2/27/13

In my third field experience at North Central, I arrived and met Ms. McCarthy at the top of the stairs. Saying she had to run off to a meeting, she directed me down the stairs where a student named Shaw Mo would meet me. Ms. McCarthy explained quickly that Shaw Mo was working on a business plan for a class and the assignment required significant creativity.  So I made my way down the steps to find Shaw Mo as Ms. McCarthy headed to her meeting.

As I was descending the steps, a student was headed up them and I stopped to ask her if she was Shaw Mo. She replied yes so I introduced myself and we continued back down the stairs and over to the table where she had set up for the assignment. Shaw Mo explained to me that the project was to come up with a business plan for the business the teacher assigned-she had been assigned a Yoga Studio. Quickly reading the instructions, I learned the teacher was asking the students to type an eight page paper outlining all the details of the business and the business plan. I asked Shaw Mo where she was on the progress of the paper and she showed me by pointing on the outline which described the assignment.

Looking closely at the outline I could see that it gave the details of every section of the paper. The teacher had taken the time to break down the assignment page by page and define the contents of each section. I noticed as well that Shaw Mo had taken the time to underline a few key words. I wondered if these were words she understood and found important, or rather if they were words she struggled with. I made a point to ask her as we moved through the assignment. The two of us moved over to the computer stations to begin work typing out a rough draft of her business plan.

Shaw Mo seemed to have a good idea of what she wanted her business to look like and how she wanted it to run. I could tell by the way she looked at me as I asked her questions or made suggestions. Although she was slow to respond, I think it was because she was being so deliberate. It made me think back to what we discussed in class about some students being insecure about being wrong and therefore afraid to take risks with language. But nonetheless, she would slowly reach her point by circumlocution, or by me making suggestions and her agreeing or disagreeing if I was on the write track.

We worked steadily through each section of the paper making slow but effective progress. I felt bad because she told me she wanted to be finished with the assignment by the end of the period, which seemed easily achievable to me, but as we continued working I realized we were not moving fast enough for that to be possible. At this point I realized, I think I had made a mistake because Shaw Mo was very comfortable with conversation English-we had no problem discussing the assignment informally as she updated me on what she needed to do and her ideas about the business plan. Her academic language on the other hand, was at a different stage of development and this resulted in our slow progress on the assignment. This is obviously not uncommon as we have discussed in class and with our readings, academic language takes significant time to develop (McLaughlin 130, Levine and McCloskey 14, Hill and Flynn 18).

As the hour came to a close, I reflected on the outline the teacher had given Shaw Mo for the assignment. I had come to learn through asking her that the words she underlined had been words she was having trouble understanding. There were maybe 5-8 words total underlined. I helped to explain them to her as we moved through working on the assignment if she could not come to the meaning on her own by thinking about it or guessing. I found it important to note here that sometimes she guessed at the words correctly which reaffirmed what I believed about her being a little insecure about using language. She just needed a little affirmation that she was on the right track!  I think the outline the teacher had given the students here contained about the correct amount of information and was an effective tool for this assignment. It could have had a bit more detail about each section because in some cases it was succinct, but overall, I thought it clearly explained the assignment and helped Shaw Mo to understand what each section of the paper required. The teacher could have just listed these sections, but including a short description or definition of shorts helped the student to more clearly understand the vocabulary and requirements.

Ultimately I see this being an effective practice when I build my projects for students. I think it will be important to provide an outline of sorts for the sections of projects or papers so they can recall what each section is to entail. This might be especially important if I am requiring my students to write lab reports. I appreciated the outline I saw when I worked with Bo and Henoke on their lab reports a few weeks ago. Something as simple as an outline might seem helpful but not entirely necessary for a student who is not learning English for the first time, but I am beginning to see just how critical they are for ELL students.

References

Flynn, Kathleen M., and Jane D. Hill. “The Stages of Second Language Acquisition.” Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners. Alexandria: ASCD, 2006. 14-21. Print.

Levine, Linda N., and Mary L. McCloskey. “Language Acquisition and Language Learning in the Classroom.” Teaching Learners of English in Mainstream Classrooms (K-8): One Class, Many Paths. New York: Pearson, 2008. 1-25. Print.

McLaughlin, Barry. “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning.” Center for Applied Linguistics Digest. 1992. Print

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