Post #7: Creating Multi-Lingual / Multi-Cultural Libraries

    

This post is in reflection to the two articles I read this week from my Google Alerts set to: 

English As a Second Language in Classrooms 

and

ESL in Education

    Three years ago I started work as an elementary librarian for two elementary schools.  One of the elementary schools had our Spanish Emersion program for students in the 1st through 4th grades.  A section of this elementary library was created for Spanish and Spanish / English books called "World Languages".  The ESL teacher provided me with a list of languages that are spoken in the homes  of her students and we got to work ordering a variety of books written in Vietnamese, Mandarin, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic languages and we added them to our collection.  Our thinking was that the students could check out these books and continue to explore their first language with real literature at home. My initial reason for expanding the collection school library with the Spanish Emersion classes was to support the Spanish Emersion language learners in that school,  but what became clear to me very quickly was the fact that we needed to support all language learners. I quickly moved to create a similar section in my other elementary school library for students and families.

 

    My second year, I undertook an even deeper look into my collections.  The collections at both schools were lacking in books representing cultural diversity.  Students were able to find books written in different languages, but finding books with characters and families that represented their diverse culture and heritage were lacking.  For this project, I again reached out to our ESL teachers to gain an understanding of literature in different cultures.  I also looked at different literature awards through various websites and ALA awards lists.  This work provided guidance for our next book order. 

    This is my third year.  The first two years were spent analyzing the collections and ensuring that procedures are in place for further collection development.  This year, we are working on ensuring that our collections are culturally diverse,  have an up-to-date "world languages" collection, and represent our diverse school community.  My job as an elementary librarian is to ensure that all students have access to resources that are reflective of the student population to which we serve.  I rely on the collaboration with the ESL teachers of both schools to help ensure that all students are represented within the collection.  The proof in our efforts will be in our collection analysis check-out statistics.  

    

    

    

Post #6 - Thinking about the Numbers....

This week, I've been focused on the numbers. The first article I read was about the school district in Scranton, PA.  Here are the numbers:

9.3% of the students in the school district receive EL Services.

25% of the students speak two or more languages  - English is not the primary language at home. 

52 different languages are spoken in the school district.

62 different countries are represented. 

10.6% of residents are from countries outside of the United States. 

Click HERE for the article.  The numbers in this article are from Scranton, PA - but I imagine that many other school districts have similar data.  

The second article featured online learning through the eyes of Nada Awa (an article from Kalamazoo,Michigan - Nada is from Palestine) .  Her experiences on online learning as an EL are featured HERE in this article....

Nada Awa says "At school, I can speak to other people, to students.  that helps you to practice your English.  But at home, I don't speak too much to the teacher online.  At home, I just speak sometimes with my sister or my cousins, but I don't speak English like everyday - maybe just some words.  so that makes it hard for me to practice English at home."  Her words resonated with me. As much as we try to use different strategies to meet the needs of all of our students, we fall short with our English language learners because of the method of instruction when we are teaching from home.  

I teach over 800 students between two elementary schools.  When I can see the students during my face-to-face instruction I can see who is understanding what we are doing and who needs directions differently in order to understand.  I have many more challenges when I teach my remote students (and even more when the two modes of instruction are blended with face-to-face and remote - we call that "flex").  

The National Center for Education Strategies reports that over 5 million public school students are ELs.  And even when they are good students in their home countries, speaking their native language, they fall behind in subjects like math simply because of the language barrier.  

We are experiencing extreme circumstances with this pandemic.  It has forced many students to become remote learners either in a dedicated remote class or as part of a flex class.  Can we meet the needs of our L2 students?  Nada said it best "... I don't speak too much to the teacher online..." These words struck me hard - how do we, as educators, ensure that our L2 students are participating and practicing their English? From my own experience, I have 30 minutes to work with students.  When I can't see them face-to-face I can't read who is understanding and who needs alternative instruction. 

I am left with the following questions:

1.  How can I (we) ensure that all students are participating with the instruction?  

2. Is there a different system that can be used to ensure that L2 students are able to talk with their teachers and peers when online? 

3.  Can we switch up our instruction methods to meet the needs of our L2 students? 

I'm not sure what the answers are, but I think these questions need to be addressed as we move forward with online instruction.  

Post #5 - Pondering Language...

Maya Angelou said, "when we know better, we do better."     

     I've been pondering language learning this week.  Do we know better?  Are we doing better?  

    It started with a story I heard on NPR's Sunday Edition a few weeks ago about a little boy who emigrated from Mexico to the United States.  His father wanted him to have a good education so he was enrolled in school - a school that insisted that he only speak English, Spanish was not welcome.  His father was determined that the little boy understood and embraced his culture and heritage - this little boy navigated two worlds.  A point to ponder.  

    We've come a long way in the 20 years since this little boy entered our classrooms.  Two articles popped out at me this week - the first article is called "12 Mistakes Made by Teachers of English Language Learners".  This is the sixth article of the six part series.  There are many points to ponder in this article.  The first is the idea that "sending them out to work with someone else" is not a good idea.  In other words, classroom teachers should have all of the tools they need to work with ELL students.  Sending them out of the room for additional support is viewed as a mistake.  This is another point to ponder.  

    The second article that popped out at me is "Jobs Where Foreign Language Skills Are Important".  The article states that 1 out of every 5 American is bilingual and the demand for bilingual employees has doubled from 2010 - 2015.  These jobs range from the low to high end on the skill set spectrum.  

    We've come a long way from the time that little boy came to the United States from Mexico.  But I think we have a long way to go - we still view L2s from a deficit lens, we still send them out of the classroom for support, we still provide menial tasks for them to do while other students work on rich content in their curriculum.  

    So these are my ponderings this week - what can I do to better help my L2s in my libraries and help ensure that they are learning information literacy? How can I make sure that I am embracing each student's unique perspective (culture and heritage)?  Thankfully, I think we're now at a point where we don't insist on students speaking only English in our schools.  But, as Maya Angelou said, "when we know better, we do better."

    

Post #4 - Raising the Bar

This week, I was thinking about how teachers and schools support L2 students. Earlier this week, this article "Raising 'the Bar' For ELL Instruction" really got me thinking about how we (teachers) deliver instruction.

Earlier this year, I was teaching a group of fourth grade students at one of my elementary schools. It was a digital citizen lesson and the point I was trying to make is that it's fun to post personal information. The informal opening activity was a whole group participation activity - I would say a statement and students would stand if the statement pertained to them. The one statement I used was "Stand if a different language is spoken by someone at home". I was expecting those students who were standing to tell me that their older brother or sister was learning a language at school (like Spanish, German, or French). But what I got was something completely different. In just one class, there were at least 5 different languages: French, Spanish, Czech, Mandarin, Cambodian. And these languages were spoken by adults who live in the house. It blew me away and got me thinking - how much do I really know about different cultures and languages? And I realized that I don't know a lot. The article points out that many teachers view students through a "defecit lens". That was the first statement that resonated with me. We've been taught that as teachers we need to look for the weaknesses and work with the students on strengthening those areas. And this is a "defecit lens". What a lot of teachers don't seem to understand is that many L2 students already come to us possessing grit and growth mindset - from the circumstances and experiences that brought them to this country. The article was clear to point out that teachers need to change their approach to instruction for L2s. By slowing down our instruction, putting in visual and audio supports, using a variety of teaching modes, use the "read, think talk, and write cycle", and implement close reading strategies just to name a few. We need to take the best aspects of our teaching and blend them with strategies that can assist our L2 students. My biggest take-away from this article was for all of us to become more aware of different cultures and how we can be more aware of how we are delivering our insruction. There is so much more in this article that teachers can pull from to enhance their instruction. Check it out and let me know what you're thinking about. ¡Adios!

Post 3 - "How Does it Work?"

This seemed to be the theme for my reading this week... How does it work? There were two articles that stuck out for me this week. The first one "Lowell-Based Kids In Tech Expands STEM Opportunities" explored how a group called "Kis in Tech", a group focused on helping kids from low-income backgrounds expand their knowledge of math and science, received a large grant to expand their services for STEM week which just wrapped up this week. "Kids in Tech" was started in 2016 with a focus on ensuring that kids from low-income backgrounds have an opportunity to work and learn using STEM. The article was interesting, but it was the last paragraph that most intrigued me. Because of COVID-19, STEM week was held virtually. Students met online with experts from different tech companies - one company in particular was iRobot. Some employees from iRobot were interested in talking with and working with students who come from immigrant backgrounds since they, themselves had a similar background. And here's why the article caught my attention - recently, I completed some work on developing a STEAM Lab for one of my courses. Our ELL students benefit from more opportunities that STEM and STEAM Labs have to offer. Students collaborte, create, use critical thinking, and communication skills to work with others to solve problems. "Kids for Learning" was fortunate to have talented grant writers that were able to get them selected for the STEM Week. If we could get more companies and corporations to connect employees with immigrant or language learning backgrounds to students the impact could be huge. All students need role models, inspiration, and guides. The second article I read that had me thinking "How Does It Work?" was an article about the benefits of learning a second language. The article is called "Bilingualism Boosts the Brain". This is something that I've been thinking about for a few years. One of the schools that I work in had a Spanish Immersion program. The young students (1st - 4th grade) were not only participating with the grade-level curriculum, but they were also learning Spanish at the same time. The article surmises that people who learn a second language are engaging a separate "thinking" part of the brain that will help the brain to stay active. The article suggests that brain lapses such as dimensia or diseases of the brain such as alzheimers, can be delayed when a second language is studied and mastered. It is suggested in the article that when a new learned language is spoken, the brain works harder to select the right words - it doesn't seem to work as hard for one language. There are a lot of European, Asian, and African countries that ensure that their students speak more than one language. Our country does not have that requirement and it seems to me that if we had this requirement in our school curriculum that we would accomplish two things: 1. more global connection 2. more diverse language culture. Both of these articles had me thinking about connecting language to learning - how can we connect more people together and how can we use language learning to stimulate our brains? So... how does it work?

Post 2: Ensuring Learning Progress...

Some districts are experiencing more and more students enrolling whose primary language isn't English. There are so many considerations for these students that need to be considered when planning the learning environment. What are the "hooks" that can be used to help students acquire stronger language skills? How will students learn the "academic English" that is used in so many standardized test? What strategies can be used in the classroom to help students stay focused? How can teachers use a student's home culture to aid with their learning? What is the difference between a "correction" and a "criticism"? These topics are covered in an article I read called "Ensuring progress and knowledge retention among ESL students" by Douglas Magrath. I had a lot of take-aways from this article like using a ukele to help reinforce grammar, cultural reinforced instruction, and understanding the difference and perceptions of "correction" and "criticism". `This article is very much worth the read.

Another article I found that really excited me comes from Pittsburgh. The segment on the local news station is "Kidsburgh", which I found to be really catchy. The reporter spent time in a few schools to get an idea of what kinds of technology are being used for in person and remote learners, the different kinds of programs (I was really excited by the plant growing program) that are helping to level the playing field between those students who are at home and those students at school. Other teachers were using some of the tried and true websites, like Google Earth, and PBS Kids to connect students to learning in a different way. These teachers are reinventing ways to teach students even if the students are not able to learn in the conventional place (school) or collaborate the way that they used to (shoulder to shoulder). The article is called: Kidsburgh: Pittsburgh-Area School Districts Use Technology To Help Students Learn In New Ways.

Post 1: Supporting our English Language Learners

This week, I received numerous alerts about remote instruction and how it is impacting our English Language Learners. The learning curve is very steep - not only are they trying to understand a new spoken language, but the computer language has also become (in some cases) even more important. Teachers are left screencasting directions instead of the in-person support. The readings I've done this week indicate that students learn best when students are in the classroom and teachers can provide face to face instruction with time for facilitating. I've also been reading a lot about the tools that teachers are using to better reach their students during this time of "at home instruction". Platforms such as Zoom, Seesaw, Schoology, and Google tools are helping to bridge the gap between face to face and remote instruction. As an elementary librarian, I am always looking for ways to enhance my instruction of information literacy and foster a love of good reading. Nothing can take the place of good face to face instruction, but the tools that we're using are at least helping to make the learning more meaningful. Here's a link to an article I found very interesting.