3/18/13

For my fifth field experience, I had the opportunity to work with a student named La Erb on his science homework. I was excited for the opportunity to work on something in science because during the past few experiences I had to work outside of my content area, and as a result, somewhat outside of my comfort zone. 

I learned that La Erb was from Thailand and he moved here in 2006. We fell into this conversation because the homework he had been given in his science class had to do with the atmosphere, earth’s position around the sun, and weather; La told me the weather in Thailand is much better to here. The worksheet was a vocabulary sheet where students had to unscramble the words in the key, and then fill in the blanks for the definitions and phrases comprising the rest of the page.

As we began, I noticed La had little difficulty with unscrambling the words. He was familiar with using the glossary section of the chapter for assistance, and even then, often did not need to resort to using it. I also took this to potentially mean he was a strong reader, unscrambling science vocabulary words can be fairly tricky, often they are long unfamiliar words that describe theories or ideas instead of objects. We unscrambled all the words and then continued to the next section of the paper which included filling in the blanks.

La would read aloud the sentence with the missing piece, and if he knew from reading it right away he would insert the appropriate word. Otherwise, he would suggest one or two answers and try to gauge my response for the correct one. The first few times he did this, I did not really notice that I was giving him the answer with my positive reinforcement. However, the third time he attempted this, and I asked him to explain one of the terms he suggested to fit in the blank, he said he didn’t know. I realized my mistake and began to ask La more specific questions before allowing him to tell me the answer, and not the other way around.

I think this made a very helpful difference because as we continued down the page, we would often stop to discuss the terms, many of which I could use visuals or real life examples to explain (Short et al. 39). Although if that was immediately easy, I could use the reliable technique of referencing root words. Upon a few occasions he would ask follow up questions which I was excited about. I took this to mean he was understanding the material and able to think critically about it. La had very superior language skills to any student I had worked with before which made sense because he had been living here for seven years putting him just about at the final stage of advanced fluency (Hill and Flynn 15). I asked him if he knew English before he came to the States and he said that he only knew the bad words, I would imagine knowing the bad words first can be fairly typical.

We finished the science sheet with time left, so La asked if I could go over his English paper. He had just finished a book in his English class and they were to write a paper, or book report of sorts. As he oriented me with the subject of paper, I noticed a few interesting things, the book had a Spanish theme, and the writing of his paper was in first person present. I asked about the tense of the paper and La clarified this was supposed to be the case. When I asked about the Spanish theme, La said he knew a little Spanish. I was very intrigued by this, he knew three fairly different languages, a very impressive skill.

I prepared La that I would be highly critical of his paper, and he seemed okay with this at first. However, when the red started to appear as I moved through the track changes explaining little grammatical errors to him he soon got discouraged saying it was a bad paper. In reality La had written a very good paper (which I reassured him on many times), his ideas were all present, sometimes a little unorganized but nonetheless there, and his grammar was not too bad given the interesting structure of the assignment. I was very curious why the teacher asked the students to write the paper about a book written in the past, in the first person present as though they were there. This was only complicated by the fact that the main character of the book dies, so the writer has to speak about main character’s life as though it is over from the first person. For an English language learner, or any student for that matter, this creates a good deal of confusion about tenses and verb forms.

As I reflected on the details of the assignment at the end of the day as I left the school, I reconsidered how teachers decide on assignments. I can understand the drive to be particularly creative in designing assignments, but I am wondering if sometimes, we need to fight against that a little bit. If we are complicating assignments just because we can and not because it achieves a greater outcome, I would say perhaps we need to remember that in some cases more is not always better, it is just more.

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.

Short, Deborah J., MaryEllen Vogt, and Jana Echevarria. “Activities and Techniques for SIOP Science Lessons: Lesson Preparation, Building Background, Comprehensible Input, and Strategies.” The SIOP Model for Teaching Science to English Leaners. Allyn & Bacon, Inc. 2007. 21-51. Print.

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