Field Experience 1

Anna B. Hays

Montgomery Blair High School

ESOL Level 3

School Information Montgomery Blair High School

Montgomery CountySilver Spring, Maryland

• 0.2% American Indian

• 17.6% Asian

• 27.5% Hispanic

• 28.9% Black

• 25.8% White

• 32.2% Eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch

Class Purpose• Offered primarily to students who failed to receive credit at this level

during the regular school year, must have participated in ESOL class during school year, must have ESOL counselor signature; some Level 2 students taking for early credit; one student new to the United States

• Aiming HIGH: these students must pass the Maryland High School Assessment (see www.mcpsHSA.org) to graduate

• “Must focus on ‘academic English’ sometimes to the detriment of traditional second language instruction”—Ms. K

• County ESOL program has changed focus from bottom-up to top-down strategy: that is, changed from looking at what they already know and building upon that to what they must know to graduate and determining how to get them there

Class Demographics(inconsistent classifications)

• 1 White – teacher, female, English is first language, fluent in Spanish, has some French

• 5 Hispanic, various countries – 2 females, 3 males (majority), Spanish is first language

• 1 Egyptian – male, Arabic is first language• 1 Madagascaran – male, first language unknown• 1 African – female, speaks French and another

language as first languages

Verbal Flow Diagram

HispanicMale C

Madagascar

HispanicMale A

HispanicMale B

Egypt (late for class, not here for this)

HispanicFemale A

Africa

Teacher

HispanicFemale B

A lot of conversation in Spanish was going on in this back corner

Ms. K later did a good job of bringing Egypt and Africa into the discussion; e.g., asked Africa about similarities between English and French word

Expectation: In an ESOL inclusion class, behavioral motivation involves extensive use of positive verbal feedback (to increase self-efficacy, to use example of persuasive models)

Expectation influenced by the following quote from Platt, Harper, and Mendoza (2003) as well as Snowman, McCown, and Biehler’s (2009, pp. 401--411) discussion of behavioral and social cognitive views of motivation:

ESL classroom serves as a helpful and safe haven within the school. For example, another category 2 administrator supported the notion of a “comfortable classroom environment” where students can “build on what they know” and can be made to “feel good”.

Positive Verbal Feedback

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Okay Pretty Good Make it Better Good Yes Really Good I like that one

Expectation Not Confirmed(though not really “provable” through this nonscientific observation involving only one limited sample, many variables,

and no control group)

• During 30 minutes of observation, only 20 instances of positive feedback were recorded (1 every 1.5 minutes)

• Of the 20 instances, 9 (45%) were the lukewarm response “Okay”

• Of the 20 instances, only 2 (10%) were emphatic, “that’s really good” and “ooh, I like that one”

• There were no instances of negative verbal feedback recorded

Ms. K’s feelings about positive verbal feedback*

• At lower levels almost cannot do it too much: you just need the students to produce

• At level 3– Instructor must be sincere, must also fit personality– Student needs to work for the praise– Instructor should find something really positive to

“make a big deal out of” each day if possible (which she did with Egypt’s excellent sample sentence using a targeted vocabulary word, which had the fringe benefit of pulling in a student who had been somewhat marginalized in the class)

*Ms. K’s comments reiterate Snowman et al.’s (2009) discussion of undermining effect.

What I liked• Stated day’s objectives at beginning of class• Provided rubrics for homework• Nipped in the bud any attempt to belittle another student/culture• Used contextualization: How do you feel when you are the only

person in the room who speaks Spanish? Are you uncomfortable? Are you tense? What helps you to feel more comfortable? Doesn’t it help to have even one person make the effort to talk to you? This resulted in relaxed atmosphere when Egypt arrived. Also, two Spanish-speaking students went out of their way to engage him in group work.

• Showed caring about issues affecting students and used as touch point for vocabulary issues: went out of her way to help students find access to lower-cost bus passes (some students must take three buses to get to summer school class, which is not held at home school); metro and county buses used to be free to students

• Diffused calmly behavior issue with little disruption to class• Found ways to involve all students in the discussion

What concerned me

• Most student-to-student conversation was in Spanish

• When students broke into groups, tended to divide along language lines; some students left to work alone

Establish class rules concerning appropriate use of first language.

Assign seats to ensure mix of languages (and also to separate students who tend to cause disruptions. The back left corner of this class was a problem area.).

Use a variety of groupings. For example, have students work in pairs; assign the pairs to encourage students to get to know each other, to encourage mixing of cultures/languages, and to ensure that no student is left out.

Citations

Platt, E., Harper, C., & Mendoza, M. B. (2003). Dueling philosophies: Inclusion or separations for Florida’s English language learners. TESOL

Quarterly, 37(1), 105–133. Retrieved from http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/seccss.asp?CID=209&DID=1679Snowman, J., McCown, R., & Biehler, R. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching

(12th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.