Happy Summer to all of you!

May the summer bring lots of relaxation, sun, fond memories, new experiences and time with family and friends for all of you.

As I begin my summer, I find myself thinking a lot about what I need to do this summer in order to be fulfilled, refreshed and focused. I always struggle with having a lack of routines or an array of very different, short-term routines, even though I enjoy the free time that comes with it so much. As I read through some of the articles in this edition of the WAESOL World Quarterly that include some really great information on how to help our ELL students be better independent learners and find interests and strategies that work for each individual, it really resonates with me and with the summer ahead. These articles in particular, by Ciechanowski, Huang, and Bauer, are also a culmination of their work or case studies that demonstrate a final product of individual learners who have found various strategies that work for them in one way or another in order to complete the project. I also find the reflection or story telling articles by Reeves, Song and Yearwood to be another tool to consider when trying to find strategies that work for all of us as individual learners. By reflecting and story telling, we can tease out some of the less obvious things in our lives that we value and want to focus on as we move forward in whatever we are doing.

I hope you all enjoy your summer and this edition of the WAESOL World Quarterly.

Our 2012 WAESOL Conference: Where do we go from here? Pathways in Times of Change will be held Saturday, Oct 20, at Highline Community College. Please visit our website at www.waesol.org for more information. I hope to see you all there!

Take care,

Jodi Ritter

Editor, WAESOL World Quarterly

By:

Kathryn Ciechanowski

On March 31st, a local newspaper reporter arrived in Ms. May’s dual language third grade classroom to celebrate Cesar Chavez’s birthday (all names are pseudonyms).  Her class hosted a community- and school-wide event where visitors circulated among informational tables staffed by third graders.  The event culminated from a year-long study of the Latino activist and social justice themes.  One student said it was fun and important because Chavez helped so many, especially Latinos.  An instructional assistant applauded student efforts, remembering farm worker movements from her childhood and emphasizing Latino heroes for children today.  Ms. May was dedicated to social justice and culturally-relevant role models.

Teaching for social justice requires acting (more than talking) to end oppression in all social domains and working to empower minoritized groups (Sensoy and DiAngelo, 2012).  According to Bartolomé (2003), “Teachers play a significant role in creating learning contexts in which students are able to empower themselves” (p. 423).  This vignette shows how Ms. May created learning environments to empower students and connect to community.  Her class had many Spanish-speaking ELLs, suggesting the need for meaningful and collaborative projects to learn grade-level content and gain English proficiency.  This article reports on one illustrative case of a Latino boy named Gabriel who responded well to Ms. May’s teaching approach, as described by teachers’ own words.

Gathering information from the collaborative team of teachers  

During 2008-09, I conducted a study in a K-8 school in the Northwest focusing on the integration of English Language Development (ELD) and content (i.e., social studies and science), particularly in dual language third grade.  The study contained two parts that were digitally audio-recorded: (1) after school meetings with teachers (Kim May and Tish Derko), ELL specialist (Helena Beck), and researcher (the author) to discuss learning and plan instruction and assessment of integrated ELD/content, and (2) observations of ELD and content classes to focus on students and teacher interactions.  Transcripts of meetings and observations were analyzed using Discourse Analysis (Gee, 2011).

Kim’s class (the primary focus of this study) had 42% Spanish-speaking ELLs (14 of 33 students), representing various English proficiency levels.  Tish’s regular education third grade class (n=13) had 3 ELLs from countries like Malaysia, Marshall Islands, and Mexico.  Helena had been using primarily a pull-out approach; she had robust training in ELP standards and ELD and a Master degree in Applied Linguistics.  Kim was a recent graduate of the university’s Immersion MAT program, where the author was a faculty member, that focused on cultural and linguistic immersion and social justice.

An illustrative case: Gabriel’s avenue to communicate

In the following case, the teachers and ELL specialist discussed a particular ELL, Gabriel, that scored at an early intermediate level but who had barely spoken or done work in class.  During our meeting, they described how a Cesar Chavez project intrigued and engaged him in schoolwork.  Knowledge from extensive study of Chavez provided him the expertise so he felt he had a contribution.  Confidence from being an expert on a topic allowed him to take risks, letting him forget the ELL label and perceived deficits.  As depicted below, Kim, Helena, and Tish explained how the study of Chavez was meaningful in several regards.

Kim:    He loves all things Cesar Chavez.  All the stories he’s been writing lately, you know, are all about Chavez and so any time we do an activity related to that, he’s there.

Helena:    They did a unit on it so it gave him a whole lot of background and now he takes it and applies it to everything.

Tish:    It made him really engaged and he was a lot more confident.  He was more willing to take risks.

Kim:    Yeah…. It’s almost like he gets distracted a little bit by the Cesar Chavez.  …Then he ends up using the language because he wants to talk about Cesar Chavez.  And he doesn’t realize that, “Oh, I don’t know the English very well, and I’m not very good at it,” but he kind of doesn’t even notice he is using it.  Hah.

Tish:    Because at the beginning of the year, he wouldn’t be able to communicate so well because he’d be so afraid, anxious and worried about what he would say…. That’s kind of been an avenue to communicate.

Helena:    He “killed” me today, like I don’t know, he just took nine and a half months but he had a great day today; he was like “Teacher, I’m learning English!”  I said, “You are, I know, I noticed that, too.”

Gabriel’s solution to fear and anxiety was extensive study on Cesar Chavez.  By year’s end, all teachers noticed improvement in Gabriel’s engagement and language proficiency, relating how his emotions, expertise, and self-esteem played a role.

Discussion of teacher talk in the transcript

The teachers articulated various ways that the year-long study of Chavez was powerful and effective for Gabriel’s learning.  First, the teacher positioned students as experts, allowing them extensive time to learn content and responsibility and ownership of the project.  Helena explained, “it gave him a whole lot of background and now he takes it and applies it to everything.”  The depth of study proved effective for Gabriel—more than short glimpses of content—so that he could achieve a sense of mastery.  Feeling like a knowledgeable expert increased his confidence and application of knowledge across contexts.  Tish suggested he was “a lot more confident” and “more willing to take risks.”  He developed a sense of security in his own ability.

Second, the teacher promoted extended discourse on a topic so students could tap into their full linguistic repertoires and tie language structures together in meaningful coherent units.  This communicative approach (Larsen-Freeman, 2001) wove together attention to form, meaning, and use through students’ need to make sense of content in order to complete a broad-based task.  Cooperative work to organize Cesar Chavez’s event and targeted practice of social and academic language provided the impetus to attend to language.  This large project required language practice at discourse levels (not single word or sentence level) both orally and written.

Third, Gabriel’s developing confidence allowed his affective filter (Krashen, 1982) to lower so he was not held back by fear and anxiety.  Krashen proposes that affective states can impact second language learning.  For example, high motivation and self-confidence but low anxiety is conducive for English learners.  Gabriel’s increased confidence allowed him to take more risks and try out language.  His motivation (i.e., “he loves all things Cesar Chavez” and “he wants to talk about Cesar Chavez”) helped him forget about his insecurities and communicate because he was excited and interested.  Tish mentioned different behavior early in the year, “he wouldn’t be able to communicate so well because he’d be so afraid, anxious and worried about what he would say,” which gradually changed as he reacted positively to the Chavez unit.

Fourth, Gabriel seemed hindered by his status and label English learner.  His perceived weakness in English led to hesitancy to talk in class.  Once the labels and deficit positioning were removed (temporarily because he was distracted), he felt at ease and more readily able to discuss topics in class.  Kim remarked, “It’s almost like he gets distracted a little bit by the Cesar Chavez.  …And he doesn’t realize, ‘Oh, I don’t know the English very well, and I’m not very good at it,’ but he kind of doesn’t even notice he is using it.” It is powerful to remove negative perceptions or labels and focus on meaning and communication.

Finally, the topic connected Gabriel to his community and ethnic identity.  As a Latino, Chavez shared some similar characteristics with him and perhaps Gabriel could see himself in the images of Chavez.  And, at the March 31st event, the instructional assistant described the link between the study of Chavez and their community, demonstrating the importance of Latino heroes for youth.  For various reasons, the study of Cesar Chavez resonated with Gabriel, enhancing his English proficiency and sense of confidence, and linking to a wider community.

Providing avenues to communicate: Where do we go from here?

The exemplary case shows effective teaching that positively affected an English learner Gabriel.  The teachers described him as a reluctant learner early in the year disadvantaged by negative self-perceptions and lack of confidence.  Kim’s teaching approach—involving in-depth projects, social justice, and community events—connected with Gabriel as relevant and accessible to him.  The students had a culminating experience covered by a reporter from the local newspaper.  Students like Gabriel need opportunities to become experts and to showcase their knowledge to overcome the deleterious effects of deficit-based labels that remind students of what they do not know.  Teachers need to highlight ELLs’ strengths and capabilities with an eye towards building self-confidence and lowering affective blocks.  Furthermore, educators should attend to the ethnic identity, community affiliations, and cultural contexts that are highly relevant to ELL learning so students like Gabriel can buy-in to school and celebrate learning.

References

Bartolome, L.  (2003). Beyond the Methods Fetish: Toward a Humanizing Pedagogy.  In Darder, A., Baltodano, M., and Torres, R.  (Eds.).  The Critical Pedagogy Reader.  NY: Routledge.

Gee, J. P.  (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method, 3rd edition. New York, NY: Routledge.

Krashen, S.  (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.  Retrieved from http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/Principles_and_Practice.pdf Larsen-Freeman, D.  (2001). Teaching grammar.  In Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language.  Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Sensoy, O. & DiAngelo, R.  (2012).  Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education.  New York, NY: Teachers College.

 By:

Jill Bauer, ESL Instructor

With Elinor Appel, Reference and Instruction Librarian

North Seattle Community College

Because reading is a foundational language skill, I want my ESL students to read extensively by maintaining a reading log and selecting their own books. In the past, I would simply suggest they go to the library to check out books. What I did not know was that going to the library and checking out a book is not so simple for my students. Many ESL students face myriad anxieties, issues, and confusions when accomplishing this seemingly simple task. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to participate in a grant-funded quarter-long collaboration with our community college librarian.

The grant was awarded by the local administrator of the Library Services and Technical Act (LSTA). The goal of the grant was to integrate Information Literacy into the curriculum of pre-college and underserved community-college populations. Information Literacy is loosely defined as the ability to access, evaluate, and use information effectively for any purpose. These critical-thinking skills are often confused by instructors as the ability to do “research,” and because of this confusion (and lack of time in a content-driven curriculum), these skills are rarely taught with intent at the pre-college level.

Our project’s goals were multi-layered: to help mid-level students acquire the library skills needed to complete class assignments; to raise awareness of libraries as resources for life skills and lifelong learning; and to alleviate the library anxiety that was preventing many students from acquiring these first goals. This project allowed us to introduce the material in stages so students could build on the skills they learned and extend their learning beyond the classroom environment.

Library anxiety as a theory first appeared in information science literature in 1986 in a seminal study by Constance Mellon. However, this phenomenon has been an observable barrier to library use for much longer (Cooke 2010; Harnett 2004). Mellon’s theory was based on her work with native-speaking college freshman, but her work has since been developed by many others investigating all kinds of libraries (public, community college, and university) and patron populations, including distance-learning students, pre-college students, international students, and immigrants.  Library anxiety as defined by Mellon consisted of four general areas: library size, lack of knowledge of where things were located, how to start or what to do. Librarians working with pre-college adult learners have further identified other attitudinal issues such as mistrust of authority and overly complex instructions (Roselle 2008). Librarians working specifically with non-native speakers have identified additional contributing factors including lack of confidence and culturally insensitive staff (Burke 2008; Macdonald 2008). Many librarians serving non-native student populations know intuitively that the typical library “one-shot” session is not a sufficient amount of time to give the students the confidence and skills they need to succeed in that environment (Macdonald 2008). In response to these issues, our librarian outlined a plan that moved past the library tour into a series of assignments and activities to integrate information literacy into ESL coursework.

The students in my intermediate integrated skills ESL class were adult immigrants and refugees from a variety of linguistic backgrounds and areas including East Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.  Together, the librarian and I identified the following barriers among these students: communication, vocabulary, technology, and prior knowledge or experience of libraries. We designed the project to address these barriers while also meeting ESL objectives, especially increased mastery in reading and writing. The summative project was book reports featured in a library display and then kept in a book of “recommended reads” for future ESL students to refer to. Our goal was to make library skills relevant to the students both within the context of the classroom and beyond.

First, students were asked to read for 30 minutes each day and record their reading habits in a log.  We placed few limitations on the type of reading material.  However, students could not choose grammar books, manuals (e.g., driving), or test preparation materials (e.g., citizenship).  The ongoing assignment created a genuine need for access to books.

To explicitly address this need, the librarian visited my classroom.  Meeting the librarian face-to-face in the classroom reduced students’ library anxiety.  To prepare for her visit, students worked in small groups to generate questions about the library.  The librarian then visited the ESL classroom, answered questions, and used visuals to demonstrate important library procedures, rules, and vocabulary (checkout, return, etc.).

The librarian’s visit was followed by a trip to the library.  There the librarian taught students how to locate, renew, and check out books, and how to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction books via a hands-on sorting exercise.  Soon after, students were given a library quest worksheet [LK3] to reinforce the library introduction and on-site orientation. The quest also directed them to search for information in the library catalog, find books by topic on the shelves, and check out a book in pairs.

I asked students to keep their reading log for three weeks and to check out additional books if necessary to continue their reading. After three weeks, students were instructed to pick one book to review. Students were told that their book reviews would be displayed in the library for others to read, which created an authentic purpose and audience for their writing.  I also conducted a series of lessons on summarizing books and how to write and type book reviews.

Near the end of the quarter, students were given a bonus assignment asking them to apply their new library knowledge in a public library setting. This bonus worksheet invited students to visit a public library, describe it, and ask a librarian a question on a topic of interest. Students were also asked to bring back a tangible item from their visit, such as a brochure, a book or a library card.

We collected student responses at three points during the project.  After the librarian visit, vocabulary work, and library quest, students wrote about their experiences on a class blog.  In addition, the blog posts exhibited the students’ ability to use the appropriate vocabulary.  For example, one student wrote, “I browsed to find this book.  I didn’t read the book review, because I was in hurry.  I learned how to find a book, and I learned how to use a library website to renew a book.”

Nineteen of the twenty-three students participated in the optional public library quest.  Eleven of the nineteen students returned with a new library card.  Others brought back specific information about library programs relevant to their lives, such as children’s story times or computer classes.  The questions the students asked the public librarians showed their primary interest was how to get a library card and check out materials.  Secondary interests included how to reserve or use the computers and where to locate specific content (e.g., citizenship materials, a book by its title). The library work greatly increased students’ exposure to libraries’ services and systems.  For example, students learned that they could use library websites to find and renew books.

Finally, we compared a pre- and post- writing reflection on library use and knowledge.  Most students were familiar with the library beforehand; however, their post-reflection writing showed that students’ understanding of library services had increased.  Their pre- and post-assessments also showed a marked change in attitude from anxiety to confidence. One student wrote at the outset, “I don’t use the library in the United States. I know this is important for my English but I don’t have time. . . For now, library can wait me.” We interpreted this comment as pure indifference. Later we realized this was a face-saving response. The student was simply not comfortable in a library. At the end of the project he wrote, “Library assignments changed a little bit my life. Right now, I am not scary from library. When I have free time in future I can spend time in a library. It is not dangerous. I believe in library.”

This project expanded my view of information literacy and its importance in the ESL curriculum.  Prior to completing this project, I had not considered that information literacy started with the ability to access materials.  I did not realize the demand I was placing on students by asking them to find their own reading material.  I did not know that I needed to intentionally teach how to use the library so that students could complete assignments successfully.

Working with our librarian gave me confidence to integrate information literacy into my classroom by teaching library skills.  I continue to use what I learned from this project with my intermediate classes.  With the increased understanding of library anxiety, I have reframed my approach and added lessons on how to ask librarians questions and use listening strategies to check comprehension. The library creates a real context for students to use these listening and speaking skills.  By meeting the LSTA grant’s larger goal of integrating information literacy into the pre-college and underserved community college populations, we expanded my understanding of information literacy and the role it needs to play in the ESL curriculum.

References

Burke, S. K. (2008, Winter). Use of public libraries by immigrants. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 48(2), 164-174. Retrieved from http://rusa.metapress.com/‌content/‌l5g28u34m54u5574/‌fulltext.pdf.

Cooke, N. A. (2010, October). Becoming an andragogical librarian: Using library instruction as a tool to combat library anxiety and empower adult learners. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(2), 208-227.

Harnett, M. (2005, March 1). Did you say “library anxiety?” Bibliotech. Retrieved from http://lsobibliotech.blogspot.com/‌2005/‌03/‌did-you-say-library-anxiety-part-one.html

Macdonald, K. (2008, August). ESL library skills: an information literacy program for adults with low levels of English literacy. Australian Library Journal, 57(3), 295-309. Retrieved from http://www.alia.org.au/‌publishing/‌alj/‌57/‌ALJ_Vol57_No3_2008.pdf.

Roselle, A. (2009, March). Preparing the underprepared: Current academic library practices in developmental education. College & Research Libraries, 70(2), 142-156.

By:

LaVona Reeves

EWU MATESL Program Director

At TESOL in New Orleans in 2011, Jessica Dinneen, an alumna, and I went to Sandra Silberstein’s session about teachers’ narratives, and we talked about the value of telling our stories to one another and to our students.  My mentor at Columbia, Maxine Greene, emphasized teachers’ duty to create spaces in classrooms for language learners to tell their stories as well.  Like Dayton-Wood, I believe that “the meaning and use of experience are tied to the acquisition of language” (2012, p. 221).

Whether my students are freshmen or graduate thesis writers, I ask them to write auto-ethnography, which is “autobiographical in its approach to research and writing. It evidences multiple voices; multiple positions; multiple layers of complexity….it embraces the subjectivity of the researcher, narrator, and author as central to the research and to the story” (Trahar, 2009, p. 7). Whether teachers’ linguistic roots lie in Seoul, in rural Nebraska, on the Crow Reservation of Montana, in the Japanese American internment camp at Topaz, in the hollows of Appalachia, in Saigon, in Paris, or in the barrios of New York City, our identities are inextricably tied to our roots.  Deracination is the feeling of being uprooted when torn from our communities where we are safe and enter those where we feel unsafe, confused, and devalued.  As language learners, we often have these feelings, and it helps to share our stories with one another and with our students—both our victories and our defeats.

As I look around my classroom, I see a woman in full hijab who teaches English in Saudi Arabia, a Korean man who will return to teach in Seoul, a Japanese woman who will teach in Kobe, an American who taught in Spain, and others who leave soon for jobs overseas.  And I ask them to write about moments they remember in their language learning—snippets of conversations, sounds of words, lines of poetry, moments of deep understanding, snatches of dreams, faces of those who helped them learn important lessons, memories of rooms they studied in, melodies of tunes that calmed them, sketches of dreams that scared them.   I share with my students a scene from my classroom at Harvard—a journal I had written in class with my students when I was teaching ESL composition there, and visiting scholars were reciting poems they were going to be writing about in an expository essay.  I overlay childhood memories with scenes from Harvard and lines of Adrienne Rich’s poem intertwined—hence the multi-vocality that TESOL asks of us in its guidelines for qualitative research, the weaving of voice upon voice.  This story is what weavers call bayeta: “cloth which was commonly raveled and reused as weft in nineteenth century Navajo textiles” as defined by the University of Colorado archivists who preserve textiles.  Like the Navajo, I have raveled and reused layer after layer of my experiences, memories, and stories to make a new blanket—I have taken the old to make the new.

The Windmill Just Stands There

A Korean man from the Kennedy School rises and begins to recite a poem by Adrienne Rich (1991).  I hear just a few words:  “farms of rust and stripping paint . . . a place of sheer unpretentious hardship”  “dark pines stretching away toward Canada…” “a one-room schoolhouse by a brook…” “…Cowturds, moss, wild mint…” (p. 8). I am his composition teacher.  I should be paying attention.  I should be taking notes, but I cannot.   I keep wondering how I got from there to here, from the gray stucco farmhouse to Sever Hall.  I want to go back, but I cannot.  Again, I hear Mr. Park’s words/Adrienne’s words.

How did I get from barnyard to Harvard Yard, from a one-room schoolhouse to Cambridge?  I have a recurring dream where I go to visit the Rockenbachs—our neighbors from childhood.  And I want to help Mrs. Rockenbach gather eggs as in the past, and I knock on her door, and she answers, but she doesn’t recognize me.  She seems surprised to see me, a perfect stranger, asking to help gather eggs.  When I begin to explain who I am, she seems not to comprehend my words.  Perhaps I am speaking French or Japanese, the languages I learned at the university, but I think I am speaking English, country English, not city English.  I apologize.  She closes the door. . . “wild mushrooms under the pines . . .” (Rich, 1991, p. 8).  I begin to walk down the dirt road toward my old house, but it isn’t there any more.  Only the windmill stands there–it just stands still, the way it did on washdays when we had to pump the water, when there wasn’t a bit of wind.  I feel lost and confused.  And then I always wake up.

Mr. Park, silent now, is still standing at the podium.  I don’t know how long he has been standing there.  The class is silent.  I thank him and call on Dr. Ishikawa to recite her poem next. She has chosen Kotaro Takamura’s “innocent tale”:

“Chieko claims there is no sky over Tokyo and says she longs to see a real sky. . . in surprise I look up. What I see between the cherry leaves is that clear sky of never, never separable old acquaintance….gazing far away Chieko says the blue sky that appears each day over the crest of Mt. Atatara is Chieko’s real sky” (Takamura, 1978, p. 27).   

My mind reels back.  A student at Columbia years earlier, I also long to see a real sky in New York City.  I am like Chieko: for me, there is no sky over Tokyo.  It is the memory of Nebraska sky—windmill, horizon, farmhouse, spelling bees, teachers like Miss Winnifred Howell, community—which is the most real to me, even today.  It is the way Miss Howell still felt personally responsible for her students—the way she confided to me how she wished she could have done something to keep Charles Starkweather (mass murderer) on the straight and narrow.  Miss Howell could recall where he sat in her classroom and where my mother sat and where I sat years later.  What is real to me is the way my people talk after supper, the way Grandpa sighs in silence, the way Grandma sings, the way Mama hums when she cans peaches.

I was fortunate because I never felt that I had to cut myself off from my community of origin, and I never felt alienation from them, but I did feel a kind of devaluing of what I valued when I entered the university.  The elders in my family and community were my teachers.  They had been my parents’ teachers, and they helped to anchor me, perhaps unknowingly, as I entered the University of Nebraska, moved on to Columbia, and eventually completed the doctoral degree while teaching full time.

Stories of Heritage Language Loss

But for some, the family and linguistic ties have been broken, and we see that expressed by fellow teachers like Thomas Nakayama:  “While the Japanese language of the Meiji Era slowly died in my family, it was finally silenced in the internment camp experience, ” (1997, p. 236).  Most of us dare not write about the losses expressed by Nakayama when his family “made the switch from being primarily Japanese-speaking” to English-speaking  (p. 236).  Nakayama says,  “I feel as if a part of my tongue has been stolen from me, silenced.  I am torn apart, and I feel the loss of the unified subject” (p. 236).  More wistfully, Rinko, in A Jar of Dreams, discovers a letter from Japan:  “I looked at the Japanese writing in the letter, squiggling up and down the soft rice paper like a lot of skinny black spiders, and wished  I could read it”  (McDiffett, 2001, p. 60).   These are losses that scar our spirits, though we cannot speak of them.  We fear we dare not name them if we want to be seen as “real Americans.”  As teachers, we know that insidious chipping away of the dialect or language of the group of origin takes us even farther from our people than resident mission schools, English-only policies, forced busing, and college entry.

In conjunction with writing their history of learning English, I ask students to read parts of Nakayama, McDiffett, Okawa (2012), Shimabukuro (2011), and others who experienced confusion and loss of language and culture of origin.  We discuss their own losses as well.    A Hmong American student told his peers that the Hmongs did not really have their own country—his grandfather said they were just mountain people without a country.  He then did some research on his heritage language and culture, weaving it into his auto-ethnography and sharing the final paper with the class.  To give them some idea of memories of language learning, I shared with them my experience of learning French from my Russian godmother, and this story helped them to retrace memories of specific people—other than teachers—who helped them learn English.

“Eat caviar.  Drink Kirschwasser. Study ballet.”

In closing, I will tell you my story of learning French.

A small lady with white hair and a foreign accent answered the door to a house that looked from the outside like a gardener lived there—a white picket fence, many kinds of beautiful flowers, rose bushes blooming gloriously, shrubs pruned and lining the sidewalks!  My mother and I were in the Russian neighborhood doing a survey for the government agency trying to identify persons who were deaf or going deaf.  I had volunteered in my elementary school to do this, so my mother came with me since I was just 12 years old at the time.  This lady, Olga, had a husband who was going deaf, and we were interested in helping them get a hearing aid for Peter, so she filled out paper work.  But before we left, she asked me if I was interested in learning French from her and Peter, and I said I really was!  From that day on, I would go to their house for weekends and holidays, and we always spoke French—we started with Cendrion—Cinderella!  And we read many, many children’s books in French, and I learned from the pictures and from Olga, who taught me how to pronounce the words correctly and how to say many things in the language—“I am American.  I love to read!  I am going to live in France some day!  I have three sisters and one brother.  I love cognac!”  All were fun expressions to say, so I loved spending time there, but they did have a French-only rule from the moment I walked in until the moment I left.  All of a sudden, I was in France, learning French from Russian immigrants who had lived in Paris during WWII and were in the process of becoming American citizens.  She loved French but hated what the Communists had done to the Russian language and said I should not waste my time learning Russian!  Since we had no French classes in elementary school or middle school, Olga was my only teacher until I entered high school and started taking French in the 10^th grade.

At the University of Nebraska, I continued to study advanced French literature and language.  The faculty were nearly all French or Canadian, but my favorite professor was Lenore Buford, an African American woman from Cleveland, Ohio, who loved poetry and read Hugo and Rimbaud with great passion.  And I grew to love French poetry as well—Baudelaire, Hugo, and Rabelais.  There were many, many papers I had to write in French, but I also took history courses about France, and I wrote one major paper in English with many French quotes on Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, which my history professor loved!  And I got an A in the class.  The hardest part of being a French major was learning the verb conjugations—for 500 French verbs!  I had to take that examination twice since I did not pass it the first time.  All through college, I went to see Peter and Olga, and on the nights before major exams in French, I slept in their little attic room, studying all night or sitting at the kitchen table while Olga read each poem or story and explained it to me—always in French, however, never in English! No, that was not allowed.  English was the forbidden language in the house, though I shed many tears and begged her just to explain everything to me in English—which never happened.  On May 1—Olga’s birthday and Labor Day in Russia, Olga bought caviar and Kirschwasser—a kind of cherry liqueur, and we had a big celebration when she set out all of her handmade dolls from Russia and those she had made herself since arriving in the United States.  And Olga kept telling me that I would live in France one day and study there, so I had to get ready and work a little on my French—a little every day.  She also insisted that I start studying ballet—to learn to walk beautifully and to learn the French terms in ballet—which she had studied at the Kirov Ballet Company in Russia as a child!  Living in France and studying ballet would make me a lady.  Olga promised me that, and I tried my best to fulfill her dreams for me.

References

Dayton-Wood, A.  (2012). “What the college has done for me”:  Anzia Yezierska and   the problem of progressive education.  College English 74, 3, 215-233.

Greene, M.; Ayers, W.; and Miller, J. L. (1998).  A light in dark times: Maxine Greene and the unfinished conversation.  NY:  Teachers College Press.

McDiffett, D.  (2001). Prejudice and pride:  Japanese Americans in the young adult     novels of Yoshiko Uchida.”  English Journal (January), 60-65.

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By:

Janice Yearwood, M.A. in TESOL

More and more often regular classroom teachers are facing this situation: new students come who have very limited English-speaking ability.  This happened to me a number of years ago when the principal, a mom and a little boy appeared at my classroom door during instruction time.  The principal said, “Here is your new student.  He’s from Korea, and he doesn’t speak English.” The two adults left as I stood there in shock and fear.  I had no idea how to proceed.

Thinking I was being helpful, I seated him on the front row in the center where I could watch over him as I taught.  Unfortunately, this was the worst place I could have put him.  He really couldn’t see other students’ responses to my instruction, so he had no visual clues as to what I wanted him to do. Also that put him where everyone was watching him; very embarrassing!  Good intentions are not enough in these situations.

Frequently our first thoughts as teachers are about our workload.  When we hardly have enough time to get done all we need to do currently, how are we going to have time to teach English and make modifications to accommodate this child? Sometimes anger, as well as frustration, creeps in.

However, we really need to develop empathy for these students.  Often we underestimate the many aspects of learning a new language.  It is so much more than just learning new vocabulary and sentence structures. Although that would be hard enough in itself because some languages put the verb first, then the subject .  (If you think this is easy just try thinking or speaking for 10 minutes reversing subject and verb).  Some languages include the subject in the verb; others don’t change the verb to express tense.  Sometimes the word you use depends on your relation to the person you are speaking to.  Articles are not used in many languages.  Some English sounds are not used in other languages, especially the ‘th’ sound. In some cases a new alphabet has to be learned as well.

And that is just the beginning of language learning.  Reading, writing, speaking and listening require different skills.  English has about 41 sounds spelled over a hundred different ways.  Many times when speaking we reduce and change sounds, as in the first three words of this title.  Then we have formality issues (we wouldn’t use “you guys” in a formal situation). Additionally, we speak in idioms frequently, and the connotation of words can’t be looked up in a dictionary. We are told that learning academic English requires between 5-7 years. These students have a formidable task ahead of them.  We need to provide continuous encouragement to help them keep trying.

So far we have just addressed their academic problems.  Their backgrounds are varied.  Some are here as refugees.  Their families have come because of persecution, and the children may have seen atrocities. Others come from places where they may not have even been in schools before.  Others have strong academic backgrounds.  Some may live in a neighborhood where they are the only speaker of their language; others are in a community of their nationality, and no English is heard outside of school.  In all probability the children were not given any choice about moving, and they may be resentful at being put in this situation against their wishes.  Regardless of these factors, all have left family, friends, familiar surroundings, and their ability to communicate and knowing how to respond to situations.  Everything in their environment (buildings, shopping, food, clothing, customs, etc.) may be new to them.

They all will experience what is called ‘culture shock.’  When arriving in a new country, there is a honeymoon period: everything is new and exciting.  This is followed by frustration: “That’s not the way we do it where I’m from.”  Then there comes an accommodation & blending of the old and new.  Finally there is an acceptance of the new people they have become.  Many fear losing their old selves, and they are not sure what their new selves will be like.  Your students may be in any of these stages when they come to you.  Please be sympathetic of the roller coaster ride of emotions that they are on.

As we recognize the situations they are coming from, it should make us more willing to put forth the extra time needed to facilitate their learning and to go the extra mile in appreciating and encouraging them.  An added bonus is that all the things we do to help the non-native-English-speaker will also help our lower-performing students as well.

Learning more about these students’ cultures and how to help them will be well worth the effort. These students will provide our American students with an opportunity to develop cultural awareness, compassion and helpfulness.

This is the kind of information we ESL professionals need to supply our regular classroom teachers with.  If we can get them ‘on-board’ with us, it will be a big help for our students.