Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 8

I really liked the part of chapter eight that stated, "focus on the important thinking we do, not just language mistakes" (151). This, paired with the idea that directly follows it, which talks about having a shared goal with these students to help them excel academically, are two very important ideas to me. Students who don't primarily speak English face so many difficulties coming into an English speaking school. If teachers can do everything in their power to ease and support that transition, as the book points out, than those students will have one less thing to struggle with.

I really want to be able to support all of my students equally. I have confidence that I can do this with many different types of learners, but the one thing I had never considered before was the fact that I'll have students who don't speak English at home, or who have just moved here from another country. I am now a lot more interested in starting to gather the tools I would need to make that experience a lot more enjoyable for those students. If I can do as the book suggests and make a point to pick out all of the really good things that my ESL kids do, than it would show both them and my other students that concepts and strong thinking can become more important than perfect grammar or speech.