Shiho+Sawai


 * Record of Assignments**
 * Name of Student:** Shiho Sawai

** Pre-Adolescence **

** W : What you want to know (curiosities) **
What is the best way to incorporate ESL students into classrooms through group work?

** L : What you learned **
[Directions: First we will formulate RAR prompts for the four categories listed below (physical cognitive, emotional, and social). These prompts should relate back to your three curiosities listed above. Technologically speaking, add widget anchors here for easier reading, then delete instructions in the brackets]
 * 1) Physical
 * 2) Cognitive
 * 3) Emotional
 * 4) Social

** Emotional **
When foreign language speaking students are put with American kids, they are restricted to only speaking English. The student may feel uneasy. The student may feel like, in group projects, that they are useless in the project and may not have any idea what they are to be doing. If the students are put into a group with at least one other student that speaks the same language, they may feel included and useful. They could talk to each other about what the task is. The problem of staying on task may arise if they are speaking a different language, but the teacher should be able to tell whether they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

** Social **
Socially, if students who speak the same language is put together with just the other students who speak the same language, they are less likely to branch out and speak to the American students. If they do not branch out, their English skills will not improve at all, which will lead to only a social life with their own race instead of with Americans as well. Because these foreign students are in America, they should be able to have a conversation in English to people they are not familiar with. The dividing of groups really do effect how they will group outside of the class as well.

** A. Site details: **

 * Name of site: Tutoring.
 * Link to site: ** I will be observing the kids that I tutor on a daily basis.
 * Contact person:

__** B. Describe your setting **__
[insert here- minimum of 2 paragraphs]

I have been tutoring for over two years now, and I've gotten to know my students very well. They teach me a lot about how to teach, and I love it so much. So, I decided that it would be very beneficial for me to actually observe and take notes on how they learn. I have also realized that they react to certain things differently. I tutor all Japanese kids (some new to America, and others have been here for a while), but I have worked with American kids as well, and I notice certain differences within them as well. The setting for my tutoring jobs are mostly right after school until late evening. I go to each child's home and sit in their living room or bedroom with them and help them with homework or work on their weak areas in English. All of them work in different ways, and I think it will be interesting to see how different they are when I lay it all out on paper.

__** C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting) **__
We've been talking about handwriting and the way they differ between genders in class. I noticed that, like the discussion we had in class, girls take more consideration into how their words look. They will erase mistakes or even "ugly" letters and rewrite them with no complaints. Boys, however, tend to get very fussy when I have to tell them to rewrite something because it is difficult to read. They actually make mistakes on purpose just so they can delay doing their work. They like to scratch out the mistakes rather than erasing them. I asked a boy why he refuses to use his eraser, and he responded with "who cares if I erase it or not as long as I have the answer right next to it?"
 * __1st visit:__**

I noticed that when kids are tracing or copying (something that doesn't take much brain power), boys make different sounds and disruptive actions. Even when I tell them to settle down, they be quiet for 2 minutes and then go right back to singing or bouncing in their chair while doing work. I tutor kids between 4 years old and 14 years old, and I've noticed that this behavior is mostly just between 4 to 7 year olds.

I refined my inquiry question. I decided to try to observe specifically thinking about my question. I was talking to one of the girls about the help she gets in the classroom, and she told me that when she goes to the teacher and asks for help, all the teacher does is read the question out loud to her. After talking to several other students, I noticed that that was a trend. I asked the students what would help them better, and all of them said that it would obviously help to have a translator. However, I explained to them that if they had access to someone who could speak Japanese and English fluently, they would not try as hard to gain knowledge in the English language. One of the girls then proceeded to tell me that she agrees with that, because the only reason she is more fluent in the language right now that a few months ago is because she chooses to spend time with Americans rather than Japanese kids. She said that in her 4th grade homeroom class, she sits with 4 other Japanese kids in a group, and that they tend to speak Japanese even though 3 out of the 5 students can speak fluent English. She said that she feels bad when the three of them speak English while the other 2 cannot understand them.
 * __2nd visit:__**

This week, most students had vocabulary homework. Because I've been tutoring these kids for over a year, I know the way they learn best. When kids get vocabulary homework, some students make sentences to learn the definition along with the spelling of the word. Other kids need to make flashcards and just repeatedly go through them with me. We make connections between the word and the definition; sometimes funny, so it's easier to remember. I know that the studying is mostly done in the household, but I wondered how I would be able to attend to all the different ways the kids learn if it were in a classroom. Tutoring is one on one, so I can direct my attention to that one child, but in a classroom, there is a lot of diversity, so how am I supposed to work with all the kids together so they can all learn in the best possible way for them?
 * __3rd visit:__**

When tutoring, one of the mothers of the kids that I tutor came into the tutoring session to observe us. I was totally okay with that, but when we were working with vocabulary, she put down the students saying that she would probably not get all of the words anyway so that she should work on something like sentence completion. I did not agree with her, so I told her that she was doing very well and she was already done with half her vocabulary words. After the fact, we quizzed her on the vocabulary and she got all of them right, which made her extremely proud of herself.

This week, I knew that most of the kids wouldn't have homework, so I made questions that they could have fun answering and printed several copies off. I noticed while tutoring my students that they are lacking in skill of making their own sentences. I thought that they were getting better at it, but it turns out that I was wrong. I just assumed that they were okay at it now because they are better at listening to me and responding, but in reality, they are just picking out the words that they know to get a general understanding of what I'm talking about. They also tend to figure it out within context of the conversation. So, I made simple questions such as "What do you plan to do this Thanksgiving break?" This way, the kids will be able to talk about their interests and practice their English as well. Most of the kids tried to get away with just one word answers, but I stopped them and told them that they had to at least restate the question, because that is something that many teachers require for homework. The kids eventually started to get the hang of restating the questions and putting their own answers into the sentence. I still think they are going to need more practice, so when Christmas break rolls around, I plan to continue this even though most of them don't enjoy it too much :P
 * __4th visit:__**

I also started to play a game with most of my students for the last ten of fifteen minutes of tutoring. An hour long of tutoring can get pretty aggravating for elementary kids. I came up with the idea of playing a guessing game, where I think of an object and keep giving them clues for them to guess what the object is. When they get it, I make them come up with something, but I tell them that they can't pick something too easy just to get rid of their turn. I'm interested in seeing whether this helps them with their speaking abilities.

This week, four of my kids had homework where they had to make their own sentences using vocabulary words. The kids were in either 3rd or 4th grade. I told them to construct a sentence using the word, because they were pretty simple words that they knew how to use. As most vocabulary sentences have to be, they had to make a sentence where it gave context to what the word actually meant. Like instead of saying "This is an apple", they would have to say something like "I like to eat apples because they are crunchy and sweet". This seemed to be difficult for them to understand, so I had to give them examples in Japanese first so that they could get the hang of it. After that, I gave them some time to think, but I noticed that it was taking way too long for them to come up with a sentence for a particular word. Then I decided to give them an example, and after that, they started to ramble off sentences. I realized that they were shy about making their own sentences; afraid that it wouldn't make sense to me or that it would be too silly. So, I came up with sentences that were beyond silly so that they wouldn't feel embarrassed about their sentences.
 * __5th visit:__**

Two of my kids this week had reading assignments, who were in Kindergarten. They are obviously not familiarized with English, so it is difficult for them to work with any level of reading at this point. I taught them some phonics and had the mother go around the house and put up sight words around the house with a picture next to it, to help with their reading skills. I noticed that the kids, after seeing the same word many times through out the book, started to be able to read a bit more smoothly by the end. I also noticed that the kids carry around the same book for at least two weeks, trying hard to be able to pronounce all the words in the book perfectly. I'm not sure as to whether the kids to that willingly because they are determined, or because the parents are forcing them to perfect that single book.

** Physical **
My observations did not really have anything to do with physical development, but when looking through the textbook, I noticed on Pg 166-167 that it mentioned handedness. I thought about one of the kids that I tutor that is left handed, and the text mentions that left handers are more likely to develop outstanding verbal and mathematical talents. I'm not sure if this has to do with it, but the left handed girl has not been in the states for more than a year and a half, but she speaks a lot better English then some kids that I tutor who have already been here for well over 2 years. She may have been studying a lot more than them earlier on, but the brain hemisphere being stronger on the left side may have something to do with that.

** Cognitive **
Pg 235 talks about the attention of children becoming more selective, adaptable, and planful between the ages of 6 to 10. This connects to my observations because I observed that most of my 4-7 year old kids lose their train of thought after about 7 minutes. They tend to sing and jump around, while my 8-11 year olds will sit down and finish their work as they are told, because they are aware of the time limit that we have to finish their work which is either half an hour or an hour. Pg 235 also talks about memory strategy in middle childhood, which is also mentioned in my observation with the way that kids organize their information with vocabulary words.

** Emotional **
Pg 260 talks about mastery-oriented attributions and learned helplessness, both of which I have encountered while tutoring. The girl that I mentioned in my 3rd visit with the vocabulary words credited her success of making a 100% on her vocabulary practice test I gave her with her ability of learning the material, but another girl that I tutored has learned helplessness because of how her parents tell her that she always gets bad grades and doesn't study enough. This saddens me because she does work hard to get good grades, and her grades are not particularly bad, considering that she hasn't been in America for even a year. The girl pretty much already gave up on studying for tests, and doesn't have much interest in striving for good grades anymore. This may be more intense in this case because of her asian parents, because asian parents do tend to think that even a B grade is bad on a progress report.

** Social **
My observations also did not have to do with social development very much, but Pg 270 talks about divorce rate and on Pg 271 there is a chart on divorce rates. On the chart, Japan is second to last in the number of divorces. In being involved with a countless number of Japanese families, I hadn't met a single family where there was a step father or step mother, until I started tutoring a 9th grade girl. I found out that she had a stepdad because she didn't call him "dad", but instead, a nickname. She opened up to me a couple months after I started tutoring her that her mother remarried, and that she knew that it was abnormal as a Japanese family, because none of her parents had remarried. Honestly, I was kind of surprised as well, but with my family being the way that it is, I told her that I understood her situation and that it wasn't abnormal at all.

** Revisiting Your Curiosities **
With my observations, I came to the conclusion that additive programs were the best to assist ESL students, and that putting Japanese students with a greater ration of American students would be most beneficial to them. Seating arrangements also matter, so putting them in a circular group in order of Japanese, American, Japanese, American, may help to encourage more English speaking conversation between them to improve their skills. [insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * W : What you want to know (curiosities) **
 * 1. [insert question one]**

[insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * 2. [insert question two]**

[insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * 3. [insert question three]**

I've heard stories of teachers addressing every learning style in their classroom, and i wonder whether I will be able to do that to benefit my students, as well. However, with my goal of becoming a 4th grade teacher, I am curious as to whether the kids will know how they learn best. I feel like I finally knew how I learned best when I went into my senior year of high school, so I would like to try talking to my tutoring kids about that when I get the chance.
 * 4. What new questions emerge for you as a future teacher?**

Article 1
[|http://search.proquest.com/docview/21818033] KEY POINTS: -About one in every six 5- to 17- year olds speak a language other than English at home. -Nearly two-thirds of all 5- to 24-year-olds who speak a language other than English at home were born in the United States.

The article introduced boys who played on a basketball team but was learning English at the same time. A counselor remarked that "it was something to see, these boys, each over six feet tall, practiced long shots on the court, but during time-outs they sat on the bench studying their first-grade books". This article gave insight on how to teach vocabulary and how to ease students into a new language.

Article 2
[] KEY POINTS: -group work for students calls for teacher involvement -group work activities promote interaction among teammates -group work promotes discussions and to voice opinions -group work lessens tediousness of learning a new language -girls find group work more enjoyable than boys do

This article is where I mostly came up with my conclusion about group work. There seems to be more perks than anything, and it gets the teacher involved by the role of monitoring. This article shed light upon the many different positive effects of group work, along with ways to improve the flowing of group work.


 * PEER REVIEW (Meredith Schreiber)**

Wiki looks great so far! Some connections to the text that I found...

These pages look specifically at bilingualism. First it looks at bilingual development, and how those students develop and learn. On 248, after it describes the benefits of a bilingual education, the text talks about constructivism. I think group work is usually an aspect of constructivist classrooms that tends to be very successful. You may want to talk about how the students working together can help each other and generate more knowledge.
 * pg 247-248**

These pages describe peer relations in detail. Peer groups, friendships, and peer acceptance are all a big part of working in groups, whether with or without ESL students. It can affect how the students interact with eachother and how much they learn while in the group. You may want to look at how ESL students are perceived by non-ESL students and if that would be a factor in student interaction.
 * pg 264-265**

This page looks at peer influences and class room learning experiences. The peer influences section does make a reference to specific ethnicities so you may be able to make connections there. I thought the classroom learning experiences section was interesting because it talks about the environment the student is in while they learn and separating students on different tracks based on achievement.
 * pg 308-309**

This looks at peer relations in adolescents specifically. Again, peer relations are so important when a teacher incorporates group work into a lesson.
 * pg 326**

If you are looking for more support for the "group work" aspect of your question, I would definitely look for articles based on Vygotsky's theory or sociocultural cognitive development. I assume you know what it is, but basically it supports the idea of learning from one another. I couldn't find a specific spot in the book where it talked about it in adolescent development, but if you look at page 179- 182 has a good explanation of it in early childhood.