Entry 2: ELL Interview
I interviewed with Mrs. Chennathara (Faz), she is a third grade math teacher at Glen York Elementary. She grew up in Virginia in a small community where she was one of the few minority students. In her school she was one of three students who were not caucasian. This posed a great obstacle for her because the school did not have the resources to help her in the way that she needed. Because of this she did not learn how to read until she was in the third grade. Being one of the only minority students in her class meant that she was often times bullied and she told me how she did not have a good experience in elementary school. This made me aware to look out for the ELL students in my class to make sure that no students are singling them out for anything. I have seen at times kids laughing when my ELL students stumble in their reading and have learned to quickly talk to them and stop it so that it does not turn into bullying.
She discusses how she was pulled out for extra help learning the language where the teacher did various activities to help her understand the basic of English language. Since her school had limited resources for ELL students these interventions were simple activities to teach her how to read.
Even though Mrs. Chennathara did not have the best intervention, she had the intention to learn English even at such a young age. Ortega (2013) discusses how when people deliberately apply themselves to learning a new language they learn that language faster and better then people who passively learn the language (p. 95). Although she was very determined to learn the new language as a child she also struggled because no one at home spoke English and the interventions at school were very limited. I think that because of her determination and intentions she learned English faster.
Ortega, L (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Rutledge.
Hi Vanessa! Thank you for taking the time to share this experience with us, I thoroughly enjoyed watching your ELL interview! While reading your reflection, I couldn’t help but think about the individual I interviewed. My interviewee also felt like she did not receive the best help with learning English. She lived in a very small town, and grew up in a low SES area, and she definitely feels like this had an effect on her successfully and confidently learning English as an additive language, and not loosing her former identity. According to Rowland (2014), “children of high SES parents are more likely to experience a language-rich environment than children of low SES parents, which then affects their language development.” (pg. 210).
ReplyDeleteRowland, Caroline. (2014). Understanding Child Language Acquisition. Routledge. London and New York.
Hi Megan, I hate that so many people who grow up in a low SES area have such a disadvantage when trying to learn English (Rowland, 2014). As educators I believe it is so important to make sure we know the best strategies to help our ELL students adapt to the classroom. Even if the school we are at does not have a good program for ELLs we can still have a classroom that is always adaptive for our students.
DeleteHi Vanessa! I l=enjoyed your video so much. I think we tend to address Spanish speaking learners as our ELL's but I am sure I have students who speak this language as well! It was informative learning about another culture and views. I see where she struggled with phonics a lot because I see it with my Kindergartners right now. I think that the strategy of having one on one time with a teacher would have helped and I am glad that it did. Fluency is very important, however I think that when comprehension is low maybe fluency was not all that great. According to Ortega, meritocratic explanations that everyone can learn an L2 well, if they only want it
ReplyDeletebadly enough and try hard enough (Ortega, 2013). I think this is why she did not feel liek she had the help she knows she must have needed. I hope a future teachers we can provide and meet our students needs to succeed.
Ortega, L (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Rutledge.
Marina, you talked about the benefit of one on one attention from the teacher benefitting the students. I believe that this would be very beneficial for the ELL. In my third grade classroom we do this while teaching reading. Each student has one on one time with the teacher when we do guided reading. This has greatly improved our ELL students reading levels. The one on one time allows the teacher to address the specific needs and questions of each student.
DeleteVanessa, it was so interesting to listen and learn about Mrs.Chennethara’s English language learning experience. While “‘bilingual acquisition’ or ‘multilingual acquisition’ refer[s] to the process of learning two or more languages relatively simultaneously during early childhood – that is, before the age of four.” (Ortega, 2013, pg. 40) it seems as though that did not effect Mrs. Cehnnethara as she still successfully learned to read by the 3rd grade. I believe it would have been a lot easier for her to acquire reading and writing skills if her schools had the necessary resources to help her. I think this is why its so important that as teachers we are also advocates for our students and their needs.
ReplyDeleteHey Vanessa and Astyn, I think its interesting that Mrs. Chennethara was going through this "bilingual" or "multilingual" acquisition since she was so young learning two languages. Of course that made her successful in the long wrong because so many studies show the benefits of ELLs developing their L2 at an early age. I had mentioned this to someone else in our class, but I think it's so interesting that Rowland points out the side of understanding why age is important with language acquisition. Research "seem to
ReplyDeletesuggest that early learners and those who are bilingual from birth process language
in the same way" and " that it is generally assumed that there are few, or even no, differences between children who are exposed to two languages from birth and those who start learning their second language slightly later, but still in childhood" (Rowland, 2014, p. 191).
Rowland, C. (2014). Understanding child language acquisition. Routledge.
Astyn, I agree, I do not think she had the best support from her mother. I think it did not help that her parents could not speak much English when she was first growing up so that caused her to only hear it at school. I think in the long run she will be able to benefit by being bilingual. I also think that it helped her that the teacher used strategies like showing her pictures to help her understand things better. We use these same strategies in our classroom to help our ELL students understand vocabulary words better. It is an effective and engaging strategy.
ReplyDeleteMegan, I found it interesting that she had such a hard time picking up the language and learning to read since she was very young when she started to learn English. Although every student is different and even though she started learning the language young she had some disadvantages since the rest of her family did not speak English. I know that she now works hard in her class to always make sure she is using strategies to help her ELL students understand what she is teaching.
ReplyDelete