Catching Up on "Mythology"

Since we have been focusing on blogging about our practicum experiences predominantly, I wanted to take some time to catch up on the Myths and Realities readings from Samway & McKeon. As many of us mentioned in class, a lot of the myths presented relate to things that we've heard throughout our education here, but nonetheless I think they are still important to unpack and deconstruct as some are ones that I hear all the time, from people who are educated and those who are not.

SLA Myth #4: Learning academic English is equally challenging for all L2 learners. 

On first read, I thought this to be a little strange--claiming it's just a myth would be saying that some groups of learners, as is attested in the reality, learn better than others. I took this as ethnic groups, and I was confused because another myth in this chapter explicitly stated that "students from all language and cultural background are equally capable of learning English as a second language" (25). However, myth #4 talked about the differences in groups relating to countries that were/are war-torn or experiencing civil unrest. I want to talk to my CT about this because I know of a student whose English language learning has been extremely affected by how often she moves around. I would like to know more about her situation and the outcomes.

SLA Myth #5 (If we focus on teaching the English language, learning in all areas will occur faster.)

This is an interesting myth as well because as pre-service teachers educated in language acquisition we know that it is possible and effective to teach language through content (I believe we brought up this point in order to refute an earlier myth.) Truly, the rate of SLA depends on multiple factors including previous instruction.

Assessment Myth #2: We teach everyone equally in our school, and we don't need to know who is LEP and who isn't.

I think this was a big point that was addressed in Made in America. Basically, my viewpoint on this is that this is a completely ludicrous statement--yes, it's true that all students should be taught the same IN THEORY--but that doesn't hold true in real life at all. Say you have a class with two extremely different types of learners--a 'gifted' student and a special education students who aren't separated in their classes because everyone is the same, right? If we always taught in the way the gifted student was able to learn, moving quickly and introducing extra supplemental material, the special education student would be lose. If we taught to the special education student's learning style, the gifted student would be bored. Each student would be suffering. it is SO important to differentiate instruction. 

A Focus on Reading

This week in my practicum experience I've noticed a lot of attention being paid to reading and reading strategies in the classroom and thought it a good topic to focus on. As I thought about the processes these students are utilizing, I thought maybe it would be a wonderful topic for my research paper for 345. (I had previously decided on grammar teaching and learning techniques, but the amount of reading activities provided this week changed my mind.) Here, I will lay out and develop upon some of the notes that I took during my practicum in effort to get me ready to begin writing the paper.

The intermediate ESL class is reading a book called Crossing the Wire as a group (the whole class is reading it at the same time). Often the teacher or one of the interns will read a chapter aloud to the class, reminding them to inference and predict as they listen. The teacher has already taught them about inferencing and predicting and how to do it and continually refreshes their memory about it.

The intermediate students are reading books together as a group. The students are put into three groups and each group is given a book to read. I worked with students today as they read a chapter or two of the book and came up with three connections to the text: text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world. Some of the students had no trouble making these connections, one student making a connection from her book to Crossing the Wire, but a few students didn't really get the concept and made very basic connections or simply stated an element of text without making a connection.

This may not necessarily be considered a reading activity, but I was able to gather reflective information about the students here. The students were to make collages with pictures from old magazines and such about the books they are independently reading. The pictures (and words) placed on the collage should reflect a theme or idea in the book and they had to explain their collage and connections in front of the class. Once again, some students did well, really connecting ideas well and making abstract connections, but some students simply drove from plot points, thus not employing critical thinking skills. For example, a student presented her collage and said things such as "This is a picture of a car, it is here because the boy drove a car." They were supposed to be making more abstract connections like "This is a picture of a plane, it represents the journey that the boy takes."

The basic ESL class was also working heavily on reading and reading strategies. Each of the three students was assigned a book to learn and read to the class. During the class, each of us interns worked with a student as they practiced reading their books. The student I worked with, who struggled a little bit, read the book to me first as I provided clarification for word she mispronounced or was unsure of and I made sure the she repeated them. Then, we went through the book again and had her read it after me. Later on that day I learned that this strategy is called "assisted reading"  (One of the teachers told us that her daughter took a reading class at ISU and they said that the most effective method for children learning to read is assisted reading, where the adult or teacher reads the part first and the students follows). I thought it was cool that I decided to do this without knowing the effectiveness!

Finally, I was lucky to overhear a conversation between the two ESL teachers regarding their teaching strategies for reading. They talked about their use of check-ins, or learning checks to see how the students are doing. An example of a learning check that took place while I observed was when the students were doing their group books and making their connections. Several students had to sit with a teacher or intern and read aloud using the whisperphone so that we could hear how they read, their fluidity, etc. or explain to us the connections they made in the text. As the teacher said, "Check-ins guide our instruction and what we should be teaching." By using check-ins, the teachers can determine what effect their teaching is having on the students' reading comprehension and what they need to change, if applicable. While the other intern and I were working with a few of the students and performing check-ins, I was able to make a few conclusions from what I saw. The student I worked with read well, missing or not understanding very few words, but her fluidity left a little to be desired when she did not pause between sentences or paragraphs or provide the correct intonations on words or punctuation. Perhaps the role of punctuation in reading needs to be discussed, whether through the whole class or just one-on-one. In addition, the other intern I work with spoke of a student's failure to make accurate connections between the text and himself, the world, or other texts. Perhaps more examples of good connections needed to be provided.

Reflections

As I have mentioned before, sometimes it is very hard for me to think specifically about what happened during my previous week of my practicum experience and write critical observations and reflections because I 1)Do not like simply sit in the back and take notes of what is going on, appearing to be disengaged with the classroom and 2)I have become very familiar with the classroom environment and students now and tend to see the daily operations less critically than I probably should. I think this has something to do with the age level of the students. Perhaps if I was with an older group of students for whom motivation was a bigger element of their language learning experience, I would see more theory-based moments that reflect back to the critical topics we discuss. However, I do not intend to mean that my experience is not a valuable one that I don't enjoy--my time so far at Kingsley has made me want to do something that I previously thought I would never, ever want to do--teach at a junior high school.

Anyway, I feel that this week I engaged in a few memorable activities with the class. On Friday, we went on a field trip to Schnuck's Grocery Store in Normal. Previously, the students have been learning the names for different fruits and vegetables and how to describe their color, shape and size and how to tell if they like that particular food or not. They used a worksheet that asked them such questions as "Find a fruit you don't like. Describe it." And they went around looking at different fruits and vegetables while the teachers periodically asked them questions such as "What color is this fruit?" etc. We also bought a few fruits and vegetables that they hadn't tried before to learn more about them. I thought it was a very fun learning experience for a field trip.

A Different Voice, A Daily Struggle: Made in America Chapter 9

Chapter 9, like so many of the chapters in Made in America was a truly sad awakening to the problems that districts, schools, and teachers struggle with every day. Olsen introduces this chapter with yet another situation kept in mind when working at a public school--honors classes.--and relates it back to ESL students and how they are affected by it. This scenario was something I had never thought about in relation to ESL students before. The situation presented in the book was that a teacher wanted one of her ESL students to be moved up an accelerated class. It's crazy to think not only about the politics and educational struggles that general education students go through with honors classes, but ESL students? Wow. The student in question ended up moving to accelerated, but he was in an honors class that was two grade levels below his. Olsen agrees that this was not at all up to par, but at least it was more on his level. One of the involved teachers attempted to detrack the tenth grade social studies program, which Olsen states was met with "lukewarm reception". Surely there is the need for students of different abilities to be in differently taught classrooms, but as is brought, it can be a more serious social problem.

Olsen makes a good point in recognizing that the what the school district, and most likely many other district as well are doing is "perpetuating a class system: the children of people who have had access to higher education also get prepared for higher education, and the children of people who have not had higher education don't get prepared for higher education" (Olsen 193).

I guess what I took away from this chapter, along with the sense of confusion at the varying opinions and double standards that were present, was that we just have to give the students, all students the best we can. Olsen makes good mention of the ideological difference between old and new teachers, particularly in terms of methods. The new teachers fresh out of their programs have so much inspiration for advocacy whereas the old teachers feel as though they've been at the school long enough and had enough experiences to figure out what is and what isn't practical. However, the veteran teachers are also presented in more of a negative view, similar to how they were in previous chapters, where they seemed totally unwilling to work with the needs of the ESL/bilingual students. I could just not believe how stubborn they were.

Made in America Chapter 8: Adults in the Crossroads

What a thought-provoking and educationally relevant chapter! From the first story by the author regarding the principal's lack of knowledge regarding the correct demographic figures of the school, it was very shocking to me to read about the faculty's seeming lack of investment and care of the students and the school. However, after reading about their educatonal value of "seeing students as all the same," it almost makes sense. Not that I am condoning a lack or care or investment, but the general disbelief of treating students differently and drawing attention to ethnic differences by promoting programs and differentiated instruction is understandable. Olsen states "because they believe that teaching in a diverse setting implies stressing commonality and a common single knowledge base, it is no wonder that they do not see the need to make accommodations to their teaching as the population of students changes" (Olsen 181).

Diverse settings are a hot topic in education and methods courses and circles everywhere today. We are always taught as education students that we need to be aware of diversity and promote as best as we can but Olsen makes a good point above. She also mentions how the principal of Madison believes that the school treats all of the students the same, but in doing so when they have different needs, "produces inequitable access and outcomes" (Olsen 183). The viewpoints presented in this chapter are very thought-provoking and beg for discussion of both sides of the spectrum. Should we be treating students all the same? Traditionally, yes, because all students should have equal opportunities. Should we be treating students the same? No, because each student is a different person and learner and needs to be taught and handled in the way they learn best in order to gain the best outcomes and opportunities. But in doing so, we, as Olsen above states, produces inequitable outcomes and access. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Olsen makes use of quotes of a few different teachers who explain that for some students, the best thing for the or what they best need is to get a basic education and "just get along." One teacher explains: " They're good kids, and we're a good high school. They're going to graduate from here and do the same kind of jobs their parents do--nothing fancy. Some will shine and go on to college, but most don't" (Olsen 176). This begs the discussion of whether or not this is a bad thing, that some students just want to get through high school and out into the real world. This reminds me of a certain part in the movie October Sky (check it out, it's great) where a teacher is defending four students from a small mining town in West Virginia who are trying to be in a science fair. The principal is reluctant to believe in the students, saying that most of the kids who graduate from the high school are just going to be miners, maybe if they're lucky a few will get football scholarships, but not much else. I think as educators it is important for us to believe in the students of course, but also to remember to be open to their needs, and maybe, as the mentioned teachers at Madison think, excellence may not be one of them.

...What do you guys think?

TPR, Field Trip, & Smartboard

This week was a great one for observing and participating in interesting activities in my practicum experience. I feel like I learned so much!

In class one day, Mrs. Collins did a TPR (Total Physical Response) activity for a vocabulary lesson on jobs. I was really excited to observe this because I have heard a lot about TPR but never really seen a lesson featuring this concept in action. The lesson was awesome! She first showed a slide for each job (cook, teacher, hairdresser, etc) with a picture and then showed the students a movement associated with it that the students had to do. For the cook, they would mimic stirring a spoon in a pot of soup. After they did it multiple times, they would associate that movement with the job. After they got through all the jobs and their specific movements, she would close the slide and just say the name of the job and the students would do the movement. Then, she would switch it up so that she would do the movement and the students would say the job. I thought it was so cool to see it in action. It is activating their psychomotor skills as way to learn. The activity also accessed higher levels of thinking. Later in the activity, they had to close their eyes and listen to the teacher say the word and then do the motion so that they weren't relying on the other students for the right answer.

On Friday, the class went on a field trip to the fire station and got to ask questions about what the firemen do and other things that they wrote, see their living space (kitchen, bunks, and living room), go inside the fire truck and try on their gear. It was such a great, fun experience for all of the kids. I will try to post a picture of one of the kids wearing the fire gear because it was adorable.

I also made a smartboard activity for the intermediate writing class (I do not sit in on this class). Every week, the students do an Article of the Week, which is a small magazine with articles on different topics. This week's articles featured a quincenera, information about an actor, information about volcanoes, etc. I remember them from when I was in grade school! Mrs. Collins had me research activities for writing that could be done with the articles and put them on a smartboard slide for the students to complete. I found some really great ideas and writing prompts, and I chose the following questions:

Write down five things that you learned from this article. What do you think was the most important? Why?

Use the following sentence starter and answer the question using information from the article.
-I was reminded of...

Creating a Supportive Place for Immigrants: Made in America Chapter 7

What a disheartening mind trip reading this chapter was. Olsen captures perfectly the administrative battles and struggles that many ESL programs face in schools, even schools that seem to have it all together with their ESL programs such as ones in the Bayview district.

The opening vignette of the P.E teacher and the counselor not realizing the exhausted student's true reason for not eating all day serves as a preview of all the teacher and administrative inefficiencies that are sadly present in the Bayview district, Madison High and Newcomer High being most affected. When I began to read about the Newcomer school, although pedagogically it sounded wonderful, I thought about how truly sheltered the children are in their placement at the Newcomer school when it comes to actually using their English in interaction with other students. Although the text mentioned that many children only attend the Newcomer school for part of the day and then move to another comprehensive high school, surely there are students who stay all day at the Newcomer school. Olsen mentions such problems regarding both problems: "..they have become increasingly aware of the double-edged sword that the separate Newcomer School program has created." The Newcomer School has become a somewhat isolated island of services for immigrant students." "Teachers of the same immigrant students at the two sites have little communication and cannot sufficiently monitor the progress of students or provide the articulation and counseling support needed." These quotes showcase only a few of the problems that the Bayview district struggles with every day.

The chapter truly showcases the double-edged sword that exists in the district. The LEP children are sent to the Newcomer School to gain the most beneficial instruction from teachers who know how to work with ESL students, but then they are being kept away from the real English environment. Additionally, the view that is placed on this program seems to be negative within the district, with the other faculty of the comprehensive high schools wanting the Newcomer School to "deal with them."

I hope this chapter prompts really good discussion on educational policy and management on Monday.