Initial Thoughts on the Language Arts Classroom...

              At the moment, I am thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet of my house. I feel like I’m in a similar, somewhat frazzled, state to what I might feel like after a day in an elementary classroom, so perhaps this is a good time for some reflection on what might make an engaging elementary language arts classroom. My niece and nephew who are three and five have just gone home after spending the day with my husband and I, and besides the amazing amount of energy that children have, what strikes me is their incredible imagination and creativity. Since I don’t have many toys at my house, while making supper, my nephew grabbed two yams off the counter and happily played with them as spaceships for about fifteen minutes.

            One of the things I really look forward to in teaching language arts is finding ways to capture children’s imagination and ideas through creative writing, representing, reading etc. I always enjoyed the language arts as a young student whether through creative writing projects, reading novels, or even learning cursive writing. I distinctly remember my grade 5 teacher challenging me and a few of the other eager ELA students to writing a ‘novel.’ I think that now, she stands out to me as one of the best teacher’s I ever had because she recognized that all of the students in the class were unique and she found ways to engage all of the learners in the class.

After just returning from spending three years in Quebec, I also feel like I have a new appreciation for language arts. With neither my husband nor I speaking very much French upon our arrival, living in a town where 94% of the population was Francophone was definitely challenging at times.  You begin to realize how much of an impact language has on our day to day lives. Body language and gestures play a huge role in communication (particularly when you’re not speaking the same language!), comprehension definitely comes before speaking and writing ability, and representing and viewing are excellent learning tools.

I am excited to learn ways to encourage my future students to appreciate and enjoy the language arts, and since I can’t say I have a lot of experience in the classroom I will be taking a more varied approach on the age groups. Like many of my other elementary education classmates, this is my first blog, so I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out ~ but fortunately it seems a little less daunting than I had anticipated, and hopefully it will get easier with practice. J