Skip to main content

Another Challenge

In January, two new 6th grade students enrolled in my school.
Both are beginner ESOL students.
One studied English in her native country and the other one attended an international school here before transferring to my school.
They're both making progress.
Student A is outgoing and a risk taker.
Student B is shy and doesn't like to speak in English too much.
Today student A was arguing, in a respectable way, with the math teacher about a problem she missed on a quiz. Arguing!

#evaluatethat

In the end, we realized that the issue wasn't the math; the teacher and my student basically agreed.
The issue was how the problem was worded. Although I could see how it could be interpreted to mean one thing, I could also see how my student read this problem because I read it in exactly the same way.
This incident demonstrates that learning a language is an amalgam of nuanced experiences and encounters that go beyond memorizing vocabulary or knowing how to use punctuation appropriately.

My student used her emerging English skills to argue her case and in my view, she won; I would have given her credit for the problem.

All of this is making me wonder how to get student B to be as bold. Is it just a personality difference between the two girls? Or is it that student B is not as passionate about learning another language as student A? Or maybe I haven't found the hook that will motivate my student to take greater initiative as an English language learner? And, as I write this, I remember that student B loves to read. I need to capitalize on that and engage her further by providing guided opportunities for conversations.

Recently, an administrator said that I had my work cut out for me when observing my students writing at the computer, and I agree. But, it's not about teaching grammar or the conventions of the English language, which are anything but conventional. My work is to discover what topics interest my students and use that to guide them to using English to learn.

Thinking about this challenge rejuvenates me as a teacher.

More on this another time.

Cross posted to March Slice of Life Challenge, Day #25.







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Partner Reading and Content, Too Routine (PRC2)

I'm a hoarder. There, I've said it. I try to deny that I'm a hoarder but it comes back to haunt me every time I move houses, or pack up my classroom at the end of the school year. I have old articles, lesson plans, handouts, folders brimming with teaching ideas, past issues of profesional journals. I hardly throw anything out though I've learned to be more selective over the years. My one rule of thumb, and I really try to stick to this, is that if I haven't used or referred to something in a year, then it's time to toss it into the recycle bin. One exception to this rule (you knew this was coming, didn't you?) is past issues of journals from professional organizations. However, with the ability to locate articles online through my professional memberships, even this exception is becoming less and less useful, which brings me to the topic of this blog post. I am currently reading a copy of The Reading Teacher from 2010. I've clipped a cou...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Reading Strategies Book - Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension

The strategy lessons highlighted in Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension, in The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo are critical to students’ engagement and comprehension, as well as their ability to write literary essays, or even book reviews, summaries and reflective pieces about books. If students aren’t able to talk about books in a way that is invigorating and joyful, they will be less likely to develop an interest in growing ideas for writing about books. In her introduction to this chapter, Jennifer Serravallo, reminds us that when conversations go well, children are inspired by what they read and are motivated to keep reading. However, when conversations fall flat, then kids get bored and tune out. How do we avoid this situation and teach kids to  have  focused conversations about books?  The answer is easy: teach kids  strategies to help them develop effective conversa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are we listening?

A child sits alone with a ripped worksheet packet on his desk. He appears to be singing or subvocalizing something though no one hears him. Or, perhaps they're ignoring him. The teacher stands at the front of the room teaching on the SmartBoard. The children follow along in their worksheets. Except the child sitting alone. He is in his own world. No one engages him and he engages no one. My heart aches for this child. He is physically and emotionally removed from the class. I ask him why his paper is ripped. (It's not an accidental rip.) He says he did that on a different day. When he had been frustrated about the work. He tells me that he sometimes sits by himself because the work is too hard for him. He later tells me that he sits by himself because the teacher thinks he talks too much during the lesson.  He says he does that because he wants to find out about the "lives of the other children". My first impulse is to rescue him from the wrongheade...
10 comments
Read more