How can I, as an educator, help Spanish-speaking, English Language Learners, become more comfortable with the English language, academically, and socially? Providing students with ample, high quality books that they can relate to is a key step to answering this question. The books chosen to help answer the inquiry topic would be useful for a wide range of grades, from kindergarten to fifth grade. I chose these books to show that high quality books can be implemented throughout grades to help any students at any level. Bilingual books are especially important. By providing text in a student’s native language and a new language, students feel more comfortable trying to learn new words when they also have the comfort of words that they already know. Colors! ¡Colores! by Juan Luján and Piet Grobler tells a story about colors in both English and Spanish. This bilingual book depicts diverse people in the drawings and presents beautiful, eye-catching illustrations to entice a young reader. The text is simple in both language and provides a young reader the opportunity to reader the book independently and then with an adult helping with the English part. The Three Little Pigs/ Los Tres Creditos adapted by Mercé Escadó I Bas and illustrated by Pere Joan, provides a young reader with the opportunity to read a story that they have more than likely been told before. This is a great way to get children to feel more comfortable with learning a new language; by presenting to students books about topics or stories they already know about they may feel more comfortable with learning unfamiliar words when they can place an event or story to the text. Both of these books could be incorporated into a classroom of young readers. When teaching a unit... ... middle of paper ... ...gual books help students by providing content they already know in their native language and the language they are hoping to learn. Books that discuss race can help a student feel more connected to their native country; they also provide the student with an understanding of diversity. There are few books that male readers can connect with, so ensuring that the classroom is equipped with books that focus on male characters or are written by male authors provide male students with a way to connect to reading. High quality books that focus on social justice also give ELL students an opportunity to learn about events that have occurred in their native country and learn about the situation their ancestors went through, this can help a student feel connected to their native country while still immersing him or her in a story that can help them learn the English language.
“Let Them Talk!” written by Wayne E. Wright is an article that focuses on the idea of promoting English Language Learners (ELL) oral-language skills in the classroom instruction time to improve their literacy and academic achievement. Too often are an ELL’s speaking and listening skills overlooked and not given enough attention to, even though it is one of the most important parts of communication. Wright encourages teachers working with ELL students to allow time for the student to adjust, not to pressure them into their language development, respect their various stages, bring them into whole class and small group discussions, correct simple language errors in speaking that impeded comprehension, and have them interact and communicate in the classroom for meaningful purposes.
Walking around I can observe that student’s population is Hispanic who are ESL. This student’s first language is Spanish and has little bit knowledge of English. They are able to take conversation with their peer with the Basic English they know, but struggle to talk in complete sentences. For example the
Throughout Richards early childhood development he quickly understood that in order to succeed in America he would have to learn to confidently speak in English. Richard is Hispanic American and although he was born in America, Spanish was the only language that he was exposed to as a young child. He grew up in a home where Spanish flowed freely, but he soon realized outside of his home the language that he primarily knew was foreign. His parents spoke fluent Spanish along with all of his relatives. The brief encounters he experienced of his parents speaking English were only in public places and the proficiency was very poor. Rodriguez’s home was as a safety net for him and his Spanish speaking family with they are his only real connections to the outside world. It wasn’t until Richards encounter with his teachers that he and his family was heavily impressed on the importance of developing a public language. After the encouragement of the visit home from a teacher as a family
Some students like the book because they can relate to the culture behind the book which is Latino. In the article by Seema Mehta it states “Teachers said the book helped connect with their Latino students, who make up two thirds of the district.¨ In Los Angeles the Latino population is high so when some students can connect to a book they´ll be more interested in reading it. The article also states ¨They felt empowered by this book¨. The students felt empowered by the book they could understand what the kids or people in the book were saying and they could relate to it.
Recently immigrated parents often learn English from their children. Over 70% of Hispanic Americans in California are English Language Learners (ELL) and are given the resour...
It is important to maintain children’s home language as it may help them learn and understand a second language. Barratt-Pugh (2000) discusses the benefits of bilingualism and maintaining it through early childhood settings, also mentions the concerns families have for their children maintaining two languages through schooling. Research within the article states that children who speak more than one language will have a higher level of understanding literacy content, form, genre, as well as understand the differences and translating within both languages. This demonstrates a contrast of strengths and experiences with literacy (linguist...
The purpose of this study is to figure out which ways experienced teachers work best with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study illustrates which strategies experienced teachers have found to work best. The diversity in school in the United States has increased each year. This means that there are an increasing amount of students who are learning English, English language learners (ELLs). This article comes from the perspective that each child should be taught to their specific needs. All students deserve a fair chance to learn. Fair means that every student is treated differently, not equally. Every student learns differently. In order to give every student a fair chance at learning, you must teach them according to their needs. An experienced teacher, Tiffany, describes her experiences working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study watches her methods and discusses what works based on data analysis of the success of her students.
The technique relies on a holistic approach that adopts instructions that allow students to actively participate in the learning process. This is easier for children that feel that the society appreciates their diversity through bilingualism and biliteracy. The society and parents need to encourage children to take up bilingual classes because they offer a lot of benefit to the society through favoring critical thinking, rationality, and sensitivity to other cultures, empathy, and detached or balanced awareness. However, Sonia Nieto mirrors a society that is made to fake being American and become ashamed of their family. It helps appreciate that it is not by choice that anyone speaks any other language as the first language and that the society and community influence the language of choice. Therefore, bilingualism cannot be detached from any community that freely promotes and accommodate the language spoken by the other community. Children and community members learn each other’s language without disregarding each other favoring effective learning that influences bilingualism and biliteracy in the long
Because America is such a diverse country, public schools are faced with the challenge of providing students from all over the world with a quality education. As Chen points out “public schools have embraced the linguistic challenge presented by immigrant students” (¶1). Then, No Child Left Behind law was approved, and it required every public school should have an English Secondary Language (ESL) program that will provide the “academic support” for English Language Learners (ELLs). ELL parents are happy that their children are getting education help from the school, but it has raised the question of how successful are the ESL programs? Do ESL programs provide enough “academic support” to all ELL students? Do ESL programs have enough tools to help students learn English? Some ELL parents complain that ESL programs do not help their child learn English. A successful ESL program is not based solely on the test scores, but also the ability to connect parents, teachers, and students together to strengthen tools that will help ELL students to learn a new language in reading, writing, and speaking.
A large number of people in the Hispanic community whether Hispanics are not able to get the English literacy skills that they need not because they want to keep born in Latin America or the United States, speak Spanish primarily. This is basically because in present day time, Hispanics are more likely to pass Spanish to their kids now than they have done in the past. (Ortiz, P.149) This is seen as a social problem, especially because of the fact that there is an increasing demand that English should only be taught in public school and it should also be spoken within the Spanish community. Even though Hispanics do speak a lot of Spanish most of the time, they still do learn English also, especially the young. But, because of the large flow of immigrants, the use of Spanish is used more often because they are constantly encountering immigrants who speak no English. (Ortiz, P. 150) Before hand there has been said to have been lower achievements when Hispanics make frequent use of the Spanish la...
The first book that I chose was, Maria Had A Little Llama by Angela Dominguez. This book was a twist on the classic nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. It had every page of the rhyme in both Spanish and English. I think this is a good way to introduce another language to young children because it is a rhyme and story that the children are familiar with. Although the story was a little bit different than the original nursery rhyme, it has an adorable twist where the llama follows Maria to school. Maria Had A Little Llama received the Pura Belpre Honor for her Illustrations. She was born in Mexico City and grew up in Texas. Her website is http://www.angeladominguezstudio.com/.
Communication skills are crucial not only in the learning process but also forging social interactions with others because language helps to express ideas and understand someone else ideas. Children with limited language abilities may have difficulties developing reasoning skills and acquire new concepts. Latino students need to develop strong literacy skills in their own language before they are introduce to a second language. Learning in their own lang...
Monzó and Rueda (2009) conducted a study examining the concept of passing for English proficient in Latino immigrant children. They studied a group of Latino English language learners (ELLs) in and outside of school. They not only observed these students but also interviewed them as well. Within these interviews students opened up about their feelings about their first language, English, and their place in American society. Monzó and Rueda (2009) then found within their data the most common forms of passing for English proficient that these students used.
It has the status of a lingua franca, the language for transmission of scientific and academic knowledge, and the main door to cutting-age technology” (MEP, 2016, p. 6). English teaching in Costa Rica has been an important subject in the curriculum since it lets students to learn the different elements of the language as well as to prepare them to produce it in real life contexts by developing their communicative abilities in the different linguistic areas. However, the Public Education Ministry (MEP) (2016) states that “learners who receive English lessons in elementary and high schools are not reaching the expected English proficiency levels after eleven or twelve years of instruction.” (p. 15) This suggests that the different methodologies applied as well as the target contents proposed to teach English in national public institutions have not let students to reach the level of proficiency
In most institutions of learning today, the classes are made up of students from different ethnic backgrounds. These have different traditions and also speak different languages. In a typical classroom, the majority of the students will speak the same language. The teacher must then employ strategies which will accommodate all the students in the class. This will ensure that every learner gets the best quality of education. This will enable them to be better prepared for career and expressing themselves. In this paper, strategies to assist learners of the English language in their literal development for third grade learners. In the paper, three strategies that can be used by the teacher will be discussed. New strategies and research that will help the English language learners to gain in depth mastery of the language will also be discussed. Due to the widespread learning of the English language in most schools, addressing issues of the language learners is of vital importance. Teachers should have the understanding that cultures are what give someone identity and therefore no student should leave their culture for another. Instead, there should be the blending of different cultures so that students can appreciate and learn from each other.