What do you all think? I would like to know because with discussion Angela came up with an interesting point that I had not thought about when I made my original statement and I want to know if I am still missing some of the puzzle pieces. Thanks, see you all next week!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Trisha's Reactions and Questions
Today we talked about ELL students and watched video clips of a Lansing Public School teacher voice her opinions and her experiences with ELL students within her classroom over the years. What I thought was most interesting about this particular discussion and video presentation was the issue of how you "label" a young student as either an ELL student or not? After working with elementary aged boys in the Lansing School District for two years now and experiencing various levels of parent involvement and language backgrounds, I have found that often times by many of the standards that have been highlighted in the readings, most of these boys would be considered ELL. I contest that when children first make the transition from home to school life, most aspects of the English language is new and has to be learned within the classroom environment, because of these circumstances I feel that lower elementary teachers should adopt strategies that are popular with those whom specialize in being teachers for ELL. It seems to me that whether a child is exposed to English within their home or not, verbal language can only get a student so far when considering assignments and academic usage and it is a learned skill when one realizes how to operate with this English classroom language.
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Emergent literacy is basically the first steps in learning to speak, read and write. In any language these abilities require exposure, training and practice. Each of these abilities has obstacles to overcome in order for a person to become proficient. The Tompkins text focuses on the progression of reading and writing. Starting at the emergent stage and working towards becoming fluent in both reading and writing. The timing and initiation of this process is different for some children, but it usually starts in or before kindergarten. The goal is to have most children fluent readers and writers by the time they end third grade. Keeping that in mind, I’d like to talk about ELL students
When children come to school for the first time most of them can not read or write. In fact some ELL students can’t even speak English. I thought the Gibbons text did a great job explaining how and why speaking in the classroom stimulates ELL students. Student led group activities expose all students to a variety of student language, not just Teacher talk. It also allows for the progression from “here-and-now” language to appropriate explicit language because students interact more and clarify their meanings. This contextualizes their language and gives opportunity for critical thinking skills to develop. These chapters helped me realize how ELL students can be mainstreamed as long as the teachers provide appropriate activities and guidance.
On a different note, I was somewhat unimpressed with the videos we watched in class. I don’t feel they helped me understand anything more then I already knew. Maybe it was because we only watched a few clips and I didn’t see the big picture. What did you all think of the videos?
Trisha,
I agree with what you said about lower elementary school teachers implementing methods and activities similar to those that an ELL specialist might use. However, I feel like are reasoning might be different. My reasoning is that, in initial schooling (preschool, and K-3) most children are ELL students. That is, they are just starting to learn English in the forms or reading and writing. However, there is a distinction between students whose parents already speak English (group 1) and students whose parents do not speak English (group 2). I would call group 2 students CELL’s (Complete English Language Learners) because they have little to no exposure of the verbal mode of communication. I feel this puts them at a disadvantage to learning what you described as the “English classroom language” because they are basically starting from zero, while students in group 1 have had the first 5 or so years of their life to become accustom to the English language.
PS> I couldnt figure out how to post my own, so I just put my original post as a comment to yours.
Man, you two covered about everything in your posts. Well done. While thinking about questions 3 & 4, I noticed one thing that sort of stuck out to me from the readings this week and for next week. Clear cut instruction and well defined goals. And after reading these articles, it makes perfect sense. When you are teaching literacy to ELL students, you are providing them with the foundation that they will be continually building upon for the rest of their lives. Many teachers are presuming that ELL students are coming into school with a basis for this foundation and totally ignore (not purposely) that many ELL students are coming from different cultural contexts that vary greatly from ours. If they are not “shown the ropes” about everything down to the last “T,” their foundation will not be complete and they will never be able to completely build upon other ideas. I think it is really interesting when I sit back and think about all the different contexts literacy is used in and how greatly one can differ from the other. If a student can not decipher between two different contexts, they are at a great disadvantage and can easily become overwhelmed and confused and possibly may just give up.
As for the book club discussion we had at Benton Woods, all I have to say is wow. Talking about narcissism and integrity in a fourth grade classroom blows my mind. And they were having some serious discussion on it with little prompting from Mrs. Sturk. You can tell that she has been doing this for a while and is very good at it. I think it shows you just how powerful kids minds can be if they are pushed. Did anyone else notice how some of the students wanted to make timelines for character growth without really being asked to? I now wish I would have asked her more about this; I’m thinking she may use a lot of intrinsic motivation for these kids to jump right into a more in depth look at a book.
Trish, I found your last statement very interesting. ” It seems to me that whether a child is exposed to English within their home or not, verbal language can only get a student so far when considering assignments and academic usage and it is a learned skill when one realizes how to operate with this English classroom language.”
I think you may be a mind reader or something along those lines. This ties directly into the piece that Kevin and I are covering tomorrow in class. I think that this is an argument that is used by many of the supporters of explicit teaching. They argue that ELL students are being taught just to use and develop our language on their own, with no formal training or teaching. Using your own words, they are not being taught how to operate within an English classroom language. If they do not understand the underlying ideas of language, they will never learn no matter how nourishing or friendly a classroom is. Great post.
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