Blog Post #4: Awareness of ELLs at My Placement Elementary School

Through this class, I got to interview people and friends who learned English as a second language, teachers who teach in bilingual or dual language classrooms, as well as English speaking teachers and students who interact with ELL students throughout their time at school daily. I have learned to become more aware of the demographics of my school as well as did do away with and bilingual classes at my school offers to our ELL students. These bilingual classes mainly pertaining to Spanish speaking students who grew up learning Spanish as a first language in their household. Knowledge of languages relevant to the many roles teachers play as communicators, educators, evaluators, educated human beings, and agents of socialization. (Wright, 2015)A lot of learning about bilingual classes and accommodations that are made for ELLs as well as engaging and interacting with ELLs in my elementary school has taken place through being able to interview and observe Ms. Nava.
Ms. Nava is a third grade Math Science and Social Studies teacher at my placement school. As I am currently student teaching in a standard English math science and social studies classroom with my mentor teacher, it was very interesting for me to sit in on and observe Ms. Nava’s ELL classroom.

From the key Common Core state standard English language arts practice of building and presenting knowledge through research by integrating, comparing, and synthesizing ideas from text that are provided for us to study from our class textbook (Wright, 2015), I was able to identify a lot of these ideas from the way Ms. Nava presented knowledge to her students in the classroom.  For example, during her social studies lesson, Ms. Nava Provided her students with a large range of sources such as Newspaper and magazine articles, a globe, and online video resources to allow students to be able to gather evidence and synthesize multiple sources towards the lesson that was being taught in class.I had no idea that even things such as articles for social studies as well as the entire lesson was given to the students in the Spanish language, I also began to piece together that the Spanish speaking students at our elementary school were kind of secluded from the rest of the student population. It was as though third grade was divided into two separate groups: four classes of ELLs. Then we have the four regular English-speaking classrooms for third grade. The more time I spend observing ELL students in our school, I realize that due to the fact that the students could not speak English as well as their peers a lot of them are shy or experience a communication disconnect that does not allow them to fit comfortably in their academic atmosphere, causing these children to not build connections or relationships with other students, teachers, and people at the school. The Spanish speaking students are more shy and quieter than their fluent English-speaking peers.

Ms. Nava’s class is of a smaller size than Ms. Miller's (my MT) third grade class of English-speaking students and ALL her lessons are taught in the Spanish language. Directions and steps for math problems are given in the English language, but if a student struggles with understanding a concept, the teacher aides the through accommodation and translating it into the Spanish language for them to easily understand what is being taught. this was interesting for me to see call MA because I had no idea as to what extent of Spanish was spoken in her classroom.
I met with Ms. Nava in a weekly basis prior to observing and interviewing her, as she comes in and plans with the rest of us math science and social studies third grade teachers every Tuesday while our students are in specials. Being able toObserve a bilingual classroom has provided me with experience in observing different ways that analytical tasks are introduced at the elementary level to ELL students in comparison to nonio L students as well as receptive language functions and productive language functions. Although it has been very difficult to keep up with 5 classes as well as being a full-time student-teacher and trying to keep a job that helps pay for gas and food throughout the semester, I managed to learn a lot about the accommodations and needs of English language learning students in the classroom.

Blog Entry #2: Interviewing a (Former) ELL

For my second blog post I was asked to interview a young adult or adult who learned English as a second language in the United States in the public-school system.

I chose to interview my good friend, Jennifer Chavez.

I met Jennifer through our jobs at a gym in 2014. She is around my age (a year ahead school-wise) and is the Operations Manager of the same gym where we worked together and became friends.

Having recalled a past conversation where Jennifer had mentioned to me that she grew up in a Spanish speaking household and learned English after moving to Pearland, I called her and asked if she would be willing to be interviewed about her experience as an English Language Learner during her elementary school years, to which she kindly agreed.

To watch Jennifer's interview, click HERE

Jennifer was raised in a Spanish speaking household and grew up learning only to speak Spanish from her parents (they were not English language speakers). When she was in second grade, her family moved from the city of Houston to Pearland, which is about 20-25 minutes south from the city. This is where Jennifer began to attend a public elementary school and was introduced to the English language.

Through conducting my interview, I learned that Jennifer attended a form of ESL instruction known as the pull-out ESL model. According to the text this meant that the demographics of Jennifer’s school included only a small population of ELLs, and these students were most likely spread out across several classrooms. (Wright, 2015, pg. 107)

In the textbook, it is also mentioned that the pull-out model has been highly criticized as the least effective model (Ovando and Combs, 2011). They claim this because there are problems such as students missing out on instruction in the regular classroom when they are pulled out, mainstream classroom teachers may begin to view ELLs as responsibility of the ESL teacher, and even that many students may feel stigmatized about being pulled out day after day in front of their English only peers. (Wright, 2015)

However, through Jennifer’s interview I learned that the pull-out method for ESL was very beneficial for her because she was not proficient in the English language at all when she first moved to her new school. From her perspective, it was better for her to be pulled out for ESL instruction to learn the very basics of the English language as opposed to sitting in a classroom where she could not understand anything that was going on at all. It took Jennifer two years to become proficient and comfortable with communicating in English, and even longer to catch up to the reading and writing levels of her peers (a few years of summer school were involved with getting her there).

As a young adult today, given her management position in a large gym, phenomenal people/communication skills, and ability to adapt to change in a level-headed and resilient manner, you would not be able to tell that, as a child, she struggled with understanding and learning the English language.

References:

Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Calson, 2015. Print. Second Edition.

Blog Entry #1: Self-Introduction Video

Hello, my name is Fatima Babar (watch my vlog if you'd like to know how to correctly pronounce my name!)

I am currently in my final semester at the University of Houston where I am in early childhood education major and will be graduating this December.

VLOG #1: Self-Introduction

I am an American-Pakistani and have grown up in a dual language household. I also spent majority of my childhood education in another country. Although I was proficient in the English language growing up, I was not proficient in the language that was predominantly spoken in the country that I grew up in. I feel that this experience gives me a good sense of what an ELL student may feel like in a school where English is the dominant language. 

I am looking forward to this class and learning about how I can better reach students who may not speak English as their first language. As Wright states in his text, researchers used to place the blame of underachievement on ELLs (immigrant students) and their families with claims of lower IQs and cognitive inferiority. (Wright, pg. 14) It was later discovered that many poor and minority students tend to be segregated in the most overcrowded and underfunded schools. Many schools serving poor, minority, and ELLs usually have the least experiences teachers and the fewest resources.

I believe that in modern day, and especially in the city of Houston, diversity in student populations around the entire city is now a commonality. To me this means that, as educators in Texas, it is important for us to know how to best meet the needs of ELLs and understand how we can educate inclusively for all levels of English language proficiency. We must also be aware of the linguistic diversity in our schools and surrounding communities. (Wright, pg. 16) 

I agree with the text in our classroom textbook that to better educate our students, we must begin to understand their cultural backgrounds and should be careful to avoid stereotypes and generalizations. (Wright, pg. 16) I remember being stereotyped as an "Indian" student many times in high school because some of my peers and even my teachers assumed that was my ethnic background because of the color of my skin. I was constantly asked if I celebrated Indian holidays and traditions such as Holi and Deewali, and was even asked by people what it meant for Indian women to wear a red dot on their foreheads. At the time as a young teenager, I found that offensive and rude to be stereotyped based off of the color of my skin.

I believe that if my teachers had taken the time to understand my cultural background and history, they would have understood me better as a student and helped me when it came to things that I struggled with or did not understand. Therefore, I know that if I am to have ELLs or students of different cultures in my classroom, I should not make generalizations or jump to conclusions about their learning abilities.

References:

Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Calson, 2015. Print. Second Edition.