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.