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REFLECTION:

Wow, this was a very challenging, yet, eye-opening course to take! I think that the underlying challenge was linked to the content. I now have a better understanding of the challenges and struggles our ELLs face when learning a second or additional language I was surprised to read that the U.S. Census Bureau identified 381 different languages spoken in our homes across our country (Wright, 2015, p.8)! To be honest, I never really put a whole lot of thought into the variety of components and struggles that our ELLs experience. This course has helped me open my eyes to factors like; the age one begins to learn the target language, the different English proficiency levels,  the crosslinguistic influences, the effects of the linguistic environment, motivation, second language as a form of cognition, the many different types of ELLs, the impact we have as teachers, the variety of strategies to assist our ELLs, etc. 

Taking a closer look at these factors and grasping a more in-depth understanding of how they all interplay with each other will help me tremendously, not only as a teacher, but also as an individual interacting with society. In the classroom, I will be more consciously aware of our ELLs and their levels on English language proficiency paying close attention to their domain descriptors. To be honest, before this course I did not even know about the different domains and descriptors for each. This is important to know because effective instruction needs to be very different for these students because of their levels of English proficiency (Wright, 2015, p.13). It is hard to stand up for what is right if we lack the knowledge of what is harmful for our ELLs and what is not. This class provided valuable insight to the perspective of the importance of our schools providing a multicultural education! As teachers, we need to be aware of our students’ backgrounds. We need to understand that many of our ELLs may struggle with comprehension and lack vocabulary (they have not had the time and experiences to develop their L2 like their L1 peers). Thus why the sink-or-swim educational policy is crazy! It blows my mind!  How will that benefit these children? I feel like that is more like placing them in a strict survival mode and that can hurt these children. I do not know about you but I cannot live with that in my heart. I always place a high value on getting to know each and every one of my students as an individual. Every student will bring something different to the classroom, which is just life. I really want to place an emphasis on creating a safe, positive classroom environment that portrays a little of all of our cultures! A community! I would love to see our society, our schools, and our community move from assimilation to acculturation. The effects of acculturation are pro-founding. It is important to me that immigrants and their children are given an opportunity to learn the target language (English) yet still keep their culture intact and continue to grow in that area as well. Wright states that through acculturation, "immigrants and their children can adapt to the new language and culture without having to sacrifice their own (Wright, 2015, p.20). This sounds more like the team I want to be a part of. Besides, we live in the United States, which is encompassed by many diverse cultural groups. These groups are distinguished by gender, class, ethnicity, language and religion (Wright, 2015, p.20). This only provides more evidence of the multicultural education we need to provide to our students! We all have heard that it is important to have a growth mindset. More importantly, it is important to encourage and assist our students in having a growth mindset. I believe developing rapport with our ELLs and their families, learning about their culture, likes, and dislikes, as an individual will help me in the future to implement strategies to encourage intrinsic motivation. Knowing that my ELL's will place such high value on me as an influential person in their life, makes me want to be the best teacher/person I can be who motivates them from the inside out. If I am determined, in turn I pray they are determined and together we can work through the challenges. 

I think the greatest impact, my take away, from this class, is the knowledge and perspective I have gained. I do not think my teaching philosophy has necessarily changed, but it definitely has taken my knowledge a step deeper and brought to light valuable information aiding me in assisting my ELLs. Life is always about learning and I am forever grateful for the knowledge I gained from this course. In addition, I also feel I have learned more about the diversity in language proficiency, school demographics, and the differences in tools are resources used throughout classrooms and schools! 

All things are possible and together we got this!

Regarding my input on what aspects or topics of the class should receive more or less attention in future classes. To be honest, overall I think the course was implemented very well. I do not have any input on topics that should receive more or less attention. Professor, it was smooth, great transitions, a variety of information was provided. I like how along with the readings, you provided PowerPoint slides. Re-reading the information (summaries) helped reinforce the material. I also feel like our blogs brought us closer as a class. I have taken online courses before and it is more like you log on, do what you need to do and are done. There was no personalization into who was enrolled in the course with you. I feel that our blogs created an opportunity for us to grow together as not only a class, but also provided a variety of perspectives through the videos and blogs. We each brought our own story and shared others stories. This assist in contributing to gaining additional perspectives about second language methodology. The course has motivated me to learn more about our ELLs. During my interviews, I found myself asking additional questions, not because we had to for the course, but because I was interested in learning more! I appreciate everyone sharing their stories and I enjoyed reading everyone's blogs and watching your videos. I hope everyone has a blessed rest during our Thanksgiving holidays! 

REFERENCES:

Wright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caston, Second Edition.

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JAIME BARNETT

The individual I chose to interview is Jaime Barnett. Jaime is ESL certified and has been teaching kindergarten through first grade for over 16 years! Jaime is my mentor teacher. I am very blessed and thankful that she is so, very willing to assist me with my journey in school!

CLICK HERE to learn more about her experiences! 

REFLECTION:

Interviewing Jaime was an amazing opportunity! As a certified ESL teacher and an individual with experience in teaching English Language Learners for over 16 years, Jaime offered some valuable insight. Jaime shared her experiences of what it is like to work with ELL's within the classroom. 

The school in which Jaime teaches, implements the "Mainstream" Program Model. In this model, ELLs are taught content in the English language. The societal aim for this model is 'assimilation' and the aim in language outcome is English monolingualism. Wright states that monolingual forms of education are the weakest of all of the programs because they make little to no use of ELLs' home languages. Instead, they aim for cultural and social assimilation of students, and "frequently result in the loss of students' ability to speak their first language, that is, they result in subtractive bilingualism" (Wright, 2015, p.114). These students do not have the opportunity to learn and excel in their home language. 

After speaking more in depth (off video) with Jaime regarding the demographics at the school in which she teacher, it became clear that the ELLs population is very low, compared to some neighboring schools. Thus, Bilingual Education is not as high of a priority as it may be in the surrounding schools. Jaime stated that in her 16 years of teaching at the same school, she has never met a student who has entered the school only knowing their home language. Jaime stated that when students have qualified for ESL, that it is predominantly because at home the parents speak another language.  Thus, Jaime’s' experience is mostly working with ELLs who speak/write in two languages, but in school, they only use English as the language of instruction.

Assimilation is the ideology behind the melting pot. Assimilation leads to immigrants abandoning their language and culture to become Americans (Wright, 2015, p.19). This is an outdated, flawed, way of thinking. This makes my heart sad. Our society should be encouraging acculturation. This allows immigrant and their children to adapt to the new language and culture without having to sacrifice their own (Wright, 2015, p.20). We should strive to promote our students in growing in their home language, as well as, the dominant language of our society (English). Growing in both languages allows our students to maintain an intact social and cultural identity, while still learning the target language. We are unique and offer a variety of characteristics and qualities. Finding ways to have everyone contribute those in their own way creates a much more well-rounded world. Thus instead of assimilation, our schools should be focusing on acculturation. 

In conclusion, I really appreciated a perspective of what it is like to work with ELLs inside the classroom. I look forward to gaining insight and utilizing the knowledge within my classroom to better assist my ELLs. 

I want to personally thank Jaime Barnett for not only sharing her experiences with me, but also allowing me to share her experiences with others! Hearing first hand has helped me gain a better perspective outside my limited personal experience in second language methodology!

REFERENCES:

Wright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caston, Second Edition.

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THE TONG FAMILY

The individual I chose to interview is Dave Tong. I met Dave and his family through our church. Dave and his wife, Sue, are my small group leaders and over the past year and a half an amazing friendship has blossomed. Dave and Sue were both born in Taiwan and moved to the United States as young children. 

CLICK HERE to hear Dave's story!

REFLECTION:

First, this was an amazing experience! Meeting with Dave and inquiring about his past helped me gain valuable insight in culture as it relates to SLA and methodology. As mentioned, Dave was born in Taiwan and came to the United States at the age of five. According to Ortega, the biological window for children to acquire their complete L1 is between the ages of four-six (Ortega, 2013, p.12). Dave's language during this time-period was Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, his native language is Mandarin Chinese. 

As a person who has been in the United States for the past forty-five years, Dave shares with us that he does not remember much about his experiences in the schools here in the United States as a child. However, the experience Dave does remember, he describes as "scary." Although Dave left Taiwan with his family, he was still immersed into a world, which the only language he understood was Mandarin Chinese. Dave says that when in Kindergarten he recalls not knowing "a lick" of English. He explicitly recalls a memory of the way he felt everyone "stared" at him "kind of strangely." That appears to be a powerful, yet, very sad, memory.

By listening to Dave's morphosyntactic and phonological competence, it is evident that it is very similar to those of native speakers. Ortega states that learners who began acquiring their L2 at such a young age tend to exhibit intuitions that are very similar to those of native speakers of that language (Ortega, 2013, p.19). From the age of five until adulthood, he has shared some of his language experiences, describing what it was like to be immersed in a language that he did not understand. Dave does not recall the rate at which he picked up on the language nor strategies which assisted him in learning the L2. However, Dave did stated that he recalled a teacher of "some sort" who would come into the class and work with him one-on-one in learning the target language. Dave also states that kids are resilient and that this one-on-one assisted him in adapting fairly quickly in communicating with his fellow classmates and teacher! Wright states that in the past, ELLs were assigned to ESL teachers. These teachers/specialists would pull students out of their classrooms a few hours a week and provide our ELLs specialized instruction and support (Wright, 2015, p. 2).

I found our conversation very intriguing when we discussed and compared his L1 to his L2. At this point in his life, Dave states that his L2 has become his more "dominant" language. Dave learned to speak Mandarin Chinese as a young child but learned to speak, read, and write in English as a young child and throughout the majority of his life. According to Rowland, bilingual children are affected by the amount of language that they hear. The more a child hears in a language, the more that language develops (Rowland, 2014, p. 193). With that in consideration, it helps explain Dave's descriptions of feeling more dominant in his L2, while describing the feeling of his L1 fading due to the lack of use.

In other words, Dave's native language was his dominant language at the age of five. Most children are entering school at this time. Dave did not have an opportunity to develop the reading or writing skills in his native language. Over the years, he has experienced a gradual fading of his native language partly due to the consistent increase of exposure and input in English. It is the English language in which Dave feels he can fluently speak, write, and read.

Wright discusses the importance of educators becoming knowledgeable of their own students' cultural backgrounds and how culture influences learning at school and involves much more that "food, dress, art, music, and holidays of an ethnic group" (Wright, 2015, p.17). When asked, Dave responds that he does feel that culture has been taken away from due to the lack of use of his native language. Dave tells us that his parents still speak Mandarin Chinese, however, their L2 has also become more dominant. Dave tells us that his three children grew up with their L1 being English. Dave states that although he wanted his parents to teach his children Mandarin Chinese, his grandparents thought it was just "easier" to teach them English. Along their generational journey in life, there has become a shift in their dominant languages and a part of their cultural identity suffers because of that. As Dave states, there is just so much embedded in language that culture seeps through the language and "you really get a chance to see how the thinking process works through the language." Furthermore he states that if you "don't speak it your not really following some of the thinking processes that they have for that specific culture." Dave ends his thoughts about losing a part of his culture with "IT IS WHAT IT IS." This is a powerful statement. A statement that made me think about our schools. "It is what it is" is something I use when I feel like I just have to accept it, that there is nothing I can do to change the situation. Hearing him state, "it is what it is" made me feel like he just accepts that for what it is. I get that, but can't we create a different end result for our ELLs. Wright states that it is important for educators to understand their students' cultural backgrounds and be diligent at avoiding stereotypes and generalizations (Wright, 2015, p.17). However, avoiding these stereotypes and generalizations is only one step. This assimilation ideology that immigrants who come to the United States must "willingly abandon their language and culture to become Americans" is absurd and damaging to one's culture identity (Wright, 2015, p.19).

I hope that our educators, our schools, our country can assist our ELLs in learning the L2 while still keeping their L1 intact while simultaneously encouraging and providing ample opportunities to have ELLs excel in their L1 alongside the L2.

I want to personally thank the Tong family for not only sharing their story with me, but also allowing me to share their story with others! Hearing first hand has helped me gain a better perspective outside my limited personal experience in second language acquisition and methodology!

REFERENCES:

Rowland, C. (2014). Understanding child language acquisition. New York: Routledge.

Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London and New York: Routledge.

Wright, Wayne (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caston, Second Edition.

VBLOG: ENTRY 1

Hello everyone! My name is Amanda Ransford and I am a senior at the University of Houston! I am working towards my EC-6 Generalist degree and will graduate in the Spring of 2019. I look forward to the knowledge I will gain from this course.

Click here to watch my introductory video!