2/15 Readings

References: Cary, Chap. 6 and 7

Chapter 6, "How do I help students improve their English writing?" offered up some really good advice between first and second year of teaching strategies and of course addressed how the teacher (Victor) engaged his ESL students in the writing process in a very real and practical way. I myself am a really big proponent of practical education and engaging the students in problem-solving activities, as many people who have read my teaching philosophy or have pretty much generally heard me talk about education would know. I think the important thing that Victor did with his lesson was that he "tried to prepare his early intermediate- and intermediate-level students for disappointment" (pg. 80) and told them that they may not get a response from the Mayor right away or even ever. I feel like a teacher really does need to be honest with their students and they need to understand that, when engaging the real world, life is not all positive and that they may be faced with rejection. I know that I did not learn that early enough in my schooling!
What is great about writing this letter to the mayor is that it gets the students actively involved in their life at school and gives them a connection and a sort of possession factor. The traffic light outside the school was not working and parents had been struck by vehicles which I think we all can agree is a huge issue. Obviously, there needs to be some sort of a stop sign or traffic light by the school and I am kind of surprised there would not be one, considering laws for slowing down near schools, but I digress. Victor started off his lesson by recording "student ideas, 'Things we want the mayor to know'" (pg. 81) on the board and having students brainstorm ideas for the letter. It gets the students involved in the process and lets them know that they have a voice, which I feel that ESL kids do not always get that positive reinforcement in the classroom where they only do busy work and grammar exercises. Victor facilitated their ideas by paraphrasing and offering up suggestions, like when Okti was trying to describe a traffic light, he waited patiently for her to finish and then offered up what he thought she was trying to say. Students should be encouraged to speak and not have their ideas squashed because as we know with foreign language, if we feel that we are going to be wrong, we are definitely not going to speak. Another important aspect of this lesson was that Victor "reminded everyone that they would be making lots of writing errors" (pg. 82); even I as a native speaker make errors when I write, so the kids should not feel as if they have to be perfect in their second language writing. They need to know that they acquire language slowly and it can take a while to acquire certain grammar points, especially ones that do not occur in their native language.
The point of this chapter, to me, was getting the kids to have a purpose to their writing, and according to Cary, "it makes sense to turn to the people who know the most about writing: real writers" (pg. 84). Having people from the community get involved with the lessons is an invaluable resource for the students. It shows them that they have a say in what goes on in their community and they can feel like a part of it, because many ESL kids tend to feel isolated and left out when it comes to decision-making especially when they are young. Giving them a concrete reason to write (and a somewhat emotional reason as well) gives them the drive to achieve something from their writing and I feel that many teachers will see progress in that area if they do lessons like Victor did here.

Chapter 7, "How do I teach grade-level content to English beginners?" addressed the issues of the ELD approach in the classroom and bringing content and real-life application into the classroom environment, as well. Joellen, the teacher in this vignette, went to her principal armed with ideas for making her classroom a better place; she knew that in the past, "the programs had been heavy on pronunciation practice and grammar-based worksheets" (pg. 94) and that the students certainly needed more than that to achieve their goals in the second language. I suppose the fortunate thing in Joellen's case was that her principal, Ms. Tessier, was extremely understanding to Joellen's plight and even offered to help her implement her ideas into the classroom. Other teachers are not so lucky; they are often left to their own devices and get no support from their administration. This occurs way too often in the education world in every content area, not just ESL. Obviously Ms. Tessier might have had some background in that area and understood what it took to help the students achieve, which is something we all should hope for in our administration and our colleagues.
I just wanted to say that I absolutely loved this shoebox archaeology idea; I am definitely writing it down and making that into a lesson for my Spanish or my ESL kids in the future. Since Joellen's students were studying California History in their fourth grade class, she decided to have them have artifacts from the era of settlement and the "interaction between Native American and settler groups" (pg. 96). She used her resources; she bought some artifacts online for cheap and asked the school if they had anything for her to borrow when teaching. I think another good idea I could do with a lesson like this is take them to a museum that has an exhibit of this topic and have students explore it on their own and see what life was like back then, and maybe get a real world connection that way, as well, but that certainly depends on school budget and other things like that. Another great aspect of Joellen's lesson was her use of the show and tell model - she created her own demonstration and had students watch her very carefully. She showed them how to use all the tools for the excavation, and how to clean the artifact when they unearthed it. She asked them questions like "What are you seeing...feeling...smelling..." (pg. 97) in order to engage their senses, and trying to prompt them to get involved in the experience. Some students will certainly react right away while others may not; that depends on their proficiency, but getting the hands-on experience of actually digging the artifact and having some pride that they have done this will give them the motivation to continue researching.
Something really cool that evolved from this lesson was the spirited discussion the students had about their artifacts once they had done all of their research. I loved the "before research" and "after research" sheets Joellen did with the class, because it shows them how far they have come in learning about the history of their artifacts and students need that connection to the object. When she did the discussion, the students got really upset about the killing of the buffalo and one student even said that "it was 'possible' that Team Three's bullets killed one of those 60 million buffalo" (pg. 100). I was so surprised that the kids were making such solid connections like that to history! It is what any teacher from any content area can hope for; the students getting engaged and forgetting that they are in school. I know we do not want students to think that school is tedious and, as Cary says, boring. The unfortunate truth is that there is not enough support from administration and lawmakers to make our ESL dreams happen, so to speak, and that the "kids practiced second language but rarely used it for real communication" (pg. 102). It is really sad that there are not more teachers like Victor and Joellen who get their students involved. It is a daunting and time-consuming task, but certainly the rewards are great.