Entry 3- Teacher Interview.
Here is the video of me interviewing 1st grade teacher Ms. Nzimiro, enjoy!
Interview Reflection
For
this entry I interviewed 1st grade second language teacher Ms. Nzimiro. Ms. Nzimiro
teaches math and science for a 1st grade classroom. The school she currently teaches in does not have a bilingual class, but she did have many
things to say about her ELL students. For a lot of the questions that I asked I
wanted to see how much of an impact the students’ home lives had an impact on
their learning of English. Ms. Nzimiro stated how she thought that students
would be immersed in English all day at school but then would go back and speak
only in their native language most of the time. She thought this was a
disadvantage because that would somewhat set back their progress in her eyes. She
also thought that students knowing two languages was and advantage to for them
because it makes them more marketable in the future even if they do struggle a
bit right now.
I
thought this was a very interesting interview because I was able to see the
impact that having English as a second language impacts student learning. I think
ELL students are at somewhat at a disadvantage because sometimes they may
confuse words when it comes to their meaning or grammar. Ms. Nzimiro was able
to agree with me on this because she has seen this in her own classroom with
certain students. I also think that Ms. Nzimiro being a math teacher does not
let her see where her students really struggle with in language because math is
the same everywhere.
In
brief, I think this interview was very interesting in letting me see another
person’s perspective on ELL students!
Hi Axa, I had no idea that Ms. Nzimiro is also a SLA teacher! I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on how knowing two languages makes the students more marketable in the future, which I believe to be true as well. It also great to be linguistically and culturally diverse, especially in a city like Houston. When connecting your interview with Ms. Nzimiro to the text, in the video “How Bilingualism Helps Your Brain,” it explains how bilingualism can affect the way you think. Your interview with Ms. Nzimiro and hearing her viewpoints on English language learners leads me to think that she would agree the video as well (UniofReading, 2015). The woman in the video mentions that being bilingual causes you to have to deal with the conflict of choosing which language to speak in. Ms. Nzimiro talks about how students may speak English all day at school, but can regress when going home to speak their native language. Do you believe this to be true?
ReplyDeleteHey Shelly,
DeleteI think students speaking English all day then going home and talking in their native language does regress their English. Students need as much practice as they can get for their L2 to really grasp it. Like Ortega has mentioned before, experiences and authentic interactions is what will help students learn L2 better. These experiences though will not be enough if they only speak it at school because they spend a majority of their time at home.
Hey Axa,
DeletePersonally, I think this won't affect as bad for young students because they go to school for most of the day and probably see the teacher more than their parents for a lot of the Ell students. But I do see your point in authentic learning and interactions. I would say interactions for first graders would be more natural and authentic with their family members rather than at school with teachers. For first graders, I would imagine they would have some sort of guardian at home or someone to pick them up from school and from their they would speak their native language the rest of the day. But i still think the majority of their time is spent in a classroom during the day. However in a classroom, will they be actively speaking to other students or feel comfortable to seek out conversations? I would think not, if their first language is not predominately English.
Hi Axa,
ReplyDeleteIn your reflection, you stated that your questions were focused on how much of an impact students’ home lives had on their learning of English. I just wanted to elaborate on this and give my own input from my personal account; From my own experience, I would say that a student’s home life most definitely has a huge impact on their learning of English. The largest factor that it affects is the rate of learning. Not only are the students having to go back and forth between languages, but they are having to decipher between the two languages and decide when to use each one. In the book Understanding Second Language Acquisition, Ortega states that “L1-L2 differences account for the pace or rate at which certain morphosyntactic structures will be learned by different L1 groups” (Ortega, 2013, pg. 34). It is stated that there are specific stages, and some students may stay in a particular stage longer than average, and that it may be more difficult for them to learn different aspects of the L2 system that they are acquiring. Although my home life hindered my learning of English at first, it definitely didn’t prevent my ability to successfully acquire the English language. It just took time. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Jenny,
DeleteI think your completely right and I agree to that because I went through the same thing. Ortega does mention that a person’s L1-L2 relationship is affected by the pace that you start putting everything together. I think that was the same situation with me, I learned English well but it just took me a little longer to actually fully understand it, because I only spoke Spanish at home.
Hello Axa Moreno, thank you for sharing this insightful video interview into the teaching history of your colleague. All students are different and this includes how they learn or what they have learned. I agree with your interviewee that activating their prior knowledge is what can help establish a base line for how they will move forward next in their learning.
ReplyDeleteHey Bryan,
DeleteI completely agree with you. In the video Transfer of L2, it is mentioned how prior experiences and knowledge helps students understand the L2 better. I think this is what Ms. Nzimiro meant when she was explaining how their home life can affect their learning, which is hy it is so important for them to be exposed to the L2 as much as possible.
Axa, I like that Ms. Nzimiro mentioned how when students go home, their English-learning is paused. That is a great way of putting it, and I had not heard of another teacher talk about what happens when students leave the school. Coming from a Spanish-speaking household, I think used the term “paused” described it perfectly. At school, children are working hard to speak English throughout the day but, once they get home, they switch back to their native language in order to communicate with their family. I enjoyed the questions you asked Ms. Nzimiro and her responses. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMs. Nzimiro talks a lot about Ortega’s social support or lack of it. When students go home and speak in their native language, their learning is ‘paused’ because of the lack of social support (172). This can decrease the motivation that students have to learning another language. However having the support and benefits of peers at school would do the opposite and help students increase their motivation and integrativness.
ReplyDelete