The first few weeks and all the additional transitions that are a regular part of a day when team teaching (moving back and forth between the English and Spanish teachers' classrooms) had me wondering if this was the right way to make the model work. However, this past week or two the children seem so much more settled and comfortable with the transitions. I'm also beginning to see the power of dividing language by teacher--there are children who would otherwise refuse to speak in Spanish that are busting out full sentences simply because they know their Spanish teacher will only ever speak just Spanish to them. Consciously or subconsciously, their brain knows that "when I'm in Sra. Herrera's classroom, I've just gotta speak Spanish." We see the same in our English classrooms too. The model is beginning to bear fruit.
We are now also starting to encounter anxious parents who want immediate results in their child's second language process. One already withdrew and another is threatening to withdraw; I have a meeting with this parent on Monday to (hopefully!) convince her to keep her daughter in the program. This family is Spanish-dominant and the mother is concerned that, 6 weeks into kindergarten, she is not yet reading in English. She says that the family moved to the U.S.A. so that the children could get a good English education so she's concerned that by her daughter receiving 50% of instruction in Spanish her growth in English will be slowed. I'm going to have to break it to her that we wouldn't typically expect her child to be reading at all this early in kinder--even in her dominant language! I also need to help her understand the (looooong) language learning process and the role childrens' native language plays in the learning of the 2nd language. Finally, I'll whip out the trusty Thomas and Collier graph and show, in no uncertain terms, that the long term results of bilingual instruction are staggering. It helps English achievement tremendously! I'm looking forward to this parent meeting.
These anxieties are normal right now--parents don't realize how long this process takes! That's why we ask them to commit to our program for 5 - 7 years. It really does take that long for young children (still developing ther first language) to acquire a second language at high academic levels. I've also decided that I need to hold a (minimum) quarterly information meeting for parents who haven't yet attended one or parents who still have questions and concerns. We held several last year and include an overview of dual language in our recruitment information session, but--other than that--haven't held any info sessions this year. Definitely an oversight I won't repeat next year.
Teachers are really starting to get into the groove of things. Tomorrow will mark the end of each grade level's first unit of inquiry. They're starting to better see how their units can truly become transdisciplinary and how they can weave their unit concepts and topics throughout every content area for a much richer and contextualized dual language experience. I also had Melissa and Ilse, an English/Spanish team in first grade, share excitedly that they had worked together for Mel to preview dictionaries and their format in English in preparation for a science activity in which students created huge dictionary posters with vocab from their current Fabrics unit. They're beginning to find opportunities to apply preview-view-review strategies across the languages. Bravo!
Dr. Mercuri had her first observation/debrief consulting day with us on Thurs 9/24. We saw every teacher in action and met with grade levels for team meetings. She provided some feedback and also listened to their questions and concerns. Some of my big takeaways from that day--
**all roads must lead to meaning--in a dual language school we can never teach anything that doesn't incorporate comprehension and meaning.
**we need to increase and improve oral language experiences. I learned that oral language experiences should encourage students not just to listen to their second language but to produce it. Therefore we need a lot more singing, chants, etc. We also need to consistently employ the daily news oral language structure and use it to reinforce elements of language such as vocabulary, syntax, conventions, etc.
**we must be more purposeful in our sheltered instruction. We must alway have second language learners in might and plan ahead to provide them with the supportive scaffolding they'll need to also be successful in mastering lesson objectives, even though they aren't delivered in their dominant language.
**we haven't really started capitalizing on the preview-view-review strategy. Dr. Mercuri suggested we structure more formal planning at three different levels to better facilitate this: (1) grade level planning (ex: entire 1st grade team) (2) language partner planning (ex: all Spanish teachers in 1st grade) and (3) team teacher planning (English/Spanish teacher pair sharing the same 2 classes of children. As a result I set up a schedule to provide more structure to the use of each grade level's common conference time each day--
Mon: Grade Level Planning
Tues: Personal Planning (lesson plans due each Tues evening for the following week)
Wed: Language Partner Planning
Thurs: Team Teacher Planning
Fri: "Problem of Practice" (instructional development) with principal
We began following this this past week--I need to monitor this more closely and provide additional support around how to do use these different types of planning more effectively (specifically in helping teachers understand how each serves a somewhat different purpose and looks at instructional planning from a slightly different perspective). Overall, however, I'm pleased with how this is strengthening instruction. I also rearranged enrichment & PE schedules so that teachers have some additional personal planning time at different points in the week. I'm hoping that will help them (everyone was feeling a bit frantic and as if there was no time to do much planning/prep on campus. They weren't incredibly far from the truth! :) I do think we found a good plan, however. I'm crossing my fingers that teacher morale goes up. It's been pretty low lately, particularly with my new (brand new as well as just new to IDEA) teachers. I think the reality of what they signed up for is really hitting them. Some are embracing it and working through it, while a couple are having a much rougher time.
