The topic that I would
like to do is that of the challenges of teaching children English as a Second
Language. I believe that this is a very
important topic because school districts are having a difficult time in
assisting all children that enter their doors with varying home languages. The subtopic would be cultural challenges
related to teaching English as a language. There are challenges in teaching
children English as a second language while helping the child to succeed in the
grade that they are assigned too. I
already have two people to interview on the topic one is an English as a Second
Language teacher the other is a distinguished member of the community who has held many
positions in the local school district plus has help offices in local and
national organizations.
The reason that I have selected this topic is because I work as a teacher assistant helping children learn English as a second language. It is a job that I fell into by accident because I can speak both English and Spanish. It is important to me because when my children were younger we lived in Mexico and my children and myself had to learn Spanish as a second language. I understand the struggles of both being an adult learning a second language, a teacher teaching a second language and a parent watching their child learn a second language.
My initial beliefs about children learning English as a second language is that it is not only difficult for the child to learn the language it is difficult for them to learn the culture that goes along with that language at the same time. The children that I work with are mainly from Mexico and come to the USA with the Mexican culture intact. Many times children will ask me to explain holidays and customs that are part of the American culture. Many times they will look at me with puzzled faces trying to understand what seems to be strange to them like many Americans look at them and their customs a
In my community, we have many children that have English as a Second Language. I too feel this is a critical topic, and one I almost used as my project. Your experience of being bilingual, helping your children learn a second language, and being the parent of children learning a second language will give a unique view on this topic while also providing depth to your understanding. In our society being bilingual, or even multilingual has advantages. Besides the advantage of being able to communicate with more people, bilingual individuals have also demonstrated an ability to have better selective attention, focusing, and problem solving (Genesee, 2015). My oldest son was a Math/Spanish double major in college. He struggled in college because he did not have a background in Spanish at all. I wish I enrolled all of my children in Spanish class while they were young.
ReplyDeleteI found an article on music and learning a second language while I was researching my topic for the project. It amazes me that there is a correlation between music and learning a second language (Moreno & Lee, 2015). The way children learn a second language correlates to how their brain processes the new knowledge and skill acquisition. I do not know if you could use it in your study or not but I wanted to pass it along to you.
Rhonda
Reference
Genesee, F. (2015). Myths about early childhood bilingualism. Canadian Psychology, 56(1), 6-15
Moreno, S., & Lee, Y. (March 27, 2015). Short-term second language and music training induces lasting functional brain changes in early childhood. Child Development. 86(2), 394-406
Jolene,
ReplyDeleteWe have many students who are in our ESOL program and many that are not. I noticed that I have two students in my own classroom who are not a part of the program, but will benefit from it. They are really struggling in ELA, not because they can't explain things but because they have a hard time putting the information on paper so that I can understand what they are saying. Is this a language issue? I didn't quite understand how they made it out of Kindergarten without being in the program.
Many times the students speak to their peers in spanish so should I encourage english while at school? Just want to know since they are trying to learn english as a second language.
Teletta
Jolene,
ReplyDeleteWe have a relatively large population of Hispanic students at my middle school. Many of these students were born in the United States. There are a few who speak little English. I had one student in my science class who spoke no English. He sat in the class most days and I would try to help him. My Spanish is very limited. Our ESOL teacher was only there a half day, 3 times a week. I would try my best to give him material that were related to our unit in Spanish, however I could not grade it. I feel that it is very important to have an ESOL teacher full time to help and work with this population of students.
Jacquelyne