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My name is Alyssa Stuckey. I am an Art Education major at Kutztown University; though, I am a transfer student from Purdue University in Indiana. I was born and raised in Indiana, but I moved between quite a few cities and towns there throughout my life. I had no childhood home, I lived in so many different houses and apartments that I could only give you a vague recollection of what any looked like; I could never give you the addresses. I am also one of 6 siblings, 3 girls and 3 boys, from many different backgrounds. I am the youngest daughter, but not the youngest; I have a younger brother.

The artifacts I choose for my portfolio for this class is of a girl that I personally know; Her name is Emma and she moved to America from Germany when she was in 6th Grade (Roughly 11 or 12 years old); She is now 22 years old. I asked her how she felt when she first came to America, and she told me she remembers it being very hard and it took a lot of time and practice to get used to everything—Mainly the language (English) and culture.

Together, all my artifacts (and supporting artifacts for my drawings of my friend Emma’s experiences) made me truly think about what I learned from the experience of collecting them throughout this course. It made me really think about how nerve-wracking life and school can be when you're in a whole new culture than what you’re so very used to—Especially being so young.

The main artifact I have for my portfolio is the interview I have of Emma; she let me ask her all about her experience with being new to the United States.

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Hi my name is Meghan Peters and I am an Art Education major. I am from Perkasie, Pennsylvania and I have lived in the same house for my entire life. I have never moved, except for moving to college, but I have been fortunate enough to have traveled A LOT.  I have been to about 10 to 15 countries, most of them being European, and I have been to well over half of the states in the United States.

This character isn’t really based upon anyone that I knew or know, but more so based upon what I didn’t know. For having traveled as much as I have I haven’t really been to many Spanish-speaking countries that is one culture that I haven’t really experienced and I decided that it would be best for me to look into that to understand something that I don’t even have even the slightest bit of a grasp on. The extent of Hispanic culture that I have experienced is when I have visited Southern states like Arizona and New Mexico and even then that isn’t the entire experience and I just wanted to be able to have some thing to look into so I could create a character that was portrayed accurately. This character is supposed to represent this student alone, but also the experience of every English language learner in our school system.

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My name is Baobai Yang. I have lived in Pennsylvania my entire life but would love to travel overseas one day. I am the only daughter with three brothers and the middle child of the family. I am majoring in Art Education and plan to work on getting a Master's degree.

The character below is someone I knew as a foreign exchange student from Japan, who is 21-years-old currently. For this project, he is in 7th grade and moved overseas for studious purposes. Reflecting on his experiences compared to what we learned in class will be in further detail in the artifacts. One thing he said about as an English Learner is "I don’t think I had an advantage about English because I didn’t have an opportunity for special English education that some Japanese kids do.
Japanese is linguistically far from English (like letters, grammar, and pronunciations), so I can say for all Japanese speakers that it is way harder than European people to learn English".  Hearing his story made me think that being in a new country, culture, and environment can be lonely, but a good learning experience.

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Artifact #1: Demonstrate knowledge of language system structures, functions, and variations. 

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Artifact #1: Demonstrate knowledge of language system structures, functions, and variations. 

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Language system structures, functions, and variations are all touched and talked upon in our book: The language system structures are comprised of many things. These things being:

Phonology: The study of the sound systems of language.

Morphology: The study of the structure of words.

Syntax: The study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences and the rules governing the arrangement of sentences in sequence.

Semantics: The study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.

Pragmatics: The study of language from the point of view of the user, especially in terms of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using the language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants in an act of communication.

Lexicon: The vocabulary of a language.

Spelling: The process or activity of writing or naming the letters of a word.

Functions and variations are a bit simpler though. A language function refers to what students do with language as they engage with content and interact with others. Functions represent the active use of language for a specific purpose. The term language variation (or simply variation) refers to regional, social, or contextual differences in the ways that a particular language is used.

In terms of my friend Emma, when she first came to school, it was in Michigan, and as we all know, there is a lot of different dialect and slang used in the United States. She recalls one time where she was familiar with the term “soda” for a beverage, so she asked one of her classmates how to use the vending machine for one, and they did not know what “soda” was—they only knew it by the term "pop".

Citation:

http://prodev.elpa21.org/module2/module2/resources/LanguageFunctionsForms.pdf

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Artifact #2: Identify the stages of language acquisition and literacy development

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Artifact #2: Identify the stages of language acquisition and literacy development

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The stages of Language Acquisition are the Silent/Receptive stage, Early Production, Speech Emergence, Intermediate Fluency, and Continued Language Development/Advanced Fluency. Each of the stages shows a student listening silently and taking in the language until they become confident enough to slowly start speaking the language. The Silent/Receptive Stage allows a student to stay on the more quiet side while taking in words and phrases that they will later be able to repeat. The Early Production stage is when you start seeing these words and phrases that the student was taking in, beginning to be repeated. Speech Emergence is when students are able to communicate in short phrases with slightly more complicated words and contexts than seen in the previous stage. Intermediate Fluency shows students having a wider vocabulary and a way of speaking that more accurately displays their thoughts. Continued Language Development shows an almost complete grasp of the language as if it was their first language.
This drawing is representative of the Silent/Receptive Stage and the Speech Emergence stage.

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Artifact #2: Identify the stages of language acquisition and literacy development

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Artifact #2: Identify the stages of language acquisition and literacy development

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Artifact #3: Explain How Cultural Differences Affect Second Language Teaching and Learning. 

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Artifact #3: Explain How Cultural Differences Affect Second Language Teaching and Learning. 

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Language and culture are intertwined; one will always affect the other. Language and culture have a kind of deep and symbolic relationship. Language stands for the whole culture because language represents culture in the minds of its speakers.

Culture can be defined as, quite simply, a learned system of values, beliefs and/or norms among a group of people; Broad definitions of culture include ethnic background, nationality, gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, and religion. Culture not only changes people’s values and habits, but also affects people’s language and behaviors. Language is formed to present our ideas or concepts; these can change depending on which cultural elements are dominant at any given moment. Whenever language expands, the culture changes.

Students cannot truly master new language until they have mastered the cultural context in which the new language occurs. This means that understanding a new culture is an important element in achieving the success in second language acquisition.

Second language learning involves a number of different dimensions, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, and cultural understanding... Teaching second language is not simply about giving speeches about syntactic structures or learning new vocabulary, but should incorporate cultural elements.

In conclusion, culture in language learning is not a replaceable skill. For achieving full linguistic comprehension, culture and language should and really must be learned together. After all, the more cultural concepts we learn, the more language abilities we gain; the more language we gain, the more competitiveness we have.

In terms of my friend Emma, she remembers being new to a kid's afterschool club and meeting a few new students; In Germany it’s friendly and proper manners to hug someone when you meet them, despite if they barely know the person. When she tried to do this with her American friends/classmates, they also got very uncomfortable. Another instance involving language (not body language) is one time someone in her class asked her how hair looked that day, and Emma was very honest and frank with her (A very German thing to do, be brutally honest). She said she didn't really like it that much because it didn't suit her face. He classmate then got upset and yelled at Emma; She was confused on why her classmate didn't like her honesty-- Why would her classmate want her to lie to her to make her feel better?

Citation:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED496079.pdf

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Artifact #4 Differences Between Academic and Social Language

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Artifact #4 Differences Between Academic and Social Language

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The difference between academic and social language is depended on the setting and knowledge of an ELL.
In the comic below, Mamoru is shown in two different situations. The first situation is Mamoru conversing with a few friends. His words are short and simple. There was informal English that Mamoru used to reply back to his friend's question in regards to their favorite TV show. His interaction with his friends is informal because Mamoru uses slang to communicate with peers his age.
As for the second situation, his science teacher asks him to solve an equation on the board. Mamoru responds respectfully and politely with a "yes, Mr. Pat". Even though his response was short and simple like the first conversation above, the message is taken formally. This interaction with his teacher shows that Mamoru can differ the use of the English language with different settings and people.

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Artifact #5: Apply research, concepts, and theories of language acquisition to instruction

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Artifact #5: Apply research, concepts, and theories of language acquisition to instruction

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For the Early stages of Language Development, building up a vocabulary is most important. Encouraging students to watch tv with the language they are learning or activities with many visuals would be helpful for students learning the contexts in which certain words and phrases are connected with. When students begin to have a grasp on phrases and how to use them, communicating with other students, group work and even independent writing activities are able to help students along with testing how much they know and work off of other students around them. In the later stages of language learning, practicing grammar and perfecting their skills in the language is ultimately beneficial.
In this scene, it shows Anthony watching a show in English with Spanish subtitles in his Early Stages of learning English. He is able to pick up words and phrases in this way through the relation of his first language and second language.

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Artifact #5: Apply research, concepts, and theories of language acquisition to instruction

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Artifact #5: Apply research, concepts, and theories of language acquisition to instruction

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Artifact #6 Differentiate Between Various Research-Based Instructional Strategies To Make Content Comprehensive for all ELLs

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Artifact #6 Differentiate Between Various Research-Based Instructional Strategies To Make Content Comprehensive for all ELLs

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In the comic below, there are different ways an ELL learns in various subjects. Mamoru is shown among different subjects in school that portray his strengths and weaknesses. In Gym class, Mamoru is comfortable with his classmates and confident. The teacher groups the class in pairs and Mamoru has no problem with it. His athletic abilities were above average and he was always engaged with activities from individual work-outs to teamwork activities like soccer. In Math class, Mamoru is a quick learner when it comes to numbers. During a quiz session, he was the first to finish. His classmates and teacher are astonished by his capabilities with memorizing equations and numbers. Having these subjects as Mamoru's strengths, his peers respect and ask him for help, which creates relationships in the classroom. The teacher can strategize Mamoru's abilities to build confidence in himself and the class.
However, when it comes to English class, speaking publicly in fluent English is one of Mamoru's fears. The teacher introduces a new project, a book report with a five-minute presentation. Mamoru thinks to himself, "Oh no... I cannot speak English for more than five minutes!" Even though Mamoru is great at socializing with others, the formal speech was a different story. Mamoru's confidence wanes as a new challenge arrives. The teacher can use this opportunity to guide Mamoru without stress. The teacher can integrate the project that can correlate a topic or subject that Mamoru is comfortable researching. The teacher can also accommodate instructions and materials for Mamoru to understand.

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Artifact #7: Issues with Standard-Based Formative and Summative Assessments

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Artifact #7: Issues with Standard-Based Formative and Summative Assessments

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First, what are formative and summative assessments?
Formative assessments can be informal/formal that informs teachers what to do for their next instructions. This assessment guides the teacher to see student feedback and improve instruction. The progress of an ELL student is recorded continuously throughout the school year.
Summative Assessments give a summary of the student's capabilities - what they know and what they can do. The assessment is given at the end of a unit or the end of the school year. Giving end-of-the-unit grading and grade-level promotion can help the teacher to see if their student is ready for the next level.

So what are some issues with these assessments?
The comic below shows Mamoru's experience of having feedback from the teacher. The teacher uses formative assessment from previous observations of Mamoru by talking to him in a one-on-one conversation. In the first square, "First Month", Mamoru's teacher says "You need to stop having trouble with your peers." He retorts, "I am not comfortable making friends." One issue that Mamoru transitions to the "Silent Period" where the ELL student is uncomfortable with their surroundings. The teacher recognizes this but does not include other peers or advice to guide the student.

Another issue is shown in the next square "A Few Months Later", where Mamoru is once again with the teacher. He speaks of his need and feedback from the introduction of a new project. "Can you repeat the project slower?" Mamoru asks, yet his teacher ignores his question by saying "I know what I am doing. It is all online. I am busy!" Mamoru protests by saying "No I-" but gets interrupted by his teacher. "I am done talking," replied the teacher who did not bother to listen to his whole request. Rather than taking the student's feedback, the teacher focuses on his own needs than the student's.

An example of an issue with summative assessment shown in the last square, "Month before School Year Ends". The teacher tells the class, "Because the class did not pass over 80%, the class will have to write three book reports due in two weeks! NO EXCUSES!" This shows that the teacher is not being considerate of each individual student's progress but as a whole class. He punishes the class in order for the students to "learn their mistake and atone it with other assignments". This mindset can be misleading because the students will focus on getting tasks done rather than soaking in knowledge.

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Artifact #8: Describe the legal responsibilities related to the education of ELLs

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Artifact #8: Describe the legal responsibilities related to the education of ELLs

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The legal responsibilities of being a teacher to English Language Learners is you have to make sure you are providing them with reasonable accommodations. Schools are also required to provide equal opportunity to receive education. Although, schools are nor required to provide the exact same education to English Language Learners as to a student located in a general education setting. English Language Learners usually receive joint instruction in general education and English Second Language classroom settings. Teachers of English Language Learners should be providing work that allows any English Second Language student to be able to show they understand content as well as other students in general education settings.
The picture below is supposed to represent the accommodations for test taking that Anthony received.

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We all struggle so similarly, despite our different backgrounds! So please help us as much as you can, so we can blossom and grow like other students! Thank you!