Second Place Winner

First Post:

I am doing the reading program at University Hill Elementary with Ms. Lisa. She runs the ESL program for newcomers and while I am in her classroom, there are 3 kiddos we work with that have extremely limited english understanding, and for the most part are not literate in Spanish either because of their backgrounds in their native countries. I entered the program late, so today was my first official volunteering day and I loved it. I just got to know the kids a little bit and because of the limited time we had and the fact that they were still pretty shy around us, I wasn't able to really familiarize myself with them. I didn't know that Uni Hill is a dual language school so every student becomes bilingual in English and Spanish by the time they are done there which is a very cool thing to see, especially as I am a Spanish minor. The kids are very, very sweet, but it also became apparent that each one of them has their own traumas and difficulties that needed individualized, tender care, and I could not be happier to be there to support them. Further, because this class is very vital for their digestion of in-class content, I am not sure that we are focused on making a picture book yet, but I am getting to learn from a very experienced teacher and I get to practice some of my Spanish. 

I can't wait to continue on with this semester and really start to see some of the kids progress. One kiddo's name is Juliann and it is very clear that he is extremely bright. He has some difficulties focusing, which I think was partly because there were so many adults around asking him questions in a foreign language, which is totally understandable. Another little girl that we are working with is named Coral and she is so sweet, and a little timid too. She has very little english comprehension as well as a speech impediment which makes her nervous to speak in Spanish as well, but I can't wait to see her open up more as she is also very bright! I haven't met the third kiddo yet, but I hope to next week.

Second Post:

As I have previously mentioned, in Lisa's ESL class, three of us work with three kiddos together as a group. These kids are recent (within a year) immigrants from spanish speaking countries and have extremely limited proficiency in English and limited literacy in Spanish. This being said, during our "tutoring" times, we are doing the activities that Lisa has made. For example, all of the classrooms were decorated with bats, ghosts, and haunted houses and we did an activity where we walked around and practiced counting the number of each and then speaking/writing the sentence "The door has __ (#) of ____ (monsters, ghosts, houses). 

Overall, the kids are so great especially for their age group and the fact that they are immersed in a new place with a new language. Lisa is a constant support when it comes to redirecting and more systemic problems  for each kid. Josian is one of the students that has a very hard time focusing and has frequent outbursts, however the school psychologist and Lisa both have a more structured plan to address this behavior. Michael is very sweet and really tries his best during the lesson, with exception to infrequent gaps in focus. The only thing that I am wanting to improve is how I am able to support Coral, one of the other students we work with. She has a speech impediment which really has affected her confidence in trying to speak in both English and Spanish. It is clear that she is very bright and is at the same or higher level than her peers when it comes to cognitively understanding what we are teaching, but I want to try to find ways to simultaneously increase her confidence in speaking as well as correct/encourage the correct pronunciation of words without her getting frustrated or timid. Luckly, Emily said she would provide me some resources to address these, but otherwise, I am really loving this program at Uni Hill!

Excitingly, Lisa is letting me plan an activity for next week depending on their current goals/curriculum, so I am very excited to start thinking about it!

Third Post: 

In the beginning of the semester, I was nervous about how I would be able to show up for the kids that we were working with in Lisa's ESL class. It is a very different program than I had participated in last semester at Sherrelwood Elementary. At Sherrelwood, I was working with one student and we would meet and read together to increase his reading comprehension. He also spoke English as his native language which took some of the pressure off of our meetings. This semester, I helped and learned about multiple different students who all had moved to the USA relatively recently and have virtually no english proficiency. While I do speak Spanish as a second language, I was especially worried that this was going to create a barrier between myself and the kids and that I wasn't going to be able to properly explain the concepts we were teaching them. However, following Lisa's lead, I realized that my role there wasn't to provide them with a basis of their english knowledge, it was to act as a safe and encouraging person that these kiddos could practice their english with. 

Very quickly, I began to really enjoy my time in Lisa's classroom and worked to increase Coral, Jossian, and Michael's comfortability trying to speak English and make our time together fun. Together, we worked on both basic math and literacy skills in English, and I noticed how bright every one of the kids are as they started to open up. I also began to grow an empathy for how frustrating school and life must be in this new place where everything is in an unfamiliar language. Throughout this semester, I saw Michael and Jossian flourish in their attention and willingness to try activities and their proficiency has been steadily increasing especially with the English numbers. My biggest struggle was learning how to support Coral. As I have discussed previously, she has a speech impediment which makes her extremely reluctant to speak English...and Spanish for that matter. It was very difficult to gauge her comprehension of the lessons because she didn't feel comfortable asking questions or participating in many of the activities. I learned that with her, working 1 on 1 and using both Spanish and English makes her much more comfortable, and now she is trying to speak and participate in the activities, even if what she says isn't 100% correct which is still a huge feat. This semester, I was also able to take what I have learned from Lisa and teach an entire lesson using some of the verbs they had learned in previous days, which was a really cool opportunity for me to try out things that I thought would help support the kids and keep them engaged. 

Overall, I really enjoy this program as well as working with Lisa and Kate, and I hope to return to the same program next semester so I can continue my work with this kiddos and any others that might join Lisa's class in the coming months.Â