Time to Reflect – 2

7 thoughts on “Time to Reflect – 2”

1. Steven

   June 3, 2017 at 8:21 am

   One day, i hope to get a student teacher. I tried and no one was available since i taught French and heritage spanish speakers. Our district suggests co-teaching while we have a student teacher. This can result in many coaching opportunities as well as more CI. In the end however, we face it alone with the students.

   Which reminds of my schedule changes for next year.
   Spanish 2 for four sections and French 1 and 2 for two.

   The spanish 2 classes will include 7th graders who are heritage speakers who want remediation or students coming from bilingual schools and 8th grade students who come from Spanish 1 who were taught from the book. The last group may have a heritage speaker or two. The situation pisses me off but it is really an opportunity to spread the CI love and fix placement in our department. My coleague likes having heritage speakers “to help” others during activities. I should send mine over to him. Any other suggestions?

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   1. Nathaniel

      June 3, 2017 at 10:32 am

      Perhaps Robert can comment on his advice to outgoing students about becoming independent life-long learners of the language.

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   2. Carmen Suárez

      June 4, 2017 at 11:10 am

      Perhaps some of the Kim Potowski’s publications can give you some insight. She is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has done a lot of research about teaching Spanish to heritage speaker, who, by the way, can be at different level of proficiency. She is really good and passionate about heritage speakers.

      http://potowski.org/publications

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2. Alisa Shapiro

   June 3, 2017 at 10:49 am

   Heritage speakers read read read – and if ready can write – maybe in a dialectical notebook or something where there’s a written convo back n forth bet teacher and Ss or S to S.

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3. Sean M Lawler

   June 3, 2017 at 2:23 pm

   Sorry Steven. That’s bass-ackwards. While we may not have much TCI in Chicago Public Schools (nor much TLC lol), there is definitely a consensus that heritage kids have to be separated from the non-heritage. Teachers and admin here all know it. What gives with your colleague then? I bet your supportive admin wouldn’t agree with your colleague’s notion that the heritage kids can help the non-heritage. Your admin would be like, “What are the heritage kids learning then?”

   Sorry it sounds like you’ll have to wait another year to kid the right placement happen for your students. Then again, at my previous school, we’d do placement changes well into October.

   In my experience, if you have more than a handful of heritage speakers in a class of 30 students, it can start to be a real issue. More than 10 and you have a real classroom management issue.

   In the meantime, ditto on what Alisa says. Encourage the heritage students to read a multitude of books. Like, tell them you expect that they read at least 10 of those Spanish TPRS novels each semester. I’m learning some things about FVR by reading “The Book Whisperer” by Donalyn Miller. Ms. Miller tells her students that she expects 40 books read by the end of the year. That is the only pressure she places on them in regards to reading. Otherwise, it’s all love and warmth and ease. (My wife ordered this book a couple of months ago. She teaches literacy to SPED kids in k-2 grades. What would I do without her!?)

   The idea of giving whole group instruction to those heritage kids while you have the rest of the non-heritage class to think of, is unrealistic.

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   1. Carmen Suárez

      June 4, 2017 at 11:14 am

      Sean, by the way, a few days ago I sent a request to join the TCI Chicago FB group. Still waiting for answer. I would like to attend the next meeting.

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4. Steven

   June 5, 2017 at 8:22 pm

   Thanks Sean for the advice and resources Carmen

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