Julie+Leake

Scenario #1

Just as the class begins a quiet activity (a 10 minute writing) a student, the same one who’s done this several times this week, gets up and sharpens his pencil.

E-mail to parent:

Good morning Ms Algood,

Thank you for attending parent/teacher conferences last week. You have been an excellent at-home partner for Betsy’s education this year. I am seeing progress with Betsy’s behavior; however, this week, she has made a point to sharpen her pencil every time we have started a writing activity. I am not sure why she has started this, but I was hoping from some insight from you. She isn’t talking or directly distracting others, as was our concern before, but she is getting out of her seat during “quiet” times and making plenty of noise with the pencil sharpener. I am hoping that you can send her with a personal sharpener that she can use at her desk to minimize the opportunity for distraction of others. I would appreciate your cooperation with this, after all, you expressed in our meeting.

Thank you,

Ms L.

[Personally, I'm not so sure that pencil sharpening warrants an e-mail to a parent. I think I would first talk to the student about it in a personal conversation. -RR]

Scenario #2

A student raises a hand and says, “Terry is crying.”

In a situation like this, I would ask the student if they were okay. Depending on the answer, I would ask them to step out into the hallway. I feel that is important for students to feel comfortable confiding in the teacher, myself, but I also understand there are boundaries. I would get the rest of the class on track to start their independent or group work, and then I would step outside. I would ask Terry if they want to share the problem or seek a counselor. If Terry chose to share with me, I would take the problem as a neutral party. I have the responsibility from there to refer the student to a counselor or administrator depending on severity. If I can ask the student to resolve the situation within themselves, I will refer them to the closest bathroom to compose themselves, and then ask them to return to class. I recognize its necessary to involve administration and counselors, so I would follow up with an email to the respective party and note the incident.

[Good thoughts here. When this has happened in my classroom, I have asked the student if they would like to go to the restroom. Shortly after, I would ask a student of the same gender to check on the student in the restroom. If the student was out for a few minutes, I would step out and ask to speak to the student and ask the student if they feel comfortable talking with me. If not, I would ask them which adult in the school are they comfortable talking with, and I would make arrangements for the student to talk to that adult sometime during the school day. -RR]

I have been placed at a middle school in Cobb called Garrett Middle School. My school’s population is a prime example of diversity. Within my classroom, there are current and former ESOL students. As part of my ISLA, I did a “practice run” for myself of how to create and present the two assessments. When I gave the pre-assessment to students, after they had been introduced briefly to the subject of possessive pronouns by my CT the previous week, I allowed students to “self-correct” and then return them to me. At lunch, a student come to me and express that he really didn’t know what possessive pronouns are. After a brief chat with my CT, I learned that he was a former ESOL student. I hadn’t noticed before that he could have been, because his accent is thin and his articulation in English is very clear. With my slight, and I stress “slight,” understanding of Spanish as a language, I suggested that he may not be able to recognize possessive pronouns since they are not displayed the same in each language. She challenged me to develop a way to help him understand. I willingly accepted, being that it would be one of my first hands-on experiences with my students.

When I looked at his pretest, I noticed that he truly did not understand the concept. That day, I gave him the opportunity to take a copy of the pretest home, so he could practice at home and suggested that he use his workbook to locate the possessive pronouns. That night, I went home to create the same pretest as a Spanish translation. I researched possessive pronouns in Spanish and familiarized myself. I noticed something, most likely the key, to why he didn’t see them. When I met the class in the commons, he greeted me and eagerly shared his excitement of understanding. I asked if he still wanted to meet during the “free-time” in the media center to ask questions, he said yes and we did. We went over a few of his answers on the sheet he took home, and then I presented the translated sentences. I asked him to identify in each sentence how he knew that the noun expressed possession. It clicked. He now has a firm understanding of possessive pronouns, and the experience to know that translating sentences in English to Spanish, then back to English is a great way for him to identify parts of speech using his first language as a tool.

Questions:


 * 1) Could this have been handled differently?
 * 2) I found the approach to be effective, but are there other approaches that I can utilize for ESOL understanding?
 * 3) How could we prevent the barrier of understanding between languages?