This past Wednesday, I came in to observe Ms. C.'s class and my target student Jhon expecting to be there for only two hours... I was mistaken. Wednesday was an extremely hectic day. Apparently, their schedule has changed and now at 8:30, they are to go to Rosie's Broadway Kids for tap dance. I had observed a tap class before during a past observation, but it is still very enjoyable to see these kids have such a great time while being exposed to the arts. Like math, the arts are another universal language.
Then we rushed back to the school where they were supposed to be scheduled for music. Since we were running late, the music teacher came downstairs with her guitar. She read them the story Love You Forever by Edward Munsch while playing the song on her guitar. During this time, since Ms. C.'s prep hour was messed up, I helped her prepare for a math activity.
Since Tuesday was the one hundredth day of school, the students made necklaces of one hundred Froot Loops by counting either by two's, five's, or ten's using different colors of Froot Loops. It was Ms. C. and my job to separate three boxes of Froot Loops into the six separate colors. Very tedious work! Also, annoying because, apparently, green is the cheapest color to make so the majority of each box was green, followed by orange, yellow, purple, blue, and then red... there are very very few red which is what made this annoying...plus I'm on a diet so this became a temptation for me. Did you know that Froot Loops have 12 grams of sugar? Yuck.
During this activity, I had the opportunity to work with many students, but I was especially happy I got to work with Jhon. He was in the group of students who were to count the Froot Loops by five's. He didn't have a problem counting out five of the same color of Froot Loops and continuing the pattern. The small issue that we had was his counting past 25 or 30 in English without getting confused. Because of this, instead of putting him on the spot and having him count them by fives for me like I normally do with the other children, we counted together as I point to each group of five. I would do this twice every time I went to check on him by saying, "I think I may have lost count. Could you help me check again?" or "Let's just double check just in case". He did very well.
Unfortunately, since the day was really crazy and the Froot Loop activity took longer than expected, there was no reading or writing time today. There was the extended time literacy intervention that I observed which was similar to last week's lesson. There was one student there that wasn't there last week, but who I remember from Ms. C.'s class last year. I will call him Grant. Grant is an extremely spacey child which is amplified because he misses a lot of class. He missed a lot of class last year and the pattern holds true this year. His literacy skills have definitely taken a hit due to his absenteeism. During the diagraph/tapping/spelling activity using the same diagraphs: ch, th, sh, wh, most of the students would at least get the correct diagraph in the spelling correct. Grant, on the other hand, doesn't even come close to the correct diagraph or he doesn't write one down at all. Ms. C. asks for all the students to name the diagraphs listed on the board and he waits until other students say it before he mouths it. Ms. C. then asked him to say the diagraphs by himself and he couldn't do it. They have been working on diagraphs since October. I can see how Ms. C. is frustrated, but I also feel bad for the student.
During the extended time, I had a chance to ask Ms. C. a few more questions. Many of the questions have been answered in my previous post, but here are some of the answers repeated and elaborated upon.
Ms. C. has been working at this school for almost 25 years and has vast experience working with ELL's. The school has a large Hispanic and Chinese population and every student she has has varying degrees of exposure and experience with the English language. Ms. C. is originally from Greece so she speaks the language fluently and can understand the basics of other languages with Latin foundations. She also speaks Spanish very well which helps when a Spanish speaking student needs a brief translation or a dialogue.
Ms. C. feels that many ELLs need constant and vigilant positive support. Many of these students are extremely shy, like Jhon, and may need extra confidence boosters to motivate him to keep up the good work. For example, Ms. C. mentioned that there was a small issue a while ago when starting first grade. In first grade, he was at the front of the line nearest to Ms. C. and many times, Ms. C. would hold his hand and give him hugs. When moving in to the first grade, he was no longer at the front of the line. This affected his confidence and his work suffered a bit. One day, Jhon's parents spoke to Ms. C. and said that Jhon said that he didn't want to go back to school because Ms. C. didn't love him anymore. Ms. C. had no idea that Jhon felt that way and she was thankful that his parents were comfortable enough to communicate that to her. Jhon is now back at the front of the line.
Like in the example, it is both the jobs of the teacher and the parents to communicate candidly about their child/student. Communication is very important for ELLs both in regards to the family and the community. It is the family's job to try their best to help aid their child on the way to English language proficiency, even if it is by taking them on playdates with peers who speak English or by exposing them to shows like Sesame Street.
She said that classroom teachers, whether if they speak an ELL's native language or not, they consult the ELL specialist or the resource room teacher for ideas for student learning. She also said that reading culturally diverse literature helps to keep both native and non-native speakers motivated and interested in learning about other cultures. She doesn't participate in on-going ELL teaching strategies, but she believes that the strategies she uses works: reading and involving different cultures in class, translating some directions in native language, short dialogues in native language, communication with parents, sending independent level readings home, etc. She has had many students from all over the world including many areas in South America, the Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. She cannot speak all the languages, but she studies up a bit on the distinct differences between their language and English so she can try to make smoother connections between the languages. To see if what she does helps student progress, she constantly assesses student writing, assignments, and participation. She also told me that Jhon has actually made some improvement in his writing since the last time we met and she would be happy to make copies of some writing pieces for me to look at. She communicates to parents by telephone mostly, sometimes email, and many times by letters home or newsletters. She participates in the school news letter that goes out within the community.
Just to answer the basics, the school uses assessments such as running records and word lists from the Teacher's College Assessment- Reading and Writing Project Columbia University. They use Fundations for the extended time on Wednesdays as a tutorial. Apparently, teachers are not allowed to make "lesson plans" for extended time because it should be only in a tutorial format.
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