Response #5

In reflecting upon my ELL encounters, I have one in particular that has helped me to understand how some ELL students may feel when learning in their second language.  Last fall semester I was taking a TE course in which I had field placement two hours a week with a single student.  This student was in fourth grade and his second language was English, his first being Spanish.  When I was first introduced to the student the school told me that I may have a very difficult time getting him to speak to me.  I took this challenge and decided to try and understand why he may be so quiet. The school was right as this young boy was very hesitant to communicate with me, but I showed him that I was there to help him and that I wanted to be somewhat like a friend figure to him while we would be working together throughout the semester.  As sessions went on and we progressed through the semester he was opening up to me more and more.  He had told me that he was new to school that year and that this school was much different from the school he used to go to, for the school he was currently did not have any other Hispanic students beside him in the classroom, whereas his last school had several.  His English proficiency was very good, as he was able to hold an entire conversation with me with little or no errors present.  Reading however, was more of a challenge for him and that is what I was helping him with.  I could tell that he felt embarrassed because he could not read as well as his other peers, but I would often times remind him that it is difficult to read in a language that is not your first language.  Around the holidays I would ask him about what him and his family would do and how they would celebrate and he was hesitant to answer and he finally told me that they did things differently then American families did, and I expressed how great I thought that was, but he expressed how he was different from all of the other students and seemed a bit ashamed by this as if he was embarrassed.  He also told me that he did not like to read aloud in the classroom because he didn't like to make mistakes in front of his peers.  As I evaluated this student throughout the semester I realized on how hard it would be to be expressive about something such as language, traditions, and heritages when they differ from your peers and they do not quite understand them.  With this being said I am going to make sure that when I become a teacher I will explain cultural differences and how important and unique they are so that all of my students will feel excepted and be proud of their cultural background.