This weeks readings had important implications for how I will conduct myself as an educator. My career as a student was significantly influenced by the fact that English is my first language and I need to take into account that every student is affected by their linguistic and literacy background. Furthermore, I believe that most teachers' conduct when leading a classroom is in some way influenced by their own experiences as students in the classroom. If this is the case, then I may be suseptible to treating my students as if they had the same background as I did when I was a student. As a waitress, I am constantly communicating with people who's first language is not English and I have a good understanding of the fact that Chicago is an intersection of many different cultures and languages. However, before these readings I had not profoundly considered how I would address ELs in my classroom.
The reading Literacies and Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Chicago, by Marcia Farr is important and daunting for an aspiring teacher. Not only does Farr emphasize the myriad of different literacies in Chicago that one can expect to encounter, she also asserts that her list and knowledge of literacies is incomplete. She explains that literacies intersect with other literacies and these intersections create new literacies. This is an important point to acknowledge, because every student is exposed to more than one language and style of communication at some point. Thus, I would argue that no one can fully understand all of the different literacies of students in Chicago and as an educator I will be encountering different languages, styles and mixing of these languages that I am unfarmiliar with. It is easy and common for educators to mark students wrong when they do not understand their form of communication. However, this is something I want to be keen to avoid when leading my own classroom. Penalizing students for having a different background from my own or from the dominant culture is not only unfair, but perpetuates the alienation some students can feel from the school environment.
Furthermore, the reading, The Grammar of History: Enhancing
Content-Based Instruction Through a
Functional Focus on Language by Schleppefrell, Achugar and Oteíza gave me useful tools with which I can begin to develop activities that challenge, include and facilitate the learning of ELs. While the reading gave me ways to approach texts that would be useful for an EL student and teacher, I wish that there had been more inclusion of how these activities would be beneficial to native English speakers. The authors may be implicitly arguing that the types of activities they presented may not be applicable to non-EL students. However, the authors gave the underlying impression that their methods could be used for Native English speakers. I feel that dissection of history texts could be helpful to any student who finds history textbooks boring, overwhelming or too fact-heavy. The text may not have included extensive discussion on this topic because the application of methods is individual to each classroom, requiring a holistic understanding of one's students.
Furthermore, the reading has important implications for how educators approach the difficulty of texts assigned to EL students. In my own experience observing teachers and EL students, the teaching of English and the content-specific instruction are completely separate. When students are being taught English, the content is often far less complex than the content-specific texts being given to students in other classes. However, the reading argues that students are learning English in every class and that they can handle the more difficult texts with scaffolding from the teachers of that discipline, in my case as a history teacher.
The above video argues my final point, that students can handle this more difficult content, as long as it is properly scaffolded and teachers are given the tools to adequately do so. Schleppefrell, Achugar and Oteíza argue that "rather than making the content less difficult, we suggest that a functional text analysis can provide tools for helping students work with grade-level textbook material and at the same time develop critical language awareness” (p. 70.) I believe this sentiment to be somewhat revolutionary in that it can completely alter the way that EL students are treated and serve to better integrate them into the general education setting. However, students may feel overwhelmed if, as in the above video, they are given the same content as their peers without any modification for their needs. Modifying for students needs can go too far in the other direction when, is I witnessed during my years in elementary, middle and secondary school, EL students were segregated from the rest of the students. I think that treating the EL students as a seperate body of students, not capable handling the complex content other students are given is damaging to those students. Furthermore, this type of thinking is picked up by the rest of the class and may facilitate less interaction which does not aid language acquisition.
I agree with you when you talk about there being a good middle to how easy and how much scaffolding there should be for English learners. Too easy and they don't develope as much as they are expected to and too hard and they get unmotivated. The "realizing opportunities..." talks about gaining those social skills and English language skills by interacting with English speakers so it is also important that English learners are not alienized and stuck in their own classroom too much because then they won't be able to grow their skills. In middle school was the most I interacted with English learners and that was passing them in the hallway so I know my old school should work on that because its unfair to expect students to learn a new language then content in that language when they wouldn't get real life interaction with English speakers. There is so much to learn that cannot be taught in a classroom from interacting with a native speaker of that language. I took the 2 years of Spanish that I need to graduate but all my learning was in the classroom and I can barely speak to the people at work who only speak spanish. That's frustrating so I could not imagine trying to learn like that.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you that the best way to learn a language is not only in the classroom, but also with interaction with native speakers. I took Spanish in high school and college and in the classroom I can easily follow along as well as remember grammatical structures, but my communication with native speakers is abysmal. However, I think that the benefits to integration can easily be forgotten in an effort to not make EL students feel overwhelmed or frustrated. I think it is something we will all have to think about and try our best with.
DeleteThanks for sharing. Indeed, learning a completely new language is not easy. As an EL student, I felt impressed after watching the video clip you shared. The boy in the video performed as anxious because he couldn't understand the complex text in the class. Obviously, he was concerned about the exam, but the teacher's reaction left him at a loss. Thus, I totally agree with you that we should have a “holistic understanding of one's students”. As teachers, we should support every student who has difficulty in their disciplinary practice, encouraging them to understand complex texts, but avoiding the loss of motivation caused by excessive pressure. I think it's important to balance the two. Moreover, we should give the EL students an appropriate guidance to overcome the difficulty in understanding the complex texts rather than treat them as a special part of the classroom. Because our responses as teachers also affect other students in the class, and this will cause negative effects, such as peer interaction reduction and marginalization.
ReplyDeleteI liked your point that we should "balance" the type of content we give to students. I think this is so important for all students, they need variety in order to build all of their skills.
DeleteI am so impressed by the video that you provided. The little boy tried different ways to look for help but was ignored. It is not the scene should be seen in an educational setting. Being a curriculum instructional teacher, she has the responsibility of helping the whole class successful including him. As an EL student, he showed enthusiasm for his lessons of math. What he needs is more scaffold on any English-speaking and reading classes.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that he needed more assistance with understanding the English problems or to be provided a test in Spanish. However, I can also see how it may be easy for a student to slip through the cracks as that student was. I think that it is probably incredibly difficult for teachers, especially new teachers, to effectively teach students who speak a different language. However, it is our job to do so and not push the responsibility soley onto the EL teachers.
DeleteI agree with what you say. I know from friends that being in the ELL classes is very alienating from the rest of the school. We need to integrate the classes together and allow for more scaffolding for all students. The only time I ever met any ELL students in my experience with education has been through playing soccer in high school. I never had classes with any of them and did not even know they existed. It's easy to say that we're putting them in classes with other ELL students so that they can be comfortable learning in their own language, but in the end it hurts them the most because there's better ways for them to learn the material. I'm afraid that it is just a way for the schools to boost their test averages in the "normal" classes while putting minimal effort into actually helping the students. Allowing for them to learn English through their peers would be a cost effective way for them to raise their scores and give themselves a better chance at a good future where the education system hasn't failed them.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point that administrators and techers at schools are concerned with the test scores of their classes. However, I think that also speaks to a larger governmental issue of closing schools that do not meet the testing criteria without adequately understanding the student body that the school serves.
DeleteProviding the proper help and scaffolding for emerging bilinguals is so important. This role has been one that I personally thought I would struggle with due to my lack of experience in that regard. Growing up, I attended schools that were almost all white students, none of whom spoke languages other than English. This lack of experience has worried me in that I sometimes wonder how I can help ESL students when I haven't had these experiences myself? Regardless of this lack of experience in education growing up, I think it's important to move forward in a way that encourages students to embrace their individual cultures and languages.
ReplyDeleteI think that is a really valid concern and something we all need to be aware of. I grew up in an area where a lot of my peers spoke Spanish, but the kids I was friends with also spoke English fluently so I am not sure I am any better at communicating with EL students than you would be. I do not think any new teacher is going to be perfect in this regard, but taking responsibility for teaching these students as best as we can is imperative.
DeleteThank you for sharing. I agree with what you mentioned that teacher sometimes may be unavoidably influenced by their own experiences as a student during teaching. In my opinion, the best way to avoid this may be to pay more attention to students and know more about them. Teachers cannot teach their students just by their experiences and assumptions, but communicating and interacting with students. Furthermore, I agree with the argument that EL students are always given more complex content-specific texts than what they are taught in English class. That may lead them to lose confidence and get frustrated easily if they do not receive help from their teachers. However, teachers should understand that EL students do need their help, and it is not because they are not as good as other students in class or their learning abilities are lower, but because of their different cultural backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the jump to more complex content-specific texts is too drastic for EL students, a fact we all need to try to help the students deal with.
DeleteI agree with you that it may seem like a daunting task to teach EL students because there are so many different cultures and languages in an urban metropolis like Chicago. And it can be hard getting to EL students because they may not have an understanding of the communication and learning styles of education America. But how much do we alter the content to fit the needs of EL students? Do we make it less difficult or do we try to scaffold the students learning so they understand it? I think the answer is obvious and you answered it in the blog post. When I was reading this, I was thinking about my own interactions with EL students. The biggest interaction I had with them was in middle school when I had some classes with EL students. There were certain phrases or things that they didn't understand. Most teachers were nice and explained it to them, but I had one teacher who was very critical of the students who did not know it. Obviously, we should act like the former and not the latter.
ReplyDeleteGreat point! Virtually all of the other commentors agree with you that we did not have enough interaction with EL students when we were in middle school or high school and this was harmful to both parties, especially those learning English.
DeleteI really enjoyed the video you shared with us!
ReplyDeleteI think another point worth mentioning is how a fellow student's peer can be a huge benefit for the EL student. The helping student can help translate and explain ideas for the EL student. However, I know from experience that this can be difficult, especially at young ages because there are no levels of proficiency in either language, so a student may be unable to translate a word or sentence for a student. A simple solution to this would be to grant the helping student access to a computer. I would imagine that a dictionary may not even have all words.
I think this is a great idea. Peers are almost always an important and motivating force for students of all ages. I wonder if a teacher would need parental approval to do this or if it might distract the helping student too much from what they have to learn, but I doubt it. Teaching material can often help someone learn it and processes it more deeply.
DeleteThank you for sharing! I really like how you highlighted the part of the reading, when the author talks about how even her list of the different literacies is incomplete. I think this is important to think about because Chicago alone, is filled with all types of people from all kinds of different backgrounds. The reading even says, “Historical research had documented that, from its beginnings, Chicago has been multicultural and multilingual” (Farr). I agree that no one can know about all the different literacies based on culture, in Chicago. There are so many!
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