meaning where the idea may be “blurry.” Some of the most excellent language teachers I have studied under or observed have used gestures as a given whenever they are speaking in the foreign language with their students. I have found that most native speakers of the target language do not use as many gestures as those who have had to learn and acquire the language later in life. These gestures appear not only as social gestures, but more importantly they are more a theatrical element. I think that gestures can not only convey meaning, but they can keep student attention focused on the teacher (even if the only reason they are focused is because they cannot believe that the teacher ismaking such a fool of him/herself). The teacher that I observed is a native speaker of Spanish. However, in her classroom she did use gestures (this includes frequent changes in facial expressions and posture to reinforce tone and mood). When she spoke about students using a wand to point to days of the week, she told them not to smack the words with the wand and modeled what this would look like by smacking and using gestures and facial expressionsthat implied this was negative; then smiling, she delicately touched the wand to each word. The most marked use of gestures in the classroom was when she reprimanded a student for carrying scissors in a flippant and unsafe manner. The use of gesture for comprehensible input here was very important because safety was the matter at hand. She scolded the student for carrying the scissors a certain way, taking them from him and demonstrating how he was doing it incorrectly, telling him that he could poke his eye while acting like she was poking her own eye out. Next she said how to carry the scissors first modeling it and then placing them in the students hand in the same way. Use of gestures in the case of safety and teaching is very