Reflection 8

This week I had the fortunate experience of working with Sun and Bo again. I remembered Bo from one of my first tutoring experiences at North Central–we had worked together on a lab report that he and other students were preparing. On this day, Bo and Sun were also working on science homework. They had been given a giant review packet from their teachers for an upcoming unit test. This packet was extensive, about 12 pages total, and filled with questions, examples, and all sorts of review information. Bo and Sun had already completed a significant amount of the packet, and they asked if I thought we could finish the rest of it in the hour. I responded that we might be able to, and so we sat down to work.

As we set about finishing the review packet, I immediately noticed that Bo and Sun collaborated very well. We have often talked about how collaboration between students learning a second language is key, and it was exciting to see this actually happening right in front of me (Levine and McCloskey 20). Sun has very strong second language skills and I had assessed him to be a late stage four just before fluency (Hill and Flynn 2). Bo on the other hand, I remembered I had assessed to be at early production and speech emergence (Hill and Flynn 2). This would have meant that the two of them would have made a strong heterogenous partnership because Sun could have helped Bo to understand more of the key vocabulary and helped to scaffold him up to higher levels of learning. However, what I observed between the two students was hardly as one sided as Sun helping Bo and Bo not being able to help Sun.

I observed Bo to actually be much stronger than I had anticipated at understanding and communicating using some of the key content vocabulary. For example, a few of the pages in the packet asked questions about the water cycle and Bo was able to not only recognize these words, but to explain them to Sun who did not recognize them and was confused about what they meant. I am still working through the importance of this observation, but my initial reaction is that it reflects the different strengths of each student as diverse learners. Ultimately, I think this means that while Sun has a significant command of English which he is able to use adeptly in his speech class, it does not necessarily mean he is as strong a student in science. And Bo, while not necessarily as far along is his understanding of English, is highly competent in science. These variances between Bo and Sun could reflect differences in levels of interest in a particular subject, or ease of understanding in a particular subject.

I am very pleased I had the opportunity to observe these two working together because it challenged the way I had begun to view them as students, and it reminded me that as teachers we cannot place students in convenient little boxes. I am intrigued in the ease with which I so readily put Bo and Sun in categories. Had I not been more careful, I could have put a serious limit on what the two of them would have been able to accomplish together. Fortunately for me, this partnership resulted in something very different, and better, than what I had anticipated. As teachers, we have to remember students are fluid mosaics. Because of their developmental stage in life they are trying to figure out who they are, and sometimes we cannot proceed to categorize them without spending significant time working to get to know their strengths and weaknesses. If I had spent more time with Bo and Sun, I hope I would have been able to recognize that their partnership would have resulted in the type of interaction I observed. But as it stands now, I know that working with the two of them only a handful of times was not enough to accomplish this.

The final point of interest I would like to comment on from working with Bo and Sun was their use of their native language. At a few points during our work on the study packet, the two of them would converse in their first language to thrush out some of the concepts. While I know this was an important process, there were a few moments when the two of them would laugh and look at me, and I would notice myself becoming self-conscious and thinking, “Are they talking about me, or are they talking about the homework?” However, I was quickly able to end this nonsensical self-talk by reminding myself that it is not all about me. Learning a second language is a highly self-conscious endeavor for many students, and now I can see how a teacher, acting on their own self-consciousness, would remove native language use from the classroom (Lightbrown and Spada 100). Yet, as we know, this is one of the worst practices a teacher can act on because students need to be able to use their native language if possible to collaborate with others and reach further levels of understanding (McLaughlin 129).

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.

Lightbrown, P. M., and M. Spada. 2006. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 96-100. Print.

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

Comments are closed