Reflection 2 - A Topic in Language Education that I Want to know more about

The Importance of "Home Environment" in the Learning Process

Since I have been involved in Education field, as a future teacher, since 2005; I have been wondering how important the role of parents is , and also the home environment. Since my mother was the one who took care of me, and my pieces of homework, I always believed that parents are crucial during the learning process. However, I never thought that it was such a big deal, and that their importance was the critical point if we consider the following features: Communication about school, Supervision and Expectations and Parenting Style (Marzano, Robert J., 2003. What Works in Schools, Translating research into Practice, Chapter 13, Home Environment).

Owing to I have been involved in Teaching Shadowing for almost a week, "Home Environment" issue has been in my mind more than any other issue that I can recall. Today, Andrea, the teacher of the ELD (English Language Development) class at the school where I am doing my student teaching program, talked about the "Parent-Teacher conference". It was something new for me. However, I noticed that most of student's parents does not speak English. That made even harder for the teacher to explain what parents were supposed to do. Another important thing for me, it was the fact that most of the students said that their parents were not able to attend the conferences, owing to their jobs. That made me wonder, How these kids will be able to improve their English skills if their parents are not having communication with the school at all. Besides, how the kids are acquiring the new concepts, if at home there is no Supervision about what they are doing. These two questions, encouraged me to learn more about "Home Environment".



I really want to learn more about "Home environment" due to its high relevance in learning process. I also have my own beliefs, but I also know that it must be supported by research, and I do not want my opinions based on beliefs.

I strongly believe if parents have a good communication with the school where their child or children are attending, Parents will have more chances to see how their kids are doing and help them if it is necessary. But, have you ever consider that may be the parents do not speak the language of the school or perhaps they have no idea what their kids are reading or writing? That is my point. I would really want to know how to help these families.

After the points that I made above, I found these websites for teacher to see how they can help theirstudents. www.tcet.unt.edu/pteconnect/?module=Communicating&section=introduction&page=importance

-This website gives teacher a lot of information about the connections between home and school. Not only the good things, but also the problems such us Language Barriers.

http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/practice/itc/homeschool.html

-This website shows a piece of a research where it is explain how home and school connections work.

I believe that the two resources that I showed above can be very useful, if you want to know the importance of the connections between home and school. So, I recommend teachers to read through, and find out what is missing in their class so that it can be more effective.