Creating a welcoming classroom embracing culture will make newcomers feel more security to embrace themselves.

Questions you would ask Riham:

• Have you had the chance to go back and visit Venezuela since you moved here?

• Do you still plan on going to college to become a writer?

• What are you doing now?

• Did you feel isolated in school knowing that other students don't share your experiences?

• What helped you adjust to living in the United States?

  
  

Include a brief description of the way Els might benefit from this strategy.

ELs will benefit from this activity because it breaks up story timelines. It makes it easier to process because of the separation and shows them a good thought process for stories.

Chyou is a 5 year old girl from China who speaks fluent Mandarin. She has been assigned to your Dual Language classroom. Chyou is able to write her name in English. She has learned her A, B, C’s and associating sounds by playing simple games on the internet. Her parents speak and understand basic English phrases and can carry on a social conversation. 

Q1 Consider what you have learned this week about early literacy development. Describe an instructional approach or strategy to build Chyou’s basic understanding of concepts of print while supporting her L1.  Include your rationale to support your response.

To help Chyou I could use environmental print to make references to words, spaces, letters, and lines of print. Have children suggest where the teacher should begin reading the words on the page of a big book. Counting the words in a line of print or clap for each word spoken aloud can help develop the concept of a word.

Q2  Share an action you could take during her first week of school to make Chyou’s family feel like welcome members to your school. Address: How would this action benefit second language acquisition (SLA) and what research would support this?

I could learn a welcoming phrase in their L1 and use appropriate body language from their culture. It is very important to research their culture so you do not offend them. In order to support SLA I could use visuals and point to pictures or act out vocabulary. Speak slowly and use shorter words, but use correct English phrasing.

There are a handful of English learners in my field placement. Mrs. Daniels uses lots of scaffolding and use of academic language in order to ease her students into the classroom setting.

3. What are the benefits of embedding literacy learning in all content areas? Is this reasonable?

Yes, it is very reasonable and easy to embed literacy learning in all content areas. When we are teaching Math, ELA, and science we must know we are also teaching them the language of the subject. For example, in Math we are also teaching them more, less, greater, etc. We must surround our ELs with academic language.