CUIN 4631 Second Language Methodology Veronica Estimbo

Interview with Mrs. Avalos I interviewed Michelle Avalos for this week's entry. She has been teaching at Rita Drabek Elementary School for fifteen years and has thirty years experience under her belt. She currently teaches first grade at Drabek ES. This past school year she fourteen ELL students in her classroom, the most at one time in her school career. In the interview, she mentioned her goals for English language learners are no different from her other students. She wants her students all her students to be at the same level in reading, math, etc. Since she teaches first grade, she does not have to deal with STAAR but she does have district testing as a form of norm-referenced testing (Wright, 2015). They are allowed accommodations for the ELL students, like showing pictures to help assist them understanding the questions. Since the district tests are on content they have done in class, she does find she has to prepare them any differently than from in class tests. Her s...

Bilingual Student Interview This week I interviewed a friend who learned English through Katy ISD's ESL program. Her first language is Spanish and she began learning English in kindergarten and went through the program until she was in the forth grade. She found phonology easiest while learning English. She could quickly pick up the sounds of words but she had trouble with syntax which falls in line with what Wright states English language learners have difficulty with (2015). This could be due to the difference in word order between Spanish and English. After the video we talked about how orange juice in spanish is jugo de naranja. Literally translated it means juice from oranges and the sentence structure is flipped from English.  Her teachers went with a naturalistic approach by speaking English and giving her activities to learn English (Wright, 2015). One of her teachers would give her note cards with the word sounds to help her pronounce them. The same teacher would ...

Video Entry 1 Lourdes Ortega writes about a critical time of age for the addition of another language found in research (2013, pg. 12). It is the concept that people learn another language best while they are children rather than while they are adults. There is compelling evidence there is in fact a sensitive period for language acquisition (Ortega, 2013, pg. 13) whether it be a first language or a second language. I find myself leaning towards the belief that this theory holds true. When I was in pre-school and elementary, I learned how to count to twenty, I learned how to say all the colors, how to say "car", "I am hungry," "I am thirsty," and a few other simple phases in Spanish. I can remember how to say these things easier than anything else I was taught in middle school through college.  Wayne E. Wright, writes about the achievement gap in regards of socioeconomic status (2015, pg. 13). Those who are high SES perform above those who are low SES. In...