Instructional Plan for my Student’s Biliteracy Growth

          As previously stated, Jessica is currently attending an elementary school with only an ESL program, where all formal classroom and support instruction is done in English, with limited support in Spanish as needed.  I am the only classroom teacher who is formally teaching Spanish every day and my instruction is only for the four Spanish speakers in my classroom for about twenty minutes daily during a literacy group.  A few other teachers use Mexican culture, Spanish songs or a few Spanish words or poems in their teaching, but do not spend instructional minutes teaching Spanish in a formal manner.  Therefore, the first step that I would like to take to further help Jessica and my other bilingual students grow to become biliterate is to advocate for a dual language program at my school.  Although I have already been advocating for such a change over the past two years, I would like to use the research done in the book Struggling Learners & Language Immersion Education by Fortune & Menke and from the book Dual Language Essentials for Teachers and Administrators by Freeman, Freeman & Mercuri, along with other research to prove to the directors of curriculum that the way we are currently teaching our ELLs is the one of the least effect models of instruction and part of the reason why we have an achievement gap among our Latino students in our district.  Even basic research by Cummins from 20-30 years ago shows that students of a minority language that are not given the opportunity to learn academic skills in their home language struggle later on in their schooling more than their counterparts.  Since my district is focusing their committee work and administrator meetings on eliminating the achievement gap for minority students in the district, I believe the research surrounding best models of instruction for Spanish speaking students should be addressed.

          On the other hand, in order to make immediate changes and encourage biliteracy growth within my classroom for Jessica and my other students, there are many things that I will continue and add to my current literacy blocks.  Currently, my school and I use a balanced literacy program, which is supported by the research done by Freeman, Freeman & Mercuri in chapter 5 of their book.  In my second grade classroom, I meet daily with small guided reading groups according to the children’s reading level, which is a research supported method of teaching reading according to the article “Teaching for Comprehension and Language Development of English Learners:  Insights from Reading Recovery” by Neal.  I choose leveled books that help to expand the genre experience of my readers and build their specific and academic vocabulary.  While I work with some groups and students on decoding words and fluency, I am guiding Jessica’s reading group through comprehension discussions and the discovery of new vocabulary or topics.  Vocabulary growth and continual discussion around the comprehension of a story is where Jessica needs to focus her English reading skills in order to continue to grow at grade level.  I also have all of my students participate in independent reading and partner reading daily.  Depending on the topic or unit of study, we do some shared readings as well.  Every day I spend some time doing a read aloud with my class, which is also a research based method of teaching comprehension, vocabulary, and expression while reading.  After reading all of the research throughout this course, I plan to keep all of these practices to my approach to teaching reading in English.

           As for my teaching of writing in English, I use interactive writing, components of writer’s workshop, guided writing, independent writing and conferencing as my approach.  Students are asked to write in their journals a few days a week and I respond back to them so that they can see authentic writing and truly feel connected to the writing process.  I use the six traits of writing to teach about how good writer’s write and then focus on a trait when conferencing with the students.  My plan is to continue to meet with Jessica about her writing and to encourage her to add more details, more unique words and to push her to grow as a writer.  In terms of vocabulary development in English, this is an area that I spend a great deal of focus knowing that I have the cluster of ELLs in my classroom.  I use real objects, pictures on the Internet and total physical response to help students learn the meaning of new academic terms in all subject areas. 

In general, my focus in teaching is always on meaning-centered instruction, which Judith Neal discusses in her article on Teaching for Comprehension and Language Development of English Learners.  I tie culture, different languages and themes into my teaching of various subjects and ideas.  In my class morning meeting, we share morning greetings from the different languages of students in my classroom (Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, and Arabic).  Jessica gets very proud to teach the other students words in Spanish or when she is able to make personal connections to our discussions because of her Mexican heritage.  Anther way that I have helped to create meaning-centered instruction is by writing a DPI Immigrant Youth and Families Grant for my district.  Within the grant, I explained that I planned to coordinate not only family involvement nights for all ELLs and their families, but also to run a summer language program for all elementary aged ELLs in our district.  I am coordinating these programs for a second year now and have the goals for the program centered on building experiences, increasing academic vocabulary and including time for Spanish literacy enrichment.  The program is centered on themes for each week and has two field trips each week, along with specific vocabulary for those field trips.  For example, we took the kids to Rutabaga for a canoeing lesson and then taught the vocabulary associated with a canoe, like dock, row, oar, life jacket, etc.  This summer program is a perfect example of the meaning-centered instruction that I plan to continue in the future.

The last area of my current teaching that I would like to continue to help my students gain more academic support in their English language development is by using Readers Theater experiences, team and partner learning experiences in teaching, and learning centers for my students to use during the English literacy block.  Activities like interactive writing and Readers Theater help to give reading and writing an authentic and real place in the life of a child.  I have held small performances for Readers Theater and have also done larger productions where we invite families to come in for the events.  Not only do the children need to think deeply about the characters and the meaning of the story, but it also allows for building on their oral language, encouraging family involvement and requires the entire language experience approach to be embraced.  In Readers Theater, partner reading time and by creating active learning teams in science, social studies and writing, all students are able to interact with one another and to share the learning experience.  Lastly, as Joanna Click explains in her article Learning Centers:  Meaningful Contexts for Language Use in the Primary Immersion Classroom, having interactive learning centers during the independent  time of the literacy block allows the students the freedom to explore concepts previously explored by the whole class and creates the cooperative group work environment that not only helps to build a safe and caring classroom environment, but also promotes oral communication and shared learning experiences.

The main area that I would like to continue to grow as a bilingual educator is in how to better use my Spanish literacy block to effectively work with my Spanish speaking students.  Obviously it would be best if my Spanish literacy block could be equal to the time spent on English literacy; however, since my school district does not have a dual language or a true bilingual program at this time, I am able to spend about twenty minutes daily with my four Spanish speaking students.  When I began this literacy block in the fall, I began with running a guided reading group for half of the week and by spending the other days doing interactive writing and independent writing.  Now, I have continued those efforts, but have expanded to include more specific mini-lessons during the week as well.  For example, after reading the article by Kathy Escamilla, Teaching Literacy in Spanish, I have begun to focus on the basic learning block in reading of understanding the syllable in Spanish.  I taught several mini-lessons where we broke apart words in Spanish to both spell and read the words based on the syllables.  After these lessons, my group students, especially Jessica, have been better able to decode words in their leveled Spanish books.  Over the course of this class, I have gone through and used all of Kathy Escamilla’s steps to teaching Spanish literacy with my small group each day, including lessons on articles, the additional letter and sounds in Spanish, the contractions, the silent ‘h’, accents on frequently used words, and writing the date in Spanish.  Another area of focus that I have recently adopted is the dictado, as explained in the article Using Writing to Make Cross-Language Connections from Spanish to English.  I have seen all of my students and especially Jessica gain more confidence in their journals in written Spanish as they have begun to understand accent marks, the silent ‘h’, and have had practice with frequent words that do not follow a pattern, like “qué, cuando, and quién.  To continue to improve my short time during my Spanish literacy block, I am planning next week to begin to create a word wall in Spanish with the help of my students.  

One aspect of teaching literacy in Spanish that I began and will continue in the future is to use strategies that encourage transfer of knowledge for my students.  The idea of transfer, as explained in chapter 5 by Freeman, Freeman & Mercuri, is that the students get familiar with the approach to teaching reading and writing and are able to better focus on the specifics for the given language when both the approach and the general ideas remain the same.  I facilitate guided reading, independent reading, shared and guided writing and independent writing in both languages in similar manners.  As noted by Kathy Escamilla in her article, Teaching Literacy in Spanish, although there are many aspects of teaching Spanish that only apply when teaching literacy in Spanish, there are also many universal approaches to teaching literacy that can be applied when teaching literacy in Spanish.  Like all of my guided reading lessons in English and Spanish, I focus on a skill or idea for each child or group that fits where that child/group needs to focus.  For example, among my four students that I teach Spanish literacy to daily, each child is reading at a different level; therefore, I get leveled books that are appropriate for each child and then as the children begin to read their own book, I go around to each of the four and listen to them read.  Some of my students need reminders on how to break the words into syllables, while Jessica needs reminders to decode instead of only making predictions about words.  Within my group, I am always attempting to find specific vocabulary that the students do not know in Spanish and give pictures, translations into English, etc. to help teach the new academic vocabulary.

For our case study, I purposely choose an average bilingual student from my cluster of Spanish speaking students in order to create a plan of instruction so that I could apply my plan of teaching Spanish and English literacy to my entire group of students.  Jessica has been very successful under my current approach to teaching literacy in English and has had also made significant growth as I have added to and learned more about teaching literacy in Spanish this year.  She needs more focus on comprehension and academic vocabulary in English and needs to have more time to practice her decoding skills in reading in Spanish.  Jessica needs lots of encouragement in writing in both languages, but is making adequate progress in both areas.  The strategies, such as the dictado, the shared writing experiences, and the word wall in Spanish have helped her gain more confidence in her Spanish writing and I feel confident that soon she will be adding more details and ideas to her Spanish writing without significant encouragement from me.  In general, I feel that my plan of instruction that I have laid out for both languages will further assist Jessica become biliterate and will also help my other cluster of bilingual students as well.

Reflection on the Student’s Biliteracy Development

          Jessica is a Mexican American student who lives with an older brother, two older sisters, and her mother and father in a small apartment in Middleton.  The family speaks Spanish at home, although all of the children speak English and converse with each other in both languages.  Her parents do not speak English and are immigrants from Mexico.  Jessica and one of her sisters were born here in Madison and the other siblings were born in Mexico.  Jessica is a second grader in a mono-lingual school who has been in English-only classroom environments since attending Head Start at age three and four.  In all of her classroom experiences, Jessica has always had an assistant or teacher who speaks Spanish, but English has been the language of instruction.  Due to her type of schooling and her family/home life, I believe that Jessica is a simultaneous bilingual, who has been surrounded by both English and Spanish throughout her entire life.  Obviously Spanish was Jessica’s initial language with her family, but having grown up in the Madison/Middleton community and having three older siblings in schools without bilingual programming, Jessica has been surrounded by English in the community, in her home, on the television and eventually throughout her schooling.

          In terms of the three language domains for our case study, Jessica’s oral language was the most balanced between her two languages.  In her oral language, Jessica fits more into a general level 3-4, with some areas being stronger than others.  Jessica’s linguistic complexity fits a level 4 in both English and in Spanish, as she was able to give many details and variety within our conversations in both languages.  Jessica’s language control appears slightly stronger in Spanish than in English due to some irregular plural nouns and verb mistakes during our conversation in English.  For example, she referred to the “fishes” that she saw at her cousin’s house and said that her cousin “runned” very fast during a game that they played together.  I did not notice many language control mistakes during our conversation in Spanish.  Lastly, the area that was most challenging to Jessica was that of vocabulary usage.  In both languages her vocabulary usage fit best into a level 3 developing.  In Spanish, Jessica did not appear to have enough specific vocabulary to continue to add the level of details that she desired, and I have found this to be the case in her Spanish reading and writing as well.  Her general Spanish language is strong; it is only when it comes to a specific word where she pauses or after a few moments will say the word in English instead.  In English, I feel that she has a higher level of academic vocabulary, mostly due to her instruction in English throughout the years.  There were still words that she did not know when describing a specific activity, such as canoeing on a lake, but she often had enough other vocabulary to talk or demonstrate with a movement around the unknown word.  For example, when she was telling me that she saw people on the lake canoeing, she did not know the word “row” or “canoe” and instead used the word “boat” and then showed me the action for rowing by using her hands and arms to demonstrate.  Throughout both of our conversations, I was able to thoroughly understand Jessica’s main idea and most details in both languages.

          In terms of code-switching, the only times that Jessica used code-switching was during our oral conversations in Spanish.  She never misread a word in the other language and never used a Spanish word or vice versa during any of our writing sessions.  She also never used code-switching while speaking to me in English, even though she knows that I also speak Spanish.  The only type of code-switching that Jessica used was the intra-sentential code-switching, as defined by Karen Beeman.  Jessica would say things like “el Saturday fui con mi cousin…” and “sí, más durante el summer….”.  In both of these sentences, I know that Jessica knows the Spanish words for Saturday, cousin, and summer, as I have heard her use them before.  Therefore, these are perfect examples for the idea that code-switching should not be viewed as a deficient or a negative in one language or the other.  Most likely, Jessica was speaking fluently in Spanish and just used the word that first came to thought.  Each time that Jessica used code-switching, she always used a word with the same meaning for her sentence, so every code-switch made sense to someone who is also bilingual.  I have also heard Jessica code-switch often with her mother.  Although her mother speaks only in Spanish, Jessica will use a combination of Spanish and English when speaking with her mother.  At times, I believe that Jessica is using the English word because she does not know the Spanish word; however, at other times, I have heard Jessica use both the Spanish and the English word before and know that she knows both and is somehow choosing which word to use during the conversation.

          For the language domains of reading and writing, Jessica is clearly more dominant in English due to her English-only schooling instruction for the past four years.  This current year is Jessica’s first exposure to formal instruction in Spanish and the Spanish instruction has been limited to a 20 minute, small group, mini-lesson every day.  In her English reading, Jessica is currently reading on-grade level (level 23)  based on the Rigby running record and comprehension questions that are given three times per year.  The two areas that Jessica still struggles with in her English reading are in comprehension and vocabulary, which is appropriate for both her reading level and because she is an English language learner (ELL).  Most of Jessica’s running record errors and misunderstandings during the comprehension questions were due to not knowing the specific vocabulary within the story.  Interestingly, some of the words she was able to decode, but clearly did not know the word because when asked later on about the topic, she answered incorrectly or gave a miscued response due to her lack of understanding.  For example, some of the words were:  gallop, fully, tufts and browsing.  In terms of using comprehension strategies, Jessica stops to ask questions, using the pictures and tries to use context clues to figure out the new vocabulary.  Again, this is developmentally appropriate for her reading level and she is on par with the other students in her guided reading group.

          In terms of Jessica’s reading ability in Spanish, she is about a full grade level below (level 11), according to the Rigby reading assessment, although she has made wonderful gains throughout this year to reach that point.  Jessica is able to easily understand the stories that she reads in Spanish and can retell the story, including the problem and the solution.  Occasionally there are vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to Jessica, but she is normally able to figure out the new words due to context clues and picture clues.  Most of Jessica’s errors are because she predicted the word instead of stopping to decode the word and her prediction was wrong.  Another unique mistake that Jessica made when reading in Spanish was mispronouncing the words, possibly because she has not heard the correct pronunciation nor has she seen the word in a written format.  For example, she read the word silla as the word “sila” and the word ruedas as the word “redas”.  However, when I asked her what a silla de ruedas was, she pointed to the wheelchair on the page, therefore, she clearly understood the word, but simply did not pronounce all of the sounds in the word.

          Finally, Jessica is also more dominant in her English writing as well, and this is because of her substantial formal instruction in writing in English.  Jessica uses a more typical English discourse pattern when she writes in both English and Spanish.  In her writing sample in English, Jessica gave a variety of sentence lengths, used difficult and unique vocabulary and wrote for a sufficient amount of time.  Therefore, in Jessica’s written English development, I would place her at the transitional stage of writing, according to Rubin and Carlan.  Whereas in her writing sample in Spanish, Jessica struggled with coming up with ideas and was continuously guided to add more details and thoughts to her paragraph.  Jessica did not use many unique words, nor did she add many thoughtful details to her ideas.  She began all of her sentences in a similar way and made a few spelling and grammatical errors.  I would place Jessica closer to a phonetic stage and possibly moving into the transitional stage, according to Rubin and Carlan, in terms of her abilities to write in Spanish.

          Overall, Jessica is a typical simultaneous bilingual who has been enrolled in an English-only school environment since the age of about three years old.  She has a somewhat balanced level of oral language in both of her languages; although I would argue that her English academic vocabulary is stronger than her Spanish.  She is dominant in English in both reading and writing, due to her language of instruction, although she has been fast to transfer to skills to Spanish throughout this past year.  Overall, if Jessica were able to continue to receive formal instruction in Spanish, I believe that she would be able to be on-grade level within a year or two because of her positive attitude, her motivation to learn Spanish, her on-grade level abilities in English and her ability to transfer skills between her two languages.

Jessica's Reading Analysis

**As a note, Jessica is a 2^nd grader in a monolingual English school.  I have been teaching a small Spanish literacy group to my Spanish speakers for 20 min per day this year, but this is Jessica’s first and most likely, will be her only formal instruction in Spanish if she remains in our school district.**

Jessica can articulate what good readers do in both languages, although her knowledge of how to read in Spanish has been limited, she has quickly learned how to transfer her skills from English into Spanish during this school year.  Jessica wants very much to please me, as her classroom teacher, and therefore, makes a show of using her reading strategies, especially in Spanish.  She shows me when she chooses to take home Spanish books to read for the night and tells me about her reading and writing experiences when they are in Spanish.  She has been very proud to learn how to read and write in Spanish this year and both her mother and I continue to praise and give much positive feedback for her enthusiasm.

Jessica is reading at a Rigby level 23 in English, which is exactly at grade level.  She has continued throughout the school year making the appropriate gains in her English reading levels.  In Spanish, Jessica is reading at a Rigby level 11, which is a little over one grade level below; however, Jessica began this year as a new reader to Spanish, so she has also made significant growth in her Spanish reading level as well this year. 

          In terms of Jessica’s vocabulary knowledge and strategic behaviors in reading, these both are very similar in both of her languages.  Jessica has quickly learned how to break apart the Spanish words into syllables to better read them and relies on her prediction of words and understanding of the story to make appropriate word guesses if she cannot figure out a word quickly.  Although Jessica uses this same strategy in English, she has also learned important sight words and a variety of spelling patterns to help her decode words.  One area that is unique to Spanish is that a few of Jessica’s mistakes were because she predicted the word instead of decoding the word.  In this case, she made three errors in the running record because she mispronounced the word.  This is most likely because either her parents do not use the correct pronunciation or because she has never read the words, she can only use her sense of hearing to make sense of the sounds.  For example, she read the word silla as the word “sila” and the word ruedas as the word “redas”.  When I asked her what a silla de ruedas was, she pointed to the wheelchair, therefore, she clearly knew the vocabulary, but did not know the correct pronunciation of the words.  On the other hand, in English, most of Jessica’s reading errors had to do with her lack of understanding of the vocabulary.  She was able to break apart the words and almost make the right sounds, but then when I asked her what the word meant, she had no idea.  For example, some of her mistakes were:  gallop, fully, tufts, and browsing.  It was interesting to see how her strategies for decoding and her ability to understand vocabulary in the story were so closely linked.    

          In terms of comprehension, Jessica was able to summarize and answer all of the questions, including a detailed retelling of the Spanish book that she read.  In all of the books that I have read with Jessica in Spanish, although there have been vocabulary words that she struggles with, she has been able to understand the problem and the solution of the story.  I believe this is mostly due to her lower level of reading in Spanish.  Most of the stories at her reading level are more simplistic and often students do not tend to have as many comprehension difficulties.  In contrast, although Jessica has been learning how to use comprehension strategies in English, it continues to be her reading group’s area of struggle and I believe that it is mostly due to their higher reading level.  When I work with Jessica in her small guided reading group, I focus my lessons and teachings on how to use our comprehension strategies to understand the book.  Jessica tends to do a good job of stopping to ask questions, clarifying what she has read or asking the meaning of a specific new vocabulary word.  For these reasons, Jessica has been continuing at grade level in reading in English throughout the year. 

          Overall, Jessica reads fluently in both languages and is able to transfer her knowledge of both decoding skills and comprehension skills to both languages.  Clearly she is a stronger reader in English, but that is due to her three years of formal literacy instruction in English versus her limited formal literacy instruction in Spanish during only this school year.  Jessica enjoys reading and has been a very enthusiastic learner in both languages; this is partly because of her desire to please and also due to her continual success as a learner.

Writing Analysis

          As an important note, Jessica has grown up in a predominately Spanish speaking home, but has attended a school where Spanish has not been taught formally.  This school year, 2^nd grade, is her first year to have a 20 min. daily literacy lesson in Spanish. 

For the English portion of this writing analysis, the class was asked to write a St. Patrick’s Day story about a pot of gold.  Jessica wrote a well developed, ten sentence story that had a clear beginning, middle and ending. Jessica’s story resembles other typical fairy tales, like Hansel and Gretel.  Jessica wrote about a little boy and little girl who were walking through the forest.  In the forest, a leprechaun hid a pot of gold from the children.  The children gave up looking for the pot of gold, but then returned the next day to ask the leprechaun to help them find the pot of gold.  Finally, the leprechaun gave them the pot of gold because the children were poor. 

Jessica used a typical English discourse pattern for the organization of her story.  She introduced the characters and setting, she then moved on to the problem and then the characters solved the problem in the end.  Jessica was able to give a few details in her story, used a variety of words, varied her sentence lengths, used different beginnings within her sentences, and presented a clear problem and solution.  Jessica understands difficult vowel-consonant agreements, is able to spell sight words correctly, and uses spelling patterns, like the silent e, throughout her story.  Therefore, in Jessica’s written English development, I would put her at the transitional stage, according to Rubin and Carlan. 

In terms of any miscues, Jessica did not use any code switching within this story.  Jessica’s mistakes throughout the story were mostly due to grammar.  For example, Jessica used quotation marks to show someone speaking one time, but did not carry that throughout her entire story, although her characters spoke many other times.  Jessica said that “the lepercond hided the pot of gold so the kids do not get some of his gold.”  This sentence has both a verb-subject disagreement and also the incorrect past tense use of the word ‘hide’.  She made very few spelling errors:  lepercond (leprechaun), havint (haven’t), and por (poor).  Lastly, she did miss a few periods and capitalizations to end and begin her sentences.

In the small Spanish literacy group, the students were asked to write about either their favorite birthday and explain why it was their favorite, or to write about what a favorite birthday would look like to them.  This topic was chosen because we had just read a book about a little girl’s first piñata at her birthday party.  It is important to note that just a few months ago, Jessica and the other children in this Spanish literacy group felt very stuck if asked to write anything in Spanish.  They all would just sit and wait for a more guided writing lesson.  Nobody wanted to participate in independent writing.  It is possible that all of these children have seen very little written text or communication in Spanish before this year.  After getting to know their families, many of their parents have very little formal education and most likely do not use writing as a form of communication.  Finally, after several months of mostly guided writing instruction, I was excited to see that the students were willing to participate in this independent writing activity.  All four students took some time to consider the topic and then began to write, regardless of the fact that they did not always know how to spell or write a given word.  Jessica wrote a four sentence paragraph, after I asked her to add more details to her paragraph.  Jessica chose to write about her dream birthday, which would be fun with many gifts and money.  She would get $50 in order to buy a purple bicycle and purple and blue earrings.

Although more difficult to decide, I believe that Jessica used a more typical Spanish form of discourse in her writing.  She started with her main idea “Yo quiero on cumpleaños diverted (I want a fun birthday)” and then the rest of the paragraph was simply the details of what she wanted for her birthday.  Jessica did not use any transitional words in her writing, like she did in her English paper (next, then, etc.)  She did not add many details or use many unique words, other than colors to describe her desired objects.  She began two sentences with “Yo quiero..” (I want), another sentence began with the word “Con” (with) and the last sentence began with “Y” (and).  Her sentence structure was very simple and although she gave a few specific examples:  pastel de elado (helado), regalos, dinero, bicicleta, y arêtes; there were no other details about a party, friends or family, activities, etc.

In terms of other miscues, Jessica did not use any code-switching in her Spanish writing.  Her spelling and grammatical errors mirrored her English schooling.  For example, she wrote “on” instead of un, she wrote “diverted” instead of divertido, she did know to make “morado” morada because of feminine bicicleta, nor add –es to the word “azul” after referring to her arêtes.  Lastly, she did not know that “elado” has a silent ‘h’ in the front, nor did she know that “ninero” is spelt diñero.  Overall, I would put Jessica at the phonetic stage or possibly moving into the transitional stage of writing in Spanish, according to Rubin and Carlan.  Jessica had some errors due to the different phonetic systems of English and Spanish and she lacked more details in her writing.  Although Jessica did not make a significant number of mistakes in her Spanish writing, she seemed more concerned with making her writing perfect than on getting down her ideas.

Overall, Jessica is a much stronger and confident writer in English, which is not surprising given her level of schooling in English so far.  However, I am very happy with her progress in Spanish literacy this year and feel that given her ability to transfer ideas between the two languages, she will continue to grow in length, confidence and details in her written Spanish development for the remaining part of this school year.

Oral Language Development

          As mentioned earlier, Jessica has attended a school where only English has been formally taught in grades K-2, although she has always had bilingual teachers.  This year in 2^nd grade is the first time that Jessica has had any literacy instruction in Spanish.  Jessica has grown up in a home where both her parents only speak Spanish and her older siblings speak a combination of Spanish and English.  Therefore, Jessica appears to be a simultaneous bilingual, who has been surrounded by both English and Spanish throughout her life.  Jessica speaks mostly Spanish at home, although she speaks both English and Spanish with her older siblings.  Spanish was Jessica’s first formal language as a toddler, but since she has grown up in Middleton, WI, she has always been surrounded by English in the community, within her apartment building and on the television.  At this point in her life, Jessica has a much stronger vocabulary and oral language ability in English, due to her English only instruction throughout school.  Therefore, I believe that Jessica is clearly English dominant at this point in her life.

          This year in my classroom, I have ran a Spanish literacy group every day with Jessica and three other Spanish speakers in my room.  We read leveled Spanish books, have learned how to write in Spanish and spend the entire 20 minutes communicating and learning together in Spanish.  Throughout the day, I occassionally use Spanish to give routine directions to my entire class and Jessica always feels very proud to explain what I am saying to her classmates.  Through these experiences, I believe that Jessica has developed a sense of pride in her ability to speak, read and write in Spanish.  Her parents have also expressed their joy and appreciation that Jessica is learning to read and write in Spanish.  Therefore, when I met with Jessica to converse in Spanish, it was a natural setting to meet and work together.

          In Jessica’s Spanish communication, she displayed some code-switching.  Jessica’s main form of code-switching was intra-sentential code-switching.  She often relied on her strong English vocabulary by putting in an English word into a Spanish sentence, for example “el Saturday fui con mi cousin a..” and “sí, más durante el summer”.  However, I did notice that at one point she said ”poner el newspaper en la mesa”, but when I asked her “cómo se dice newspaper in español” she responded with “periódico”.  So, I am still unclear if she sometimes knows the Spanish vocabulary, but thinks of the English word first and therefore, that is the word that comes out in a conversation or if at times she does not know the Spanish vocabulary word and uses her strong English vocabulary to supplement within a conversation. 

          Jessica’s Spanish language development would be somewhere between a level 3 Developing and 4 Expanding on the WIDA Speaking Rubric.  In Linguistic Complexity, Jessica is at a strong level 4, as she is able to give many details and variety within a conversation about a topic.  Her speaking style seems to fit within a Spanish language culture of a more circular explanation about her topic.  In Vocabulary Usage, Jessica is between a level 2 Beginning and a level 3 Developing.  This is the area where she struggles within the Spanish language to find the exact words that she wants when describing something.  Based on conversations that I have heard her have with her parents, she often code-switches when she does not know the Spanish vocabulary word she is looking to use.  Her general language is strong; it is only in more specific vocabulary that she uses her English words to continue her thoughts.  Lastly, in Language Control, Jessica most closely resembles a level 4 Expanding.  She speaks in an extremely fluent manner, however, will make some syntactic and semantic errors within a conversation.  Her errors do not impede on the general understanding and seem developmentally appropriate.

          In my conversation in English with Jessica, she did not use any form of code-switching.  At times I noticed a few mistakes with plural nouns and irregular verb usage (mouses, he going to, she thinked).  When she did not know a word that she wanted to use, she used many details to explain her meaning, but did not switch to Spanish, even though she knows that I am bilingual.  I was always able to clearly understand Jessica, I was able to figure out what vocabulary word she was missing within her sentences, and she spoke very fluently.

Jessica’s English oral language is somewhere between a level 3 Developing and a level 4 Expanding.  Her Linguistic Complexity is at a level 4, where she uses a variety of sentence lengths to explain in great detail her ideas.  Her conversation very closely follows a Spanish oral language in terms of organization.  At times I have asked her to repeat or have asked to clarify her main point because of the circular format of her explanation.  Her Vocabulary Usage is somewhere between a 3 Developing and 4 Expanding.  Her English vocabulary is much greater than her Spanish vocabulary; however, she still is learning new academic and technical words.  Her level of English vocabulary seems very developmentally appropriate for her grade level.  Lastly, her Language Control is between a level 3 Developing and a level 4 Expanding.  As stated earlier, most of her mistakes within language control are with more complex pieces of English grammar, including irregular plural nouns and verbs.  These mistakes did not affect my understanding of her story nor did they impact our conversation.

Introducion de mi estudiante

Mi Estudiante

Le presento a Jessica, mi niña linda en mi clase de segundo grado.  Ella tiene siete años y tiene dos hermanas mayores.  Jessica vive con sus hermanas, su mamá y su papá.  Su familia es mexicana y hablan español en casa.  Jessica ha visitado a México dos veces, donde ella todavía tiene mucha familia.  Jessica es una niña muy responsable, respetosa, ayuda a sus compañeros en la clase, sonreí siempre y le encanta ir a la escuela.  En clase, ella es muy lista matemática y está en el promedio de la clase para literatura en ingles.  Ella presta atención en la clase y trabaja muy duro durante el tiempo de trabajo independiente. 

Jessica ha asistido al distrito de Middleton-Cross Plains en toda su educación.  Ella asistió en el programa 4K durante parte del año, donde tuvo una maestra que habló inglés solamente, pero había una maestra ayudante que habló español e inglés con los niños.  En nuestra escuela, no hay instrucción formal en español en ningún grado.  Jessica estuvo en clases con maestras quienes hablan español en kindergarten, primer, y segundo grado.  Este año es la primera vez que ella está aprendiendo a escribir y a leer en español en la escuela.  En mi clase, tengo solamente treinta minutos cada día para instrucción en español con un grupo pequeño de estudiantes mexicanos.  El resto de la instrucción de literatura es en inglés.  Debido a este cambio en su instrucción de literatura, la mamá de Jessica me dijo que Jessica está más interesada en hablar español y hace preguntas sobre el idioma.

About Me

I grew up in a south suburb of Chicago in a community that was fairly diverse.  I moved to Madison to complete my undergraduate coursework and studied in Sevilla, Spain during the spring of my junior year.  I was blown away that my Spanish coursework had not prepared me for daily life with my Spanish family, but after a month, loved my time in Sevilla.  I was lucky enough to travel for 2 months around western Europe during the summer with all of my summer job savings!  I would have loved to have majored in Spanish, but knew that I had to finish in four years and had already begun my career path.  Therefore, I graduated in 2000 with a double major, not in education or Spanish, but in social work and sociology!

I was accepted into Teach For America and spent the summer in what I call, boot camp, in Hoston, TX teaching K/1 summer school for six weeks and attending seminars and workshops all afternoon and evening.  Eventually the summer ended and I moved to New Orleans to begin my life changing experience.  I taught third grade in an inner city school with 99% of students in poverty and 100% of students identifying as African American.  Needless to say, I learned a lot in my two years and with my night classes and evening seminars, I earned my elementary regular ed. teaching license from Louisiana from the New Teacher Project.  I also spent the summer in between teaching up in Alaska running youth outdoor activities for native students; which was a great change from New Orleans!

After finishing my Teach For America committment, I moved back to Madison and took a position as a case manager for adults with developmental disabilities in the community for a year before going back full time as a graduate student in school social work.  I worked throughout grad school doing overnights to support adults with disabilities and interning 30 hrs. per week at Middleton High School as a school social worker.  Upon completion of my MSW, I was accepted into the JET Program and moved to a small industrial city in northern Japan.  For my year in Japan, I taught English at four high schools throughout my area.  I took classes to learn Japanese, traveled throughout Japan and also traveled to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laotia and Cambodia.  This again was an eye opening experience, as I had not had much experience with Asia or Asian people in the United States.

When I returned home, I worked as a school social worker at an elementary school and at a middle school in the Middleton Cross Plains Area School District.  Unfortunately, I only had a temporary contract, so I decided to move back to the Chicago area to pursue a license in ESL.  I taught second grade in a south suburb of Chicago where I had 8 different languages spoken in the homes of my students, none of which was Spanish!  At night, I attended classes at National Louis University at the Illinois Resource Center and after two years completed my ESL and bilingual coursework. 

But before I moved back to Madison to marry my husband and work as a bilingual resource teacher in an elementary school in Middleton, I spent the summer in Ecuador improving my Spanish.  I spent six weeks living with two different families in Cuenca and attending intensive one-on-one classes four hours per day.  When I returned to Madison, I worked as a bilingual resource teacher for a school with a brand new ESL program for one year before I decided that I wanted to be back in the classroom.  So, the following year I transferred to a more diverse school to teach fourth grade with the ESL cluster in my classroom.  Currently, I am back to teaching second grade in the same school with five ESL students in my classroom.