Entry 3: Interview with an ELL Teacher
For my third blog I decided to interview Mrs. Delgado who is a teacher at my campus that is a part of the quad I am. Mrs. Delgado teaches 4thgrade reading, this is her first-year teaching fourth grade, but she has taught reading for 13 years now. Her homeroom class is our bilingual group. She is an ELL teacher and she is an ELL herself. Mrs. Delgado stated that the most challenging part ELL students have to go through is having the vocabulary necessary to develop their ideas. It can become challenging for students to communicate with their peers if they don’t have the vocabulary needed. Mrs. Delgado also talked about how it is important for ELL students to feel like they can relate to their teacher. Therefore, being an ELL herself, she finds it to be a benefit for her to be able to relate to them and understand where they are lacking. Our bilingual group is mostly Hispanic students, which means their first language is Spanish. Because Mrs. Delgado speaks the language, she also feels like she can be there to support the students especially in that part where she feels like they struggle the most.
Mrs. Delgado talked about how she feels like bilingual students want to please their parents and their family. They make school a priority because they are expected to. Being an ELL myself, I can relate to this too. When it comes to motivation, it is more of an intrinsic motivation. The group of bilingual students that we have now, have been together since they were in Kindergarten and it kind of feels like they are a family because they have been with each other for so long and basically have been growing up together. Ortega states that, “Languages are almost always learned with and for others, and these others generate linguistic evidence, rich or poor, abundant or scarce, that surrounds learners” (2013, p. 57) I feel like keeping ELL students in the same group year after year could also serve as a motivation for them.
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hello Carina! I really enjoyed your interview with Mrs. Delgado. You all looked so engaged in the interview I appreciate that. It’s great to know relate to her students more since she was also an English language learner. My interviewee was a 4th grade teacher as well. They both have the same challenges with their ELLs. Ms. Delgado ELLs students have trouble with vocabulary and my interviewee students mostly struggled with the correct pronunciation and word use which relates to vocabulary. The more vocabulary her students learn, the more they’ll gain mental knowledge of what vocabulary to use. Ortega stated, once a threshold size of vocabulary knowledge is established in the L2, further vocabulary learning is boosted by a better developed and larger-sized L2 mental lexicon rather than by superior memory capacity (Ortega 2013).
ReplyDeleteOrtega, Lourdes. (2013). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge.
Hi Kenielle! I definitely agree. When I'm teaching I constantly catch myself stopping if I happen to say a concrete word that I know my bilingual students will struggle with understanding. I am constantly asking them if they know what the words means and just checking for understanding. If they do not understand what I am teaching them, then they will not follow along. There are times that I even give them and example in Spanish just because I know that's what their most comfortable with.
DeleteHi Carina and Kenielle!
DeleteI agree with you guys when you say you re not sure what words might be or might not be acceptable for certain ELL's. I think I also have to watch out hat words I use. I work with Kindergarten so their understanding level is certainly not the same. In fact, according too Ortega, teachers across institutions all over the world hotly debate whether students in their classrooms need to be directly taught grammar and vocabulary in order to get the basic building blocks of a language first, or whether it is better to somehow approximate in their classroom the richness of natural language meaning-making processes (Ortega, 2013, pg. 8). I do thin they should be taught vocabulary, however we must still be considerate.
Ortega, L. (2014). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hello Carina! I thoroughly enjoyed watching your video blog three! Thank you for sharing your experiences so far, and the knowledge that your current mentors have about educating ELL’s with us. I love how your students can feel so comfortable with each other and help out when needed. As Rowland (2014) explains this as “Support from significant others (including parents, siblings, peers and teachers), since believing that they want one to learn the language creates rewards and reinforcements that may be important in boosting motivation” (p. 172). I believe that the more your students see how much you care about them, the more they will communicate throughout class, or ask for help with words they are having difficulty with. Thank you for sharing with us!
ReplyDeleteRowland, Caroline. (2014). Understanding Child Language Acquisition. Routledge. London and New York.
Hi Megan! Thank you so much! I am glad you enjoyed watching my video. I truly enjoyed sitting down with Mrs. Delgado and getting the chance to interview her. She has been teaching bilingual students for many years; therefore, I know that any advice she has is great advice. I also agree with you! I believe that it is all about building relationships with your students so that they feel comfortable to share ideas with you and ask questions.
DeleteHello Carina! I agree with you about the fact that building relationships with your students will help them feel comfortable while in your classroom, and this will lead to them sharing their ideas and asking questions. As Gass and Selinker (2013), “Output, thus, would seem to have a potentially significant role in the development of syntax and morphology” (p. 327). So the more comfortable with speaking in class your students are, the better their syntax and morphology will be.
DeleteGass, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. Routledge.
Hey Laura! Thank you for sharing your vblog with us – I absolutely loved it! I like how you discussed that ELLs have a hard time building their vocabulary in L2, especially when they are still very young. This not only places a barrier on their academics, but also on their ability to interact socially. According to Ortega “the individuals learning an additional language are still young children when they start acquiring the L2” (Ortega, 2013, 4). It is important that teachers are patient through this transition and are willing to modify lessons as needed. Teachers should also use manipulatives and visuals when possible so ELLs can learn at a faster rate.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, Lourdes. (2013). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge.
Hi Kanwal! Pretty sure you meant Carina not Laura. (It’s okay) Thank you so much for watching my video. I am glad you loved it! I had a lot of fun interviewing Mrs. Delgado. We did discuss the vocabulary struggle for ELLs, even in 4th grade I notice my students have a hard time spelling. I’m in a writing class therefore I can really see where they are lacking. They tend to write how they speak and sometimes my bilingual students aren’t speaking proper English which reflects on their writing.
DeleteHi Carina! Great video I really enjoyed learning about how she motivates ELL's in her class. When I was in elementary school I had a lot of trouble with the vocabulary too, I think it was overwhelming with trying to learn grammar rules and the vocabulary at the same time. I wonder if there is a better way to teach English to ELL's that is not as confusing and will engage them.
ReplyDeleteHi Carina! I really enjoyed your interview with Mrs. Delgado and I thought it stood out from others since she is an ELL herself. I think that is a great trait to have when teaching ELLs because you may better understand the struggles that your students are overcoming. I liked hearing about what she uses to motivate her students, and I will be keeping that in mind for when I have my own classroom next year! I thought it was interesting that she talked about how they struggle the most in vocabulary because that is also what my teacher spoke about. We can see how significant vocabulary is when Ortega talks about how “students in their classrooms need to be directly taught grammar and vocabulary in order to get the basic building blocks of a language (Ortega 2013) My teacher pointed out how vocabulary can even affect them in science based subjects, so it is interesting to see that a reading teacher has the same perspective as my science one!
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