I have been fortunate enough to have worked with an ESL student. She was in kindergarten and had just moved from Zimbabwe. When I first met her the only word that she could say was "Yes" but after 3 months she was able to carry on a conversation with her. When I was reading chapter one from the Gibbons book there was a section about how ESL students can have conversations sooner than they can understand their school work. I could definitely see this with the student I worked with. We could talk about many different subjects, but she struggled with her alphabet and counting. Eventually she did meet the requirements needed to go on to first grade but just barely.
When I was working with this student I was able to observe her in her classroom. Most of the students were English Language Learners. When they had free time to play, a majority of them spoke in their native languages and occasionally said a few words in English. The teacher really had to spark conversation between the students by asking them about what they were doing and why. This teacher used some methods similar to those presented in the book. For example, she had them place pictures in order and asked them to explain why.
I think that these methods will be very helpful in a classroom setting. It does not have to be just for ESL students. I think that students that are behind their peers in learning how to write and speak English could benefit greatly from these activities. In special education classrooms these could be very helpful. This could be helpful to any child that is having a difficult time understanding and speaking.
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I have had similar experiences working with ELL students in my classroom. The classroom I'm in is very diverse, and there are two kids in the class who hardly speak any English at all. One of these students in particular had just moved to Michigan from Iraq and she could barely say a word of English the first time I met her. However, over the semester I have seen her progress and she is starting to construct simple sentences and common words. Because she cannot communicate very well with spoken English, she uses a lot of other modes of communication like gestures and body language. Similar to your student, the ELL student I have from Iraq can communicate better in conversation than she can about school topics. Unlike your classroom, the kids in my class don't normally talk in their native language at all. This might be because all but two of the students are pretty proficient in English and they are older than your students (second grade). I also think the methods shown in chapter 2 of the book would be very helpful for some of the students in my classroom that have trouble with spoken English.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both that the methods in Chapter 2 would work well with ESL students. I wish I would have read this chapter before. A year ago I worked with an 8th grade girl who just moved here from Iraq. She knew no English. We spent a lot of time just laughing and saying "Um...". I had to use a lot of body language myself and physical cues to try to get across the things I was saying. We worked together with picture books. I would write the words of objects in the picture on little post-its and she would stick them on that item. She got better and better at it as time went on. It can be frustrating at times trying to communicate with someone who does not understand you but activities involving pictures tend to work out very well. I wish I would have known about some of these activities before working with her though so I could have used those too.
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