Blog Entry 2: Interview with a Second Language Learner




Reflection:


           Hello everybody! Welcome back to my VBlog. For this VBlog, I interviewed Uriel Villeda who is an English Language Learner. Through the interview, I asked Uriel questions that dealt with how his English language was developed in the school system. From the answers provided, I could make connections to scholar’s opinions from Uriel’s’ responses. For example, Uriel’s parents were born in Hidalgo Mexico, but Uriel and his siblings were born here in the United States. According to Wright (2015), Uriel and his siblings would be categories as U.S.-born ELLs (p. 10). Due to an over enrollment of ELL’s at school, Uriel was placed in an English only classroom. Here, Uriel struggled to understand the content being taught by a teacher that only spoke English. Luckily for Uriel, there was another bilingual student that was able to speak both English and Spanish that would help Uriel and the teacher as a translator. From the way Uriel describes how the teacher would take time after presenting a lesson to clearly explain her expectations in a way that allowed another ELL student to translate it for Uriel, I would say that what the teacher did was see Uriel’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and have the other ELL student scaffold it for Uriel. Wright (201) describes scaffolding as a support system that would help the student close the ZPD and attain higher levels of knowledge and performance (p. 57). Unlike his second grade, Uriel’s first grade was a good one in having a teacher willing to take the time to ensure the Uriel would succeed.


Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.

Comments

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  2. Hello Eddy! I really enjoyed your ELL interview and reflection. Its interesting to know how the two students who are both ELL’s helped each other through school. According to Wright (2010) the interactions between Uriel and his classmate they were able to modify their ways of conversing in order for Uriel to be able to learn in class. His classmate was able to translate everything the teacher was teaching them in class. He was able to slow down the teaching of the material for Uriel. His classmate was able to simplify the language for Uriel in class in a way he would understand. Uriel’s classmate was able to use the grammar-translation method in which he was able to translate sentences between two languages (Wright 2010). Both the teacher and his classmate played a big hand in helping Uriel learn English as a Second Language.




    Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2010. Print. First Edition.

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  3. Hi Shirin! Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. Yes, the teacher and student did help Uriel in acquiring his second language. I spent some time talking with Uriel after the interview and found that Uriel believed that he could not have made it through that year without his classmate scaffolding the lessons. Wright (2015) describes scaffolding as being a short-term item that helps ELL students build on previous knowledge in a way that the student would be able to stand on their own once the support was removed (p. 57). Another way to view Uriel’s experience is to say that between the two students, language socialization occurred. According to Wright (2015), language socialization is being able to gain and practice the language being acquired (p.58). Since Uriel and his classmate where, almost every day, paired up, Uriel had plenty of chances to learn and practice his English.

    Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.

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  4. Good job on your interview, I enjoyed listening to Uriel’s story. It is frustrating to hear how Uriel’s story of learning English began. He was placed in a mainstream classroom with no support or resources. According to Wright (2015), this is called submersion, “the sink or swim approach, where ELLs are placed in mainstream classroom where there is no ESL instruction, no sheltered instruction, and no PLS. Furthermore, the teachers are not certified to teach ELLs”. (p.111). They placed Uriel in a mainstream classroom to do nothing for him. I am glad his first- grade teacher took the time to invest in Uriel’s learning. As an educator, we are called to put every student first, but unfortunately, that does not always take place. You never know the impact you can make in a child's life and their education.

    Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.

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    1. Hello Adrene, thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. Yes, unfortunately Uriel had a rough start in the school system. He was placed in an English only class that Wright (2015) would classify as a weak monolingual for of education (p. 114). The reason this is a weak form of education is due to the fact that the students home language, in this case, Spanish, was not considered a resource to build on Uriel’s previous knowledge. Had the school taken into account Uriel’s home language, they could have helped Uriel gain an additive instead of a subtractive bilingualism (Wright, 2015. P. 20).

      Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition.

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