#6 - Learning and Acquisition

Teachers can approach their classrooms and design activities from a learning/word recognition view or a acquisition/sociopsycholinguistic view.  The learning view holds that teachers should break language into parts, teach them directly, and correct children when they make errors (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).  The acquisition view, which is supported by current research, focuses on making meaning - teachers attempt to make written or spoken communication comprehensible and have children use it purposefully (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).  The following list of activities has been broken down into which is more applicable for each view.

(L) learning
(A) acquisition

The students:
- look up words in the dictionary to write definitions (L)
- make a Venn diagram to compare two stories (A)
- practice sounding out words (L/A)
- read in round robin fashion (L)
- correct peers when they make a mistake during reading (L)
- identify words on a big book page that start with the same sound (L/A)
- group cards with classmates' names by a criterion on such as first or last letter (L/A)
- write rhyming poetry and then discuss different spellings for the same sound (A)
- ask the teacher how to spell any word they don't know (L)
- read a language experience story they have created with the teacher (A)
- work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences (A)
- divide words into syllables (L)
- on a worksheet, draw a line from a each word to the picture that starts with the same sound (A)
- make alphabet books on different topics (A)

The teacher:
- preteaches vocabulary (L)
- does a shared reading with a big book (A)
- makes sure that students read only books that fit their level (L)
- has students segment words into phonemes (L)
- writes words the students dictate for a story and has students help with the spelling of difficult words (A)
- asks students to look around the room and find words starting with a certain level (A)
- uses decodable texts (L/A)
- sets aside time for SSR each day (L/A)
- teaches Latin and Greek roots (L)
- has students meet in literature circles (A)
- conducts phonics drills (L)
- chooses predictable texts (L/A)
- teaches students different comprehension strategies (L/A)
- does a picture walk of a new book (A)
- uses a variety of worksheets to teach different skills (L)

The activities which support the learning view are largely teacher-centered and focuses on producing correct language forms.  In order to produce correct language forms, students need to be doing activities with direct instruction that produce clear results so the teacher can provide immediate feedback.

The activities supporting the acquisition view are activities in which the students use language to accomplish specific tasks/goals.  They practice with language, and it is always tied to making meaning.

Reference -

Freeman, D.E. & Y.S. Freeman. (2004). Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

#5 - Children's Books

The first book I chose was entitled Now Hiring: White House Dog by Gina Bazer and Renanah Lehner.  It is a fictionalized version of how the Obama family chose the First Dog without ever outright naming the family.  The book starts off with the sentence, “One spring day in the most important house in the land, two sisters pressed their noses to a window and waited for a dog”.  The picture shows the White House.  As the book goes on, it’s never specifically mentioned that this is where the president of the United States lives or that these two girls are meant to represent the daughters of the president.  The book assumes familiarity with both the White House and the current president throughout.  This is something that can be easily dealt with my preteaching these concepts.  The book also has the girls posting a help wanted sign and having dogs show up for “interviews” – children may be unfamiliar with this process.  In addition, the unnamed parents mention world figures who are arriving for a party hosted by them.  At the end of the book, the children end up choosing one dog and having the rest of the dog serve as a “canine cabinent”, a concept that may be unfamiliar.  However, it could also be said that even children familiar with American culture may not know the positions listed (secretary of state, chief of staff, secretary of commerce, etc).  This book could be a good way of introducing certain governmental concepts and familiarizing children with them, so it would be useful to be ELL students and native speakers.  To help cement the concepts for ELL students, it could be helpful to create word or concept maps of each new concept introduced.

The second book I picked was Dusty Locks and the Three Bears by Susan Lowell.  This book assumes a familiarity with the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”.  It depends on that familiarity because it shifts the language and makes the vocabulary more challenging by making it more “Western”.  For example, Papa Bear doesn’t just shout that someone’s been eating his porridge or sitting in his chair – He “got really riled. ‘BEAN RUSTLER!’ he roared. ‘CHAIR BUSTER!’  That sort of vernacular could be difficult for a student who is just learning English because it is an entirely different way of speaking.  Word webs again would be helpful here.  A teacher could even do them using dialects – Papa Bear calls Dusty Locks a rustler, someone more formal might call her a thief, another person a robber and still another a pilferer, etc.  The repetitious nature of the story is helpful, of course, but the vocabulary and setting of the story could be very difficult for an ELL student because they reflect one very specific aspect of culture.  Reading a more traditional or telling students a traditional version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” could help students be better prepared for this story.  They will have to focus less on making sense of the events and can look more at the unusual language and syntax coming their way.

#4 - Decoding Unfamiliar Texts

This assignment was really interesting for me. I’ve been reading All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy before bed the last few weeks, and it is a book that is peppered with Spanish dialogue.  I can often figure out what is being said, but sometimes I find myself frustrated and having to get up to look up words in an online translator. 

I found a book at the local library entitled En El Tiempo De La Luz by Benjamin Saenz. I could translate the title with my minimal Spanish skills – “In the Time of the Light”. I could also glean from the back cover that the main character’s parents were killed in a car accident, leaving him in charge of his brothers and sisters.  I also learned there would be an important decision for him to make that would alter the course of his life.  Then I tried to read the first page.  I could get a few words here and there in some sentences or most words in other sentences, but I never had a sentence in which I could understand every word.  And I knew I was missing key words because I couldn’t piece things together very well at all.  It was very frustrating and took a lot of concentration to attempt each word, then try to piece to together a sentence, then try a sort of cloze reading around the word I didn’t know.  I didn't even make it through the first page.  I was very lost.

Then I decided to read the Spanish People magazine that my roommate orders for her sister-in-law who teachers Spanish.  All those glossy pictures at least let know who the article was about. And I also had the background knowledge of what People magazine in English is usually like –I’m familiar with the format, the kinds of stories, etc.  Even then, though, I felt my understanding was very piecemeal.  I got the big picture, but not the small details.  In my head, what I kept likening it to was, it would be enough to earn me a C or D on a comprehension test, but not an A, which is not exactly the way I like to read.

Reading a children’s book was much easier – there were pictures to help me along and the words were simple and in short sentences.

This really was a very helpful reminder of just how much an ELL student has to deal with in the classroom.  I was in a quiet library with no one bothering me – I can’t imagine trying to maintain the concentration level needed with the type of energy and interaction that usually is happening in a classroom.

#3 - Oral Language and the Reading Process

It seems to me that the relationship between oral language and the reading process can be a little tenuous.  One of my most gifted speakers (he’d prefer to be called a rapper, though) struggles greatly to read.  Whatever disconnect exists for him is a big one.  He’s a native speaker, so it’s definitely not as though he doesn’t know the words.  In fact, as a rapper, he’s pretty great at having a steady stream of interesting words available. I think his big disconnect could be disinterest in anything that is not his own rap music.

The readings for this week in Gibbons (2002) were very clear on how powerful the spoken word is for ELL students in the classroom as far as developing their language goes.  Working cooperatively and socially in classroom, listening and speaking, helps students to build their language skills.  Building language skills in this way can be an efficient way to work them up to more difficult academic language skills.  Our primary way of communicating is through spoken language (schools are filled with it!) and used properly, oral language activities in classrooms can help develop the skills that students need to users of language in all modes: reading, writing, speaking and listening.  There are two views of reading that relate to acquisition – word recognition and sociolinguistic.  Word recognition holds that if a person can recognize a word by sound, they can then make the connection between the marks on the page and the word in their oral vocabulary (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24).  Sociolinguistics emphasizes that reading involves constructing meaning – using background knowledge to make sense of text (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24).  Word recognition would involve phonics and sociolinguistics graphophonics.  

I agree with Freeman & Freeman in that socioliguistics as far as the relationship between oral language and the reading process makes more sense than just word recognition.  Sociolinguistics means that people acquire literacy similar to the way they acquire oral language – the focus is on meaning (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24-25).

References:

Freeman, D.E. & Y.S. Freeman. (2004). Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gibbons, Pauline. (2002). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

#2 - Writing Instruction

It’s interesting that while I’ve always wanted to be a great writer and have always enjoyed it, writing has never come close to reading as far as a hobby.  I think that may be because I’ve received far more writing instruction than I have reading instruction – writing is a craft that’s been taught to me over and over in many different ways.  It’s something I won’t ever fully master and perhaps that’s what bothers me and makes me unable to stop doing it all at the same time.  The way writing instruction was approached most often (and most successfully) with me was the acquisition view, approaching writing as a process: prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing.   

Viewing it as a process is empowering because it lets kids gives their writing space to grow, it frees them to take risks, and it gives them the success of publishing and being celebrated for their work.  Process writing just seems more helpful to me because of the variety of feedback a student gets.  Besides, something I’ve had to learn as a teacher is that approaching conventions first in writing rarely works.  Students grasp of conventions seem to ebb and flow as the difficulty of the writing tasks set before them advance.  Students need the freedom to get their ideas out before their conventions are picked apart.  Plus, learning conventions works best in the context of students’ own writing.

The way I do it with my students now is a combination of explicit teaching of the acquisition view and the 6+1 Trait approach. The traits - Ideas/Content, Organization, Word Choice, Voice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation – help students stay focused on certain skills and give them specific growth areas.  Writing is such a huge part of my curriculum, but the way to approach it is all about balance – not letting students get overwhelmed with the enormity of the task of getting their thoughts clearly expressed in a language that is difficult even for native speakers at times.

#1 - Teacher Interview - Philosophy of Teaching Literacy

Before I began pursuing this degree, I stared discussing this topic up and down with friends of mine from undergrad.  Did they feel they were prepared to teach literacy? Because I didn’t feel like we were prepared to teach literacy. How were they doing teaching literacy if we weren’t prepared to do it?  Most answered negatively and echoed my sentiments that many high school students need a lot more support in reading than we were able to give them.  I started finding articles like this one, http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/voices/3qtr2001/adlit.shtml that further supported my decision to go into a reading program.  The author, Christine Cziko, had experiences similar to mine – students needing to be lead through texts to the point where she felt she was enabling them not to read.  Cziko later goes on, though to show some measure of success at bringing literacy into the classroom.

            In talking with my current colleagues, two of them felt that the education that I and my other colleague who just graduated got was much better in terms of preparing us to teach literacy.  K is in her first year of teaching, and I am in my third, and our colleagues have been teaching far longer than that, but I don’t necessarily agree with their assessment.  I really feel that my undergraduate professors assumed that students would have a much better grasp of reading skills by the time they got to us at the high school.  I know there are others who feel this way, too.  K approaches teaching literacy in a very systematic way, using many different strategies, but has expressed that she feels the interventions she can do are limited because her own knowledge of what to do is limited.  She also feels trapped because of time constraints.  It’s, of course, crucial that we teach literacy skills, but with so many content standards to cover, there seems like there isn’t always time to do so.  That ends up leading to a lot of reteaching.  She emphasized, though, that she feels like she does a lot of the same things I do as far as teaching literacy goes.  I think it’s great that we’re on the same page and that we work well together, but hope that it doesn’t mean that we’re both making the same mistakes when it comes to teaching literacy.