I was hoping to contribute some suggestions for working with the ELLs in Kerrianne's classroom that may be helpful to you as you engage in Daily 5. I read Sharon's blog about reading the pictures. Wonderful place to start for ELLs! Many of our ELLs come to us with extremely limited background knowledge, experiences and overall literacy in their native language. Vocabulary building is vital! They will acquire much through your picture walks! It will be important to remember that almost everything will be new to them. Attaching a word to what they see in the pictures of books will build their vocabulary and open up a new world for them. When they become familiar with a book, perhaps they will choose to picture read it independently in the classroom and with repetition, will begin to add those words to their English vocabulary. For the lower level students, it is appropriate for for them to repeat after you to learn new words. They will begin to move from one word utterances to phrases to sentences as they progress through their stages of language proficiency. It is much like babies acquiring their language! Very exciting! At this point in your lessons it is acceptable for lower level ELLs to repeat and perhaps offer phrases while engaged in your reading groups. It is also important to remember that there is what is called a "language ego" involved in learning a new language. Think back to when you studied a foreign language...there is a whole host of emotions attached to how you think you may sound when you speak, an uncomfortableness. So, the "affective" side is a huge factor. Some students may/may not be more risk takers than others when it comes to exploring with language, particularly when it is not their native tongue. Also important to remember is that there is a stage known as "the silent period." This stage refers to the receptive ability of taking in the language but not quite ready to express yet. Students should not be rushed through their "silent period." I can tell you from experience that when they are ready, oh boy, it all just flows out!!! What is critical right now is that you are there for them, encouraging them, supporting them, reminding them they are special, and showing a sensitivity to their needs. You do that on a daily basis...they are very lucky students to have you!
In considering that the students in Kerrianne's class are quite diverse with respect to language/culture, I thought it would be helpful to address some of the differences between their native languages and English. There are certain sounds in English that are non-existent in other languages as well as differences in phonology and grammar. This may help you in anticipating some of the challenges students may have with certain sounds/words. Some of the native languages spoken by Kerrianne's ELLs are Russian, Punjabi (India), and Chinese.
Russian: It is difficult for Russian speakers to acquire native-speaker pronunciation/intonation of English due to differing phonological systems. This may lend itself to why it is quite difficult to understand this particular student's spoken English right now. Also interesting is that certain intonations in Russian may be interpreted as abrupt or impolite in English and this may come through in her spoken English. Though she may not intend for something to come out rudely in English, it might be considered that way! Russian has 5 vowels but they do not distinguish between long and short. So, this is an area where she may need more support. The sounds in English that are especially difficult for Russian speakers are "-er," "-ur," "-or" particularly after "w." Words such as "were," "work," "worth" may be tricky. It is also hard for Russian speakers to discriminate between sounds in "sat/set," or "sit/seat." Also "v" may be substitued for "w" or vice versa. The "ng" sound is also troublesome at the end of words and may be dropped. With respect to grammar, Russian ELLs may omit auxiliary verbs ( like "do") and articles--a, an, the--as the Russian language does not have them. Russian is a very phonetic language so spelling can be largely predicted by a word's pronunciation and vice versa--not so in English as we know!
Punjabi: It is a highly phonetic language. There are not as many vowel sounds as we have in English so this will present a problem in pronunciation. It may cause problems in distinguishing the sounds in words such as "said/sad," "par/paw," "vet/wet." Other problem sounds for our Punjabi speaking student will be "th" and "s" at the beginning, middle, and end of words. Consonant clusters may be tricky also. Punjabi does not have the auxiliary "do/does" so when speaking English, speakers of Punjabi may omit this word. It is typical for Punjabi speakers of English to omit or misuse prepositions (location words) as well. For example, they may substitute "on" for "at." Punjabi is a subject-object-verb sentence structure. This is different from the English subject-verb-object, so when speaking English an ELL may make mistakes with word order.
Chinese: Chinese is a monosyllabic language and each character has only one syllable. Most Chinese sounds will begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. As a result of this, Chinese speakers of English may try to add a vowel sound to the end of English words. We are teaching the students how to "clip" sounds so this will help with that! Some sounds that are non-existent in Chinese and/or will present challenges for Chinese speakers learning English are the following:
- "v" may be pronounced as "w"
- "th" may be pronounced as "s" or "z"
- consonant clusters like "tr," "dr," "st," "pl"
- using the verb "to be" is difficult for them in English because it never changes in Chinese
- misuse of pronouns (saying "he" for "she," etc.)
- incorrect use of verb tenses
- omission of articles (a, an, the)
- prepositions/location words
- "r" clusters and "l" clusters
Wow Debbie! Your knowledge of your students is amazing. I will keep this to refer to when doing into the kindergarten rooms!!
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