New year… trying out a new theme

Comments?

ah the life of an ESL teacher under a new supervisor

I thought I was going to teach fourth grade but I was moved to fifth, which I have never done before and kind of scared me. I didn’t know what to expect about the kids I’d get and if they’d be big and cynical or “too cool for school” or what. Fifth is the final grade at my school. All I knew was I had 20 students, mostly Spanish speakers and three Mandarin speakers. Well, on day one, yesterday, I got 5 new students who spoke Spanish, Bengali, Indonesian, and another Mandarin speaker. I would say that about 5% of my class speaks English well enough in that they can attempt a response to questions, can read, and write sentences. One of the Chinese students translates for the others, but so far even miming has only gone so far with the other students. I need to reformulate my “attack plan” for the year that let’s me do some basic ESL strategies and content so they aren’t stuck in another world,mentally, in my room. New challenges and I’m excited.

The thing that seems to be the real problem is now, for some reason, I’m not under the ESL supervisor, and my new one knows nothing about ELLs. When she came in to speak to the class, she said loudly,”watch my face. Watch my mouth”. Um… What the? Yeah. But I am hoping this may work to my advantage and she will think ANYTHING I do is amazing simply because I have the “patience for kids like that” (as I have been told). Craziness

Time off?

So, this is my first summer experiencing a true summer vacation – ie., not teaching summer school – although I am taking a class required for my MA. I am enjoying it, but whoever thinks that teachers are, like, totally “off” for the summer are wrong. My brain thinks all the time about what my class will be like next year, what it will be like now that I know I’ll be teaching fourth grade, and what kind of teacher do I want to be. It’s like I’m constantly on watch.

My professor in my current class (on bilingualism which, frankly, is depressing – more on that later) suggested we sign up for NYCORE (NYC’s radical educator’s group), which I did. I have no interest in being an on-the-streets activist again, and had avoided NYCORE b/c of folks who I’d rather avoid and I imagine are members, but I do want to keep abreast of what progressive teachers are up to… you just never know… There’s sort of this expectation in certain circles that the best teachers are the progressive ones and the progressive ones are the most forward-thinking an innovative (and always seem to be in high school….).. Anyway, it makes me long for teaching in a school where students are all being trained in bilingual/biliterate/multicultural classrooms. Do such public schools even exist?

We’re Here Already?

I can’t believe it – the last week of school. I honestly did not think this year would go as fast as it did. I have been assigned to teach fourth grade next year, which means I am looping with two of my students, and the rest are beginner ELLs from three other classes, including two holdovers. About half of my students, many of whom began the year as beginner ELLs themselves, are now reading at grade level and (all but the aforementioned two) will move on to general ed classes. Of course, Teachers College’s assessment of them is LACKING. Even though only 12 out of 22 are reading at grade level, 21 of them met and then greatly exceeded their AYP (a year’s progress) goal in reading that had been set out for them but TC has no way to credit them or recognize them for this feat.

One of the things I looked forward to in becoming a classroom teacher (instead of a push-in) was the prospect of getting to know my students and really witness the progress they’d make, the struggles they’d meet, etc., but in looking back it’s really hard to see how we accomplished what we did and, especially, what I did “right”…. so it leaves me feeling amazed and what we achieved but unsure I could ever replicate :)

I do feel good, though, that I can know have more far-sightedness when coming in in September; a better sense of how things progress and how to plan out each month, supplement the crappy lesson plans and teaching points we get, etc. And hopefully that will translate into more confidence in myself.

I had two great compliments lately. One, my supervisor had told me that if I had said to her back in September where my students would be (in terms of their reading level and vocabulary), she would have told me I was crazy. Two, today a cluster teacher who works with my students and comes to my class for 37.5 told me, “you really have a lot of patience. You really have a lot more than you may realize.” This made me feel good because I hate when other teachers just write me off as “laid back” when I don’t see my style that way. I am strict, but there are certain behaviors I allow because I understand where they come from (like kids who can’t sit still or raise their hands before they have an answer ready b/c they suffer from language delay, etc)… My husband would certainly tell you it’s not because I am inherently a patient person! By far!

I really feel like a totally different teacher and I hope I keep learning and feeling optimistic about what I’m doing!

Please feel free to share your own reflections…

school closed

As a precaution, our school is closed until Tuesday because an unusually high number of students went home with fevers, sore throats and other flu symptoms.

middle of may

Sometimes I wish I knew what to say to my one student whose desires to move up to a J reading level (when P is where they really ought to be) are so great but his ability is just not there. I feel like I fail him every day. He has a learning disability which seems to inhibit his ability to recall letter sounds and I just don’t know what methods I ought to be applying that I haven’t already. He also works 5 times a week with a SETTs teacher. He has moved from an F in September but he knows he is far behind and he is so worried. As am I.

10 Weeks Left

It’s so hard to believe this school year is almost over. The weather was a first sign that we were entering our final stretch. I’m not sure what to think at the moment. I am happy that I have accomplished a lot with my students but I’m already reflecting on how much more I could have done. I understand how veterans teachers feel – more so now – about how much has been lost as a result of the mountains of paper work and other clerical requirements that weren’t in place before. It really hampers your spirits to a point where you wonder how anyone does anything outside of the confines.

Looking back, I approached each new unit in math or readers, writers, or science kind of blindly, without a bigger picture to fit it all into. I am really hoping that I will be given third grade next year so that I can use what foresight I’ve developed to plan out my days better.

A teacher at my school recently got National Board certification. Have you done that or considered doing it? I am wondering about it and if I could do it in tandem with getting a PhD. My guess is no but it would be nice.

I have gotten over my disappointment with not having a class to take toward my MA this June, but I decided to use the time to do some “independent study” in linguistics. Also I think I have to take the GREs to get into a PhD program next fall, so I may as well study for that too.

I am, however, still annoyed I have to take a class in July. I was really hoping to go to Colombia for two months and really advance my Spanish. Ah well.

How is your final stretch toward June looking?

Your language, your way of being… Imagine it gone.

Here’s a video I’d like to share about some of the things I’ve been thinking about over the break..

And if he doesn’t move you, read this (from two years ago).

New Word

It’s no surprise that technology is such a hotbed for new words… Check out “vook”.

brown skin + Foreign Birth automatically means ELL?!

I got a new student yesterday. He had been living in Mississippi for two years and before that had grown up in Saipan, an island north of Guam, where he was born. He was placed in my self-contained ESL class because, as I was told, “he hasn’t been tested yet.” This meant he had not yet been given an English proficiency test called the LAB-R. This test is only given – excuse me is *supposed to only be given* to students who speak a different language at home. There is a sheet the parents fill out to figure this out. And my new student only speaks English at home, as listed on this paper! They teach school in English in Saipan and are a US Commonwealth.

And yet he was placed in my class. There was no reason to think he would even need to be tested unless all you do is notice the mother’s accent, his foreign birth, and brown skin. And it took two days and four teachers to get the administration and office to recognize this error. It hasn’t been fixed yet of course. Granted today is the second day he has been here but he is already feeling like my class is home. It’s unfair this was done to him.

Aside from moving around a lot, I learn today that the reason they left Saipan is because the father “broke bones” on the mom’s body, which I assume means he beat her repeatedly. (his mom’s first language is Nepalese but she is also literate in Hindi and English. This may indicate she is from a fairly upper class family in Kathmandu since so many Nepali women are not literate or educated from what I know). So this boy has clearly been through enough.

To upset me even more, on my train ride home, a teacher friend who has the second grade bilingual class discussed some experiences with teachers at our school who are just so against trying to understand our ELLs – understand their language issues or even think they may have strengths, etc. Call it lazyness, call it racism, or wilfull ignorance. Whatever you call it, there really is no excuse for it because almost all our students are ELLs. So I am worried that this new student of mine, who speaks a different variety of English from what teachers expect from “native” speakers here, will be treated as a “dumb” “ELL”, both of which are wrong labels for him.

Argh!