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.