Observing Arlene

There were some pieces of Arlene's work in English as an Additional Language that seemed similar to Micah's work as speech and language therapist. They both corrected the child they were working with immediately after making a small mistake, particularly regarding pronunciation. Today when Eddie, the fourth grade child Arlene works with one on one, said, for example, "It says, it's self-CAT-ring," Arlene corrected him immediately, by simply correctly pronouncing the word "catering." She interjected the word forcefully, and this was often accompanied with her pointing to the word he was reading. In the same way, Eddie asked, "Why would they ask it to the travel agent?" which Arlene quick repeated and then rephrased as: "Why would they ask the travel agent this?" She then engaged in conversation with him about why he though someone would ask a travel agent to stop cows from looking through the window at them.


Both Micah and Arlene correct the children they work with, but often do with in away that allows the student to come to an answer on his or her own.  “Now think for a minute, Eddie," Arlene said today, "You said they were ‘attacked.’ They were…” This allowed Eddie to look to the text and produce the answer on his own: “They were attracted,” he said.


Another similarity between the two teacher's work with a child is the way they ask prompting questions. At one point, Arlene allowed Eddie to think for a while about the answer to a true/false statement and make guesses without help. She prompted him after minutes by pointing him to an important part of the reading, saying, “It says ‘an initial’ complaint. What does that mean?” In a different instance, Eddie came up with an answer, which was incorrect, so Arlene said, "I don't agree. Why don't I agree?"She waited for him to think and search through the text for the answer. She prompted him again, "He does suggest ABTA, what else does he suggest?” In the vocabulary section, Arlene said, after allowing Eddie to read the question, “What word do you think means ‘large quantity’?” “Abroad?” Eddie guess. She told him no, proceeded to explain what abroad means, and then asked, “And also, would ‘large quantity’ fit there?” She had Eddie go back to the sentence in the reading, and they read through it together. “Yes, deluge, deluge means large quantity. Usually, as it says on there, deluge means a large quantity of water,” she concluded, helping him to reach the answer through questions.


Arlene often provided the definition for Eddie's misused words. In conversation, she even defined a word as they casually spoke in order to help him: “It’s a permanent exhibition, so it’s always there.” Micah also fostered normal conversations with her students interspersed between formal work, so that if a child had a pressing story to share that was connected to the activity, just like Eddie's story about hurricanes (since the reading on travel agents mentioned hurricanes), they are encouraged to share it. In the same way that Arlene defined a word in their conversation to make it relevant to his EAL practice, Micah would correct children's speech while they had a casual conversation.


After the session, Arlene and I spoke and debriefed. She told me how speech is the first thing that comes in learning a new language, so that is not typically what she has to work on. I noticed that Eddie used the word "like" in conversation, just like an American kid would speaking English with his friends. She said that they pick of spoken language through conversations with friends, and I realized his use of the word "like" made sense. 


Arlene emphasized how the children are not missing out anything in class, because they are typically pulled out to do the exact same thing that would otherwise happen in class. Therefore, the EAL environment allows them to learn it more thoroughly, at the level and speed that they need with an individual focus for them. We talked about how EAL is not a punishment; it is an advantage. We talked about the debate of if Eddie should continue EAL in fifth grade, and it seems much of what she said pointed to the fact that EAL is working towards building a foundation for children so they can learn more easily in future.