Mary Lou L. Narowski
Teaching literacy and composition is a high priority in the inner city. It is also one of its greatest challenges. Add in the fact that in my school, large majorities of the population are either bilingual or ESL learners, and the demands and complexities become even more daunting. And this does not even take into account the various intellectual ability groupings. The concerns can be overwhelming.
First, as a teacher, I face the challenge of students who speak Spanish as their primary language. Many of them have begun their English language learning after the age of four. This compounds the difficulty of acquiring a second language. Spanish is the language they speak as well as think. It is dominant. Some students are transient, making their continuous exposure to English intermittent. Some are in the country illegally, so they try to stay "below the radar," doing as little speaking and writing as possible, so that no attention will be paid to them. Spanish is spoken at home; television programming is viewed in Spanish. Their exposure to English occurs only during school hours and only in classes. The students speak Spanish to each other during class changes and during lunch breaks. Because speaking is easier than writing in my English class, my students are much more willing and comfortable when they are speaking English. Some of them do very well using this modality; others become self-conscious about their ability because they realize they have issues with the language; a third group believes that their English usage is just fine when, in fact, it is anything but.
Second, for any middle-school, Spanish-speaking population, becoming proficient in English is often a very difficult transition. Students are not only learning a new language but they are also in the throes of becoming adolescents. They need a great deal of support because the complex experience of adolescence, coupled with school and an emerging language, can be frustrating, embarrassing, and painful, especially at this age.
Third, inexperienced teachers sometimes hold the attitude that these students are not capable of reading and writing on grade level, so expectations and assignments are greatly reduced. Many of them are initial teachers with only a few years experience. It is essential that there be consistency across the disciplines in my grade level team when dealing with our students. Because most of our students are normal cognitively and bring the same rich set of feelings, experiences, and ideas to the classroom as their native-speaking peers, I must resist the attitude that low English-speaking proficiency or lack of knowledge of the classroom culture is a sign of uncooperativeness. Coupled with high expectations and activities, the necessary language support must be provided. This is a prevalent mistake and misconception among my peers.
Fourth, social networking, emailing, facebooking, blogging, twitting, texting, and listening to Ipods are activities on which my students want to spend their time. Dr. N. Katherine Hayles calls this cognitive style "hyper attention": students "switch focus rapidly among different tasks, preferring multiple information steams, seeking a high level of stimulation, and having a low tolerance for boredom."a1a There needs to be an educational answer for the chasm that exists between what they want to do and what is necessary. Students need to spend time hearing language, seeing and reading language, writing language, and speaking language in ways that excite them.
A fifth concern worth mentioning is that often students, even native speaking ones, just do not want to spend the time reading as a way of understanding the nuances of the language. My students lack this motivation to read-- hence, to critically think and write. Their understanding at times seems limited. They see these academic pursuits as too hard and not worth the effort. They are inexperienced readers partly because they have trouble deciphering meaning or purpose while reading texts. Lack of adequate vocabulary sometimes gets in the way. They cannot grasp the difference between my oral explanations of any assignment and the written, explanatory handouts that I provide that also act as a rubric and timeline. Their parents often cannot assist them with these understandings because they themselves have the same issues. Terms such as analyze, synthesize, and critique are standard requests in my directions, yet they hold fuzzy meaning for my students, so the desire to read and complete their assignments is greatly diminished. As a result, their work is often incomplete or off task and their focus is unclear or even lost. This lack of focus is not only indistinguishable in terms of words, sentences, and forms of address, but the presentation sounds different as well. Their writing syntax is not one of a native speaker. Their writing "sounds Spanish." Because they think in Spanish, they write that way. Syntactical errors and misuses of vocabulary lead to awkward sentence patterns and structures.
Novelist James Canon, in an essay entitled "How James Canon Learned English While Writing a Novel" writes, "The more I wrote and revised, the more I noticed patterns of mistakes in my English and began to avoid them. Doing this helped me reduce the accent that still appears in my writing as well as in my voice. In the process of writing my novel, I realized that writing can only be as advanced as your reading level. And so I started reading more and more, and by doing it I acquired an extensive vocabulary and learned many idiomatic expressions, proverbs, sayings and the correct use of the complicated but essential English phrasal or 'two-words' verbs."a2a
Many of my students realize that their writing lacks this fluency and includes a Spanish voice.
Finally, the New Haven School District uses a whole language approach to language and literature in which stories are read, guided questions are asked, and responses are recorded, most often in journals. This format of read and respond is repeated over and over again. Many questions are introspective - "How would you feel or respond to this situation?" Also included in the recommended considerations are the recognition of figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, and personification. There are even attempts at the denotative (literal definition) and connotative (associative or symbolic) meaning of certain words, phrases, or paragraphs. Unfortunately, these ideas are not reinforced to any degree in the current curriculum, so they do not "stay" with my students. For my Spanish-language students, there is very little concrete meaning to such words. They are flash-pan mentioned and summarily forgotten. There is no long-term understanding acquired. There are exceptions, though. When one of these stories chronicles a tale of human interest especially about kids their own age, our discussions about them are sustained and significant. The students remember the irony and symbolism of the story. To a degree, this approach is successful, but just like the grammar instruction of memorization of parts of speech and diagramming that I received, it does not necessarily translate into effective writing. Psychologically, students consider these stories just English lessons or homework, not areas of interest, because they are assigned to read them. Questions are not generated by them, and they have no input into their outcome.