Sometimes communication between teachers is hard to establish in the schools. In the school I am placed in, there was some confusion as to when the ESLers would be pulled out of their general education classes and taken to the reading resource room. This was made a little more confusing by the issues I had stated in my last post. This took up some of the students' learning time, I guess this is a real glimpse into how far something so small as a miscommunication can go in disrupting the activities in the schools.

In the reading room, they took part in some small group exercises that focused on developing their reading. They learned about Christopher Columbus Day, a holiday which is apparently a holiday pretty much unique to the USA. I learned in my Spanish class that Dia de la Raza is celebrated in Spanish speaking countries on this day. Instead of celebrating Columbus embarking across the Atlantic Ocean, they celebrate the mixing of the Spanish and the indigenous peoples and their cultures. I think I prefer this holiday instead because it is more universal, and less controversial than the celebration of a man who thought that he landed in Asia, and telling students that people thought that the world was flat at the time, but I won't rant about that.

Three fifth grade students were in the reading room when I got there, Ronaldo, Mina and Suzahn. Ronaldo and Mina were in the general education class that I observed last week, and Suzhan is Mina's twin. The children were asked to read from a packet about Columbus, and each alternated reading paragraphs out loud. The resource teacher would sometimes ask comprehension questions, in order to see if they understood new or unfamiliar vocabulary words and terms. The she would circle words that the students had trouble reading, or mispronounced. At the end of the reading, which was about two pages, they were asked to answer some multiple choice questions. These questions were a little tricky at times, and required some further analysis of the the reading rather than being able to be found directly within the text.

Talking to the resource teacher, she was happy to have these students. She said that while they seemed to be loud and impulsive, this meant that they were full of energy and life. She was happy that they were participating in the lesson, and happy do do so.

After about half an hour, the students returned to their regular class. It took a little time to get settled in, Ronoldo did not have any paper, and he did not really have much of a desire to get started. The teacher helped him get started by asking him some of his interests, and incorperating them into the assignment. Eventually they started their work, which was to write the rough draft of an announcement. After this, the general education teacher got the two ELLers and the lowest reader in the class together, and they read a book that was apparently designed with ESL student in mind.

The small book was about different subjects and their applications to their lives outside of school. This does two things, it describes behaviors and operations necessary for life, while reinforcing their acquisition of the English language.

One issue that the teacher talked to me about was the fact that Mina was always seeming to be pulled out of class for something, and was not getting the information that she needed in the general classroom. Instead, She has been wasting time transitioning between the classes. The teacher does not seem to be pleased that all this is happening, and I don't think I would be either. I think that, while a student like Mina should be able to participate in extra curricular activities during the school day like chorus and band, there is a point where this freedom to choose interferes with the student's ability to learn.