Where there's a need, there's a will...PART 2

Last week, I posted about my daughter and the role of motivation.  I have since come across another example of motivation at work for inspiring new learning and growth. 

My daughter turned four in April.  She has known her letters and sounds since she was two.  I had thought that sometime in the past year, she would just automatically start leaving me notes around the house and drafting some of the stories she orally fabricates with her nonstop talking (anybody else live with a 4-year-old?). 

I knew that she knew how to stretch her words orally to hear some of the sounds but, unless I really pushed her to do it (which just didn't feel right), she was not initiating any writing on her own.

Until last week...

We started doing a Morning Message at breakfast.  Each morning, I sit at the table and write a simple message to my girls and include something about our plans for the coming day.  Every other day, after reading through the message together, I introduce a new sight word (I, is, and, etc.) that I embed within the message and Amity circles all of the words she knows.

Yesterday before dinner, Amity was coloring.  She yelled into the kitchen to tell me that she was making a card for her friend Maren's birthday.  I asked her if she wanted me to tell her how to spell her friend's name and she replied by saying, "No!  I already did!" 

I came in from the kitchen to see the scene below.  DR  MN  (Dear Maren)

















It's a tiny start but it made my teacher heart so happy!  Did she hear all of the sounds in the words?  No.  Do I care?  Not at this point!  I am just so excited that she has taken this step as a writer. 

What caused her to take that step?  Two things:  the MOTIVATION to do it and a MODEL to imitate.

When we are hoping for our bilingual learners to take the next step, we need to make sure that those two elements are in place. 

1.  Do they have the MOTIVATION to do it?  Have they been given an authentic purpose that inspires them to pursue the task?

2.  Have they had the opportunity to consistently observe a good MODEL?  Have they seen the process and procedures to create the type of product they are motivated to create?

As you look at your standards and proficiency levels, is there something that you know your students are capable of doing but you haven't seen them try it yet?  Maybe you can create the need and show the way, and the WILL will come!

Where there's a need, there's a will...PART 1

Don't worry!  I know this is my teaching blog and not my family blog BUT sometimes I just can't separate the two.  There are just too many parallels between the learning going on with a two-year-old and a four-year-old and the learning that I see in the classrooms of bilingual learners.

Today, I want to talk about the four-year-old pictured above.  While she can have her silly moments (as shown above), telling her she is "silly" is not really a compliment to her.  She prefers to be "right"!

From a VERY young age, we have known that this girl deeply wants to be independent, figure out things on her own, and not make mistakes.  Some would say she takes after her mother! :)

All of these desires combine to cause the same little girl (and possibly her mother) to be very cautious when trying new things.  If she (we) are not going to do it well, is it even worth trying?

For example, as a bilingual teacher, I had always envisioned raising bilingual children.  When my oldest was a baby, my Motherese was rooted in my native English.  As she got older, I began to try working with her in Spanish.  Even at her young age, she was quick to resist.  Why was her mom purposefully speaking to her in a way that she could not understand when there was clearly an easier way to communicate?

So...fast-forward several years and I have one very monolingual four-year-old who has shown no interest in learning a second language...

until the past few weeks...

when she began spending one day a week at a friend's house who has a Spanish-speaking babysitter.  Her little friend, also a native English speaker, has been with this babysitter since she was one-year-old.  My daughter has been observing her friend and caregiver interact with one another in Spanish.

Guess who asked me to teach her Spanish last night at dinner?  Yep!  My sweet little Miss I-don't-want-to-try-it-if-I-can't-do-it-right-the-first-time has found a reason to make an exception to her personality!

Okay, so how does this apply to your classroom?  I am guessing that you have at least one student with a similar personality to my daughter's (and mine).  Some possible indicators:

• Does he score Advanced on a reading proficiency test but is still rated as a Beginning English speaker?
• Does she only use the minimum social language required to communicate for fear of making mistakes with the academic language?
• Does he comfortably speak in his second language in one-to-one conversations with other students but won't speak in L2 in front of the entire class?
• Will she only check out library books in her first language?
• Does he only want to create Writing Workshop pieces in his first language?

If the child doesn't seem to have the WILL to take the next step, we must create an authentic NEED that will give them a reason to make some exceptions.  One of the best ways to create a need is to provide an environment the student will want to be a part of and where the L2 must be used.  

I have found a few ways to do this in my own classroom.  Pairing up with a monolingual classroom at another grade level gave my students a reason to select library books in their L2 to share with those students.  Writing a thank-you letter to our monolingual PE teacher to thank her for a fun field day gave my students a reason to write in English.  Asking students to think, pair, and share during English lessons gave students the opportunity to practice their L2 with just one person before being asked to speak in front of the class.

I would love to know ways that you create authentic needs for your students to want to communicate in a second language!  And, I will keep you posted on our slow process of becoming a more bilingual family!

You only have so much time...

In the past few weeks, I have observed the Pinterest trends move from exciting summer activities to back to school gifts for teachers.  These gifts tend to be full of puns and are all very cute but they don't look anything like the back to school gifts I have received in my time as an educator.  My favorite treats were things like a styrofoam cup of icy horchata delivered to me at afternoon dismissal, a single wilted carnation that was presented with pride, and this note that was left on my desk at the end of the first day of school seven years ago.

I love how this simple note from a seven year old reminds me of what children really want from their teachers.  They want us to be nice to them ALL DAY (that's the kicker there! :)) and they want access to the resources we possess that are so often unavailable to them from any other source.  They really don't care how many times our classroom photo gets repinned on Pinterest or how cute our fonts and clip art are (although there is nothing wrong with any of those things).  But, at this time of year when there are just not enough hours in the day, I believe it is worth remembering what our students really care about.

I read a lot of books about education but the author that most touches my soul is Regie Routman.  I know that sleep is important these days but her Essentials books are the few books I would say are worthy of losing a few hours of sleep in order to read at this time of the year.  She truly knows how to bring us back to what is essential and what are the non-essentials.  

In her book, Reading Essentials, Regie reminds teachers to "live an interesting life" because "you can't come to work each day enthusiastic about teaching if all you did the night before was grade papers."  She goes on to say:

Staying till six or seven each evening doesn't necessarily make us more effective teachers.  Our students will not become better readers because we create fabulous projects and centers, give them lots of paperwork, and grade lots of papers.  They will become better readers if they receive excellent instruction and have lots of time to read and talk about books.  

As bilingual/dual-language teachers, you may often feel that you are doing even double the work of the teacher next door.  If you feel like the school year has barely started and you are already overwhelmed, please take time to remember what is essential because you only have so much time.