Culture

BACKGROUND OF TEACHER AND STUDENTS

PART 1: Who I Am

My name is Lisa Castellanos. I am a 2^nd Grade teacher at Clarendon Elementary School, beginning computer student/web designer, and someone who is applying the SIOP method to English Language Learners in the classroom. My sixth year teaching is drawing to a close as I type this, but before we say good-bye, I'd like to introduce you to some of my students.

PART 2: My students

The majority of my students were born in the United States with the exception of one. This is the first year that I have three students who speak a language at home other than English. Below, I will describe each child, their family history, and any differences between the L1 and L2. Keep in mind that the stories are true, only the names have been changed. Enjoy!

PART 3: Case Study One, Marcos

Marcos is a Filipino child in my class. He's cute, funny, smart, and well loved by peers and former teachers. He works hard to complete class work, yet struggles at times to finish writing assignments or any other writing task for that matter. A meeting with the parents informed me that the family speaks Tagalog at home. The father actually dubbed it "Taglish" because most of the time they mix English with Tagalog. Mom informed me that Marcos’ difficulty in writing stems from not knowing some words in English; his vocabulary is somewhat limited. Also, the sentence structure is different in Tagalog. Marcos' parents do not know how to speak or write the language fluently therefore it's difficult to help him with his homework. Discovering this information made remedying the situation easier. Modeling correct spelling, sentence structure, and having Marcos work with a tutoring group helped to ease the tension of writing. His attitude has improved toward writing and he's become much more successful in this area.

Part 4: Case Study Two, Lennart

Lennart is one of my highest achieving students in class. His parents are both doctors from Germany, mom is a veterinarian and dad is a dermatologist. Lennart’s parents focus all their spare time and energy on their children, which has resulted in a tight knit group. Lennart speaks German at home and English at school. Some discrepancies I have found between the L1 and the L2 are based solely on vocabulary. For instance, I sent home a Reading Contract for Lennart to work on. He chose to read My Father’s Dragon which is a wonderful children's book. The word "weep" was in one of the chapters and Lennart had never heard the word before. He went to ask his mother and she didn't know what the word meant either. Together they looked up the word in the dictionary to figure out its meaning. Aside from vocabulary, Lennart is on grade level academically. He can write fluently, knows his grammar rules, is a fantastic speller, and is quick to pick up new concepts and terminology. Now, whenever he doesn't know the meaning of a word, he is quick to pick up a school age dictionary or will ask a friend or myself. In the latter case, he will then write the word and its definition in his personal dictionary.

Part 5: Case Study Three, Gianni

Gianni is the one student in class that was born in a different country. His family is from Milan, Italy and they speak fluent Italian at home. Although they have been here for six years, they hold on tightly to their culture and visit home at least once a year. Gianni is a bright child, cute, athletic, and very outgoing. The overlap from the L1 to the L2 is most apparent in the way he speaks. An example of this is when Gianni wants to retell an event that happened over the weekend. While speaking he looks off in one direction to recall a word and uses lots of "ums" and "uhs" to fill time. He also uses hand gestures to convey meaning and simple terms to relay large ideas. He does this in his writing as well. Gianni's writing has come a long way since the beginning of the school year. While his English has become more sophisticated, so has his writing. He doesn’t use such simple sentence structure as he did in the past (I like this_______. Or I went to the ________.) His parents are very hands-on, educated, and willing to work with him on writing. I work with him independently and have him hooked up with a buddy. He’s social so the buddy system works well for him.