I
interviewed Miss Carver, who has been a Teacher for nine years, and who is a
third grade bilingual teacher. She teaches English and Spanish and has
encountered a lot of pertinent information I needed to know. She was happy to
point out her findings as related to my questioning related to foreign language
aptitudes (Chapter 7) and motivation (Chapter 8). Ortega (2011) points out that
people greatly differ in how fast, how well, and by what means they learn an
additional language, resulting in large variability in their rates, outcomes
and processes.
Miss
Carver states that bilingual students encounter situations or challenges in
terms of their fluency being a barrier to their learning. She feels that speaking
or communicating with students who speak another languages to themselves
present a struggle for academic achievements. She also states that these
students are able to ‘catch up’ socially easier than academically, to their
peers in class. This may be so because available evidence “concluded that intelligence
partially overlaps with foreign language aptitude” (Ortega, L 2011. Pp. 151).
As
such, Miss Carver adjusts her lesson planning to meet the differences in her
students, by catering to their individual strengths. She says that she teaches
by using their strengths, which means that she includes opportunities that
include the visual learners, strictly ‘Hispanic learners,’ and so on. She
further points out that she uses lots of both intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation, such as ‘Friday Rewards,’ ‘Praise’ for those who do well, things
that the students make themselves, and so on. She finds this interesting as she
works with block classes, having different students in the morning to those in
the afternoon who generally have different abilities.
In
terms of accommodations for ESL students, Miss Carver points out that this
again has to do with the students’ fluency of the second language. She states
that she modifies tests, changing it to suit the student, use more
visuals/pictures, reduce the number of questions, and sometimes provide graphic
organizers if allowed. She adds that she has much visuals in class as
necessary, lots of practice, and previewing of the materials before the ESL
students began to work with the other students. She feels that these
accommodations motivate and boast the students before the actual lessons begin.
As indicated, the quality and fluency when handling literacy “appears to be
related to, and to be largely predictive of, the facility exhibited by
schoolchildren in learning a foreign language” (Ortega, L 2011. Pp. 153).
Along
with this, Miss Carver feels that various strategies of communication should be
used, including visuals, body language, pairing of students, and so on. She
further states that she gives the child time, noting if progress is made, and
giving him or her the chances to grow academically. She feels that children
should be given the time needed and not be automatically referred. In
concluding, Miss Carver points out that it is a step by step process in keeping
data, to assess whether a child has a language barrier or experiences a
learning disability.
Hello Susan Nandlal, thank you for sharing this insightful video interview into the teaching history of your colleague. I understand that teaching esl students will come with their own unique set of circumstances because they need to balance two different languages. However I agree with your interviewee’s comment about accommodating to the student’s strengths such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
ReplyDeleteHello Bryan. Thank you for looking at my video and sharing your constructive thoughts. Yes, my colleague is a very experienced bilingual teacher and I hope that her thoughts has helped you in some way or the other. I like your emphasis that teaching ESL students has its own special and unique set of teaching/learning circumstances. Certainly, these classes involve a balance of curricula in both subject areas and hopefully I will mater them soon. Good post.
DeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your interview! I thought it is great that Ms. Carver teaches to the individual student’s strengths within the lessons. Also, not only during lessons, Ms. Carver also adjust assessment depending on the student for accommodation allowing for growth. According to Gass and Selinker, “Tarone and Liu (1995) argued, on the basis of interactional data in three settings, that a learner’s involvement “in different kinds of interaction can differentially affect the rate and route of the acquisition process” (2008, pg. 278). Ms. Carver set the learner’s involvement by making the ELL feel comfortable to learn and want to participate based on her adjustment for them. I believe teachers impact on how the students learn.
Hi Keyerra. Thanks for looking at my presentations and sharing your insights which are really stimulating to the discussion. I agree with you that my interviewee shows a great deal of knowledge towards being a bilingual teacher. I guess I was fortunate to have her share her ideas, and to experience firsthand being in her classroom. I like that you mentioned that conversational interaction impacts language development. I am sure that I have also benefitted greatly from all this. Good post and thanks again.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your interview with Ms. Carver, she seems to be really insightful and put a lot of thought into her instruction of ELL students. In any classroom it is important to differentiate instruction based on each learner's strengths and weaknesses, and when L2 acquisition is involved it is equally as important. On page 192, Ortega (2014) states that learning and speaking in a new language can make a person vulnerable and can threaten the ego. That is why I am glad to hear that she accommodates her students with their individual strengths and allows them opportunities to feel successful. If they were not given enough support they may feel like they are constantly unsuccessful which will damage their ego and make them feel less motivated to learn a new language.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI great interview. I really liked seeing the accommodations brought up in the reflection. Accommodations like modified tests, changing instruction to suit the student, use of visuals/pictures and graphic organizers are great for students when learning a new language. These accommodations will help the students when it comes to test and assessments. I also enjoyed these strategies for ELL’s because it can help these students in communication and comprehension.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteMs. Carver mentioned the use of strategies that include utilizing visuals and models. I believe this would include modeling. I am realizing how important these two ideas are in my student teaching classroom. Most of my ESL students are in my third rotating class. I can see a difference between whether they reach mastery of the concept when I model compared to when I don't. I have also noticed how important it is for me to display what I am reading aloud so that they can follow along. I have not used peer pairing as much but will try to incorporate this strategy more since it seems to work well for Ms. Carver and other teachers in the field.