ELL Superhero

This week I am introducing my ELL Superhero: Pepe the Kid! Pepe is a mask-and-cape-wearing, forest-loving, dog-friendly multilingual child meant to inspire ELLs and help them feel like they are not alone in their struggles with English in the classroom. Here is Pepe the Kid!

Pepe is from El Salvadore and speaks Spanish as well as English. Pepe's superpower is the ability to fly around the classroom to help ELLs with their STEM projects - he is full of ideas (and scientific thinking prompts) related to the assignment at hand! When it comes to making sense of our natural world and putting ideas into words, Pepe is your kid!

I am not currently in a classroom (virtual or otherwise) but I envision having Pepe as a part of my third / fourth grade STEM classroom for ELL support. By having an avatar whom students can envision as themselves:

1. they may feel more comfortable accessing their background knowledge and applying to the problem at hand
2. they may feel more comfortable using translanguaging as a tool to demonstrate knowledge
3. they may more readily utilize the scientific thinking prompts when discussing their observations (e.g. I observed ______; When ______ happened, I noticed ______ also happened; I predict ______)
4. they may better relate to participating in the scientific method:

• Making initial observations,
• Coming up with a question of interest based on the observations
• Developing a hypothesis or prediction to go along with the question
• Experimenting and testing
• Gathering and recording results of tests and experiments and drawing conclusions
• Sharing and discussing results

Week 7 post

This week I reflected on two poems I read in Tongue Tied:

Learning Silence by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

The author of Learning Silence expresses fear as a young student in Miss Burton’s class, mainly because she feel disgust emanating from her teacher (“I hope Miss Barton will not curl her lip when she looks at me”). She describes perfectly how it feels to be a helpless, innocent child who experiences rejection from authority. This is a stark reminder for us as future teachers to be inclusive to all students. I felt heartbroken as I read this piece since I could feel the hostility that this poor child must have felt from her teacher - no one should have to feel that way.

English con Salsa by Gina Valdés

This poem appears to poke fun at the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at her school. She refers to the class ESL 100 which is an introduction to ESL as ‘English Surely Latinized’ and which does not have the intended effect of really teaching English since there is no real communication or dialogue between people. “In four months you’ll be speaking like George Washington,” but there is no recognition of who each person is, what they know and where they came from.  The author states: ‘Welcome, amigos’, and ‘bring…your patience of pyramids, your red suns and golden moons, your guardian angels’, but what is missing is the English Language lesson acknowledging these traditions and cultures. Instead, the lessons focus on pronouns, past participles, gerunds, verbs, etc. without the proper context. They become words without meaning – and how can anyone possibly learn language like that?

Source: Ana, O. S. (2004). Tongue-tied: The lives of multilingual children in public education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

The Future of Education is in Two Languages - reflection

Fabice Jaumont’s article The Future of Education is in Two Languages provides three objectives of the new form of bilingual education: to promote cultural heritage as a part of our society, to help important dialogue occur between parents, school administrators and teachers, and to promote an inclusive environment that is respectful of all.

I agree with Jaumont because the fact is, multiculturalism is the new normal in America. Our laws tend to reflect a backwards view in all areas (my opinion) because our legal system is meant to be slow and to allow time for lots of debate. However, the times are moving fast now. Many institutions have leapfrogged the issue and are actively promoting dual languages and multi cultures – a recent visit to the New York Hall of Science included signs and exhibits in two or more languages, and there were docents who specialized in foreign language to help the visitors of the museum.

Also, as I learn more about the teaching profession during graduate school, I see how much is being expected of schools and of teachers simply because of the fact that our education system is not built to reflect or support the diversity of its constituents. But I am hopeful that big change is on the horizon.

Source: https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/05/16/the-future-of-education-is-in-two-languages/

Week 2 Assignment #3

Reflections on excerpts from Tongue Tied, edited by Otto Santa Ana - Wascicula ya he? (Do you speak English?) (pp. 56-63); From the Woman Warrior (pp. 78-81); Mother Tongue (pp. 169-73); My Hawai’I pp179-83)

I enjoyed reading Wascicula ya he? (Do you speak English?) by Delphine Red Shirt because there was such a clear description of the narrator’s language influences: Nebraska public school through third grade, Government-run school from 4^th – 6^th grade, and Religious school from 7^th grade onwards. Her experiences in the Nebraska public school were colored with warm emotional language and it seemed that the school was a place of joy for her – full of colors, books, smiling teachers and music. In contrast, the Government school seemed to be devoid of warmth and suffering from a bare bones curriculum with no funding for the arts. This story highlights to me the importance of emotional care when teaching children, especially when the goal is to improve their cognition. Luckily, her mentor in 7^th grade helped her to learn conversational English while her reading ability improved by reading filmstrips independently. I think reading and speaking a new language are really two different skills, and it was lucky that the narrator found a mentor to speak with so early on in 7^th grade. 

In the excerpt from the Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston I noted that the author, from kindergarten through second grade, refused to speak in American school except to other Chinese students. As an English Language Learner, she noted the struggled with the English words for “I” and “here” because they differed in so many ways from the Chinese words for “I and here.” It stuck with me that the narrator covered all her pictures/drawings with black paint during her silent time. I wonder if she had a sadness to speak English, or was she just frustrated that it was not coming easily to her? The author juxtaposed her experiences in American school during the day, and Chinese school in the evenings by reflecting the Chinese school as a space where the child could be free, run around and act wild, and not have to be ‘put on the spot’ to speak out loud in front of everyone else. I interpret her struggle to read out loud in front of others as being a culturally different between East and West, where Eastern cultures promote collectiveness and look down on individuality, while the reverse is true in the West.

In Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, the author discusses the different language she uses when speaking for an audience when compared to the language she uses when speaking with her Mother. I can relate to this story since my mom also has ‘limited English’ and has not been treated respectfully at times due to lack of being understood. She used to be self-conscious about it but is not any longer. Interestingly, she has really improved her vocabulary since she joined the Cleveland Hiking Club. During her many hikes with other American hikers, she has gotten more comfortable with conversational English (and reading/posting to Facebook!). I am so happy she found this group because it is a great source of happiness for her.

My Hawai’l by Nana Veary was a story of loss of language which I found heartbreaking. The author speaks about the loss of the traditional Hawaiian culture and language traditions. I noticed some similarities in the Hawaiian focus on spirituality in comparison to the Hindu traditions, where for example guests are treated with much respect, and the divinity within a human being is recognized and honored - the ‘aloha spirit’ (Santa Ana, 81). The author celebrates the poetry and unique expression of ideas in the old Hawaiian way. Many idioms simply do not translate into the new Hawaiian way of speaking. As ELL teachers we need to understand that students may be starting from a place where their ways of speaking do not translate into English. This is a difficult concept, but just having this awareness gives me heart.

Works Cited
Santa Ana, Otto (editor): Tongue Tied: The lives of multilingual children in public education. Lanhan, 2004. 

Week 2 Assignment #2

Q: Find one or more examples of an IQ test. Examine the content of the test and locate any items which you think will be unfair to bilinguals in your region. Examine both the language and the cultural content of the IQ test.

A: Since I do not have access to the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WICS) test, I chose to visit a popular IQ test website called https://iqtest.com/, which calls itself “The World’s Leading Online IQ Test.” From the first 10 questions alone, I picked out number 8 and number 9 which seemed to be more like language test questions than IQ questions. 

I did come across what appear to be Best Practices published by Pearson which is a test preparation company which notes that the use of English IQ tests with a non-English speaker will not measure IQ but rather language ability; therefore it would be an ‘invalid use of test.’ However, the use of such test would be valid if ‘the purpose of testing is solely to determine level of functioning as compared to English speakers and NOT for determining disability.

Source - see page 9

However, the Wechsler Test has been adapted into Spanish in 2017 (WISC-V) and I wonder if U.S. public schools are adopting its use?

Introduction

Welcome to my Blog focused on English Language Learning! I look forward to a busy summer learning about the historical and current issues faced by ELL and ELL teachers.