Are We Truly Helping Our Students?
This Chapter is filled with great examples of the best
practices and damaging practices for Emergent Bilinguals. The chapter begins by
explaining the major achievement gap between students identified as ELs and non-EL
students (Fu, Hadjioannou, Zhou, 2019, p. 31). This gap was shocking and very
unsettling.
However, the part of the chapter that I found most
interesting was the two examples of Rosa and Yan. In Rosa’s example, she was in
a pull-out ESL program and was provided help with grammar rules in English.
However, Rosa returns in the middle of the science lesson. She wanted to
participate in the lesson and share her knowledge on animals but could not find
the right vocabulary in English, so she ended up not listening anymore. This is
known as the snowball effect. On the other side, Yan was not in a pull-out
program and instead his teacher supported his development by giving him a
bilingual picture book, allowing him to share his writing, and honoring his
family’s culture and values. Yan is in a translanguaging classroom where his
whole language repertoire is supported. It is known from research that students
use both languages to create one language repertoire. From both of these
examples we can see both teachers have good intentions but only one student is
engaged in the lesson and learning. It is important for teachers to recognize
the challenges that Emergent Bilinguals have and to be aware of how their
instruction may help or hurt their language development. For example, by
preventing students from only using one language is hurting the student in many
ways. Students have one language repertoire and should be able to continually
develop both languages. I also believe it is very important how the teacher
allows Yan to bring in his grandma’s herb book in class. Yan was able to share
and be proud of his L1. I think it is necessary for all teachers to ensure
students know how important all of their languages are to their identity. One
idea I would like to explore more is how to make the pull-out program better
and to see if a pull out or a push in program is better for students. (Word count 366)
Jill,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your post! I enjoyed reading about your perspective on the chapter. I also found the contrasts between Yan and Rosa’s experiences unsettling. It was clear that Rosa was excited to share her thoughts on the lesson in relation to her experiences on her family’s farm but did not feel comfortable enough to do it in English. All of us in Modernity probably know what it’s like to feel pride and excitement when connecting experiences to class lessons. Without the right words, it would be quite discouraging to be in this situation, just like Rosa experienced in the book. In contrast, Yan’s story was inspiring. Reading about how his teacher, Mrs. Rush, supported him and scaffolded his English learning with many resources made me want to do the same for my future students. Using Yan’s family resources as well as his background knowledge and bilingual books were all great ideas that made him feel more welcome in class and confident in his abilities. It is also important to note that all students, regardless of what their language background is like, can benefit from support and resources such as those. Including diverse and multilingual materials in the classroom should be expected, especially for all of us learning about culturally relevant teaching. After seeing the examples of Rosa and Yan, I am hopeful that we all will be like Yan’s teacher and help students like Rosa and Yan become more confident and excited about their language learning. (248 words)
Jill, I really like how you focused on the experiences of the students. It is easy to read a text book and read the different forms of instruction. But, since we could hear the voices, concerns, and feelings of the students, we are better able to understand the importance of finding the correct form of instruction for EBs. In Rosa’s story, we can feel the pain she felt when her teacher told her she had to speak in English that day in science class. Her identity, language, and culture were in turn shot down and shut out. Although there may be times where we need students to do things in English on a proficiency test, they should be allowed to use their other knowledge and language repertoires to assist them in putting the English together. With Yan, we see his teacher encouraging him to use both, and not just put one language aside for a lesson. Yan flourished in this class, and even felt comfortable helping his peers even though he did not know exactly the word for what he was describing. This speaks to the environment the teacher has created in the classroom, and that is an accepting and understanding one.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I found was the incorporation of their culture and family into lessons. We learned that it is not appropriate to just ask them to share their culture on holidays, but the importance of including their culture in everything. Yan’s teacher didn’t ask him to speak about Chinese new-year, but rather encouraged him to connect with his everyday resources from his grandmother. I think there is a fine line in how we incorporate or recognize students' culture, and we always want to do it in an appropriate and thoughtful way.
(WC: 293)
Jill,
ReplyDeleteThe ideas and examples you pulled from the chapter greatly supported the responsibility we have to improve education for emergent bilinguals. The contrast you note between monolingual practices and translanguaging practices and the intense impact each approach has on emergent bilingual education shows what it is we can do that will improve their education. The examples you acknowledge that demonstrate this greatly support this. Rosa’s monolingual education hindered her academic success because of the pull-out program she was in. In addition, she was not supported in her classroom so that she felt comfortable sharing the knowledge she had which is really just unfair to her. Conversely, Yan was given support in the form of resources that allowed him to share his knowledge, benefiting his education.
I also like that you discuss how both teachers in the examples had good intentions, but it is the awareness of Yan’s teacher that allows him to be empowered in both of his languages and have the best education possible. Educating ourselves and ensuring that we are aware of our student’s needs and the strategies that will meet these needs is crucial for our emergent bilinguals. Finally, I agree with your desire to explore which program is most beneficial to emergent bilinguals and would be interested in doing more research on the topic. (218)
Christen Zuvich
Jill,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mentioned both examples from the text including Rosa and Yan’s experience while they were in the classroom. I also enjoyed how you stated your thoughts on the pull-out method they used with Rosa to try and give her resources to help her in the classroom, however it is instead doing Rosa harm because what she is learning in the ESL program does not correspond with what her teacher is talking about in the classroom. As you had mentioned Rosa wanted to share her own experience at her farm with animals during science, but she did not know the correct English words for them. I also like that you talked about how important it is for all teachers to recognize challenges that Emergent Bilinguals go through and for teachers to know the way they are being shown can either help or hurt a students language development.
While reading your blog it reminded me of a personal story while growing up. My mother was told to suppress speaking Spanish to me as a child so that I could participate and understand what is going on in the classroom. Not only did the teachers hurt my language development but they tried to tell my mother not to speak it to her children which still astounds me. I really like your idea of how we can improve on the pull-out method, Great Job!
~Alejandra Morales