In Response to Bob Perez's Blog

There was an entry of Bob's where he stated that "For the last 20 years I have been Hispanic, for the 20 years before that, I was Chicano, and the 15 years before that I was just a poor Mexican kid from the wrong side of the tracks."  Interesting/sad that for the same person, three different labels were placed.  Awesome to see how a kid from the "wrong side of the tracks" ended up doing as much as he has.  Great story about your family too.  Stories about families achieving the American Dream (in whatever form they want that dream to be) need to be the focus of media attention.  The news always states that Mexican/Latino immigrants are bad because . . . fill in the blank with whatever half-thought statements you've heard.  It's a shame that my best friend will never make the evening news with his success story - how he came to CA from Guatamala when he was 18, started mowing lawns with one mower and a beat-up truck, and now owns his owns business doing landscaping projects for various cities in the IE.
Great job to Bob on all his posts.

In Response to Kelly Richardson's Blog

She had a very insightful look at Chapter 9, and my response is this - I don't know why people would want English to be the world language, being that it has so many rules and seemingly more ways in which those rules can be broken. (Did that make any sense). But it is fun to see how English has adopted so many words from other languages (just thought of a little display on Ellis Island that shows this) and how little thought we give to their origins. Great post though, I didn't catch the difference of opinion between the two chapters until you brought it up.

What the What?

Have I been foolishly making comments to two other peoples posts - commenting on each of their blog entries?  Have we merely had to make a comment on two people's posts on our own blog?
If so, I feel real dumb.  Maybe it's the left-over tryptophan in my system . . .

The Wrap-Up

After all the readings and all the posts, I stumbled on a thought - good teaching strategies mentioned for ELLs are good teaching strategies for all.  I've found that working in SDC classrooms for he last three years, whether I had students who spoke a different languages or not, if I used strategies mentioned for ELs (story-telling, creating Venn Diagrams, role-playing, etc.) everyone ended up understanding the concept more.  Why?  Because they are good teaching strategies.  Another thing I discovered working in this crazy-fun world of education, is that even students who are labeled English-only students have a difficult time with the language; why don't we call them English learners - they are learning the language aren't they?

So, to all those using great strategies, keep using them.  We will see growth in our young ones.

Update to the Lunchroom

This is sort of an update to an earlier post.  There is a paragraph in Chapter 5 (129), with the heading, "Maintaining the First Language as an Affective Strategy."  Here's a little quote - "Students achieve more when they use and develop their native language . . . books magazines, films, and other materials . . . can support and augment student learning."

This can also be tied to my Pedagogical Analysis paper where I discussed the lack of an ELD class at my site.  Whatever their rationale for not having one - money, competent teachers, etc - this would be a valid argument for having one.  We all know The State wants higher test scores (100% proficiency in a matter of years), so why are we not helping our EL learners achieve learning goals?
That is the million dollar question. . .

I Have Some Work to Do

I was just flipping through the book and came across a little something on page 210 - "Creating Environments".  To paraphrase, in order for students to start using their imagination and stimulate creativity, the room should be colorful, "bright with posters, unusual visual images, and colorful cultural materials. . . "

Like I said, I have some work to do.

Teaching Grammar (Chapter 9)

First thing first, I don't know how many times I've seen DOL done where the sole activity was to make sentences sound more better.  I was taught it when I was a kid, I've used it several times with my students, the teacher next door writes one a paragraph long every day . . . but then to read how this approach, "Does not promote oral language . . . or teach usage or grammar effectively" and it threw me for a loop.  What?  That's the way I learned - or thought I learned - to do grammar good. . . .

I liked the approach to teaching grammar in this chapter, especially the use of the chart on page 268.  I started getting some ideas from it, like, why can't I teach writing or spelling during history?  We can use Cloze activities from passages from our textbooks, or have discussions of our readings based on things around the neigborhood, or of other sources (T.V., movies, etc).

As far as the grammar games go, I always thought that "I Spy" was just a silly game to pass the time while sitting in traffic!  I think my reading group would be able to do the "Buffet" activity, but I wouldn't use so many basewords and prefixes at first - just those they already know.  The chain reaction activity sounds like fun, and would be great for building a story for whole group writing activities.

The main thing that I took from this section of reading is that the language arts program for our below and far-below basic kids, does not allow much time for proper grammar instruction; this is sad since a good majority of our students are in intensive programs . . .  I aim to use some of the strategies outlined in this chapter, and find more ways to incorporate grammar in other lessons.

Try it Out And See How You Do

The attached quiz gives a glimpse of what questions people attempting to attain citizenship are asked.  Basically, if they fail, they do not become a citizen.  I failed.  Maybe I should go back to where I came from . . .

http://blogthings.com/couldyoupasstheuscitizenshiptestquiz/

The Lunchroom

Okay, this doesn't really have much to do with the reading, but I just thought I'd share a quote I heard in the lunchroom.

The teacher was talking about this one girl in class (an EO) who feels insecure about being in her group because some of the other girls talk spanish and (allegedly) start laughing.  The teacher pretty much told them they can't speak spanish in the classroom, that it's not polite.  Thank goodness she didn't say next what others have said - "This is America."

Uhm, how about either A) asking the girls what they were talking about, B) learn a bit of spanish too so you don't feel insecure, or C) all of the above!  But to tell them that's it not polite if she doesn't know what they are saying?  Now, I know how middle schoolers are, and they may very well have been talking "stuff" about the other girl, but if the teacher had suggested instead that it's not very polite to be talking rudely about other students, I'm sure they would have stopped . . . okay, well for five minutes or so . . .

I just wish I had the guts to have pointed out how rude such a comment sounds.  Then again, I was the only one there who speaks an ounce of Spanish.

Dual-Language Proficiency (chap. 12)

This has been a topic my wife and I discuss often - why aren't there more schools and programs to help promote other languages?  Californians (now this is just my opinion, so don't fire back), as well as other states with high Latino populations, should learn Spanish.  Our main argument - it may build tolerance to those "in the land down under;" (Mexico, not Australia as the song is about).  It would be terrific if there was more support for Dual Immersion Schools, or support classes for Second Language Acquisition.

A fellow teacher friend of mine has his kids in a Dual Immersion program in Beaumont.  Hearing them speak both languages fluently is awesome to hear!  According to him, their test scores ranked higher than others in the district who were not learning a second language.

The last statement seems to contradict what the text says, about how such classes slow the learning process; other research seems to agree that students who learn two languages perform better at school because they are building up two different parts of the brain.  I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but  you can get more information from (http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/digest_pdfs/Instructed2ndLangFinalWeb.pdf), or the website itself at (http://www.cal.org/).

Whatever your stance may be on the subject, I strongly feel that our ELs need the extra support in L1, rather than being shoved into a English Only classroom with little or no support.  It certainly wouldn't hurt, that's for sure . . . especially with test scores.

Storytelling (chap 8)

There's a section in Chapter 8 of the text where it goes into detail the steps to storytelling (see page 227).  The first step - and this sort of threw me for a loop, and I'll explain why - states "Coach students to tell stories often."

Now, I tend to be the sort of teacher where if I don't see the relevance of the tale my darling little 6th grader is beginning to spin, I will start to tune them out, or interrupt them halfway through, ask them if what they are telling me is any way shape, or form, related to what we are talking about . . . generally the answer is "no" followed by abrupt (and honestly - welcomed) silence.

But, maybe I need to change the perception of useless tales, into engaging activities.  Perhaps I need to start setting aside time during the day, or even specific days, to storytelling.  With the initial stories they start telling, we can then start the revision process (step 2), and gradually lead to the students writing on their own - which is one of the main goals my SDC students have.  Let's find out what will happen in the coming weeks . . . .