Hello,
I have a student who is very dedicated in my high beginning ESL class. The problem is she cannot read or write and the other students can. She is able to participate in speaking activities, but little else. Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any suggestions on how I can best accomodate her?
Thanks for your help.
Juliana
A student cannot read or write - any suggestions?
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teacherjuli
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:01 pm
- Location: New York
Hi:
That's is a difficult situation. I encountered it a few time while teaching in Houston. Here are some thoughts:
Have literacy materials with you in class and when other students are engaged in a different activity that involves reading or writing, work with that student and give him/her a separate assignment. Give them homework too. Sometimes they are so busy with other things they can't do it, but the illiterate students that I encountered were usually highly motivated.
If you have a nice sense of community in class, you can have other student volunteers who spend part of the class time working with the student to help. This can be beneficial to the helpers as well as the helped and allows you as the teacher to accomplish more with the class. Most immigrant and refugee classes I had were happy to help each other. It's one of the nice things about these kinds of classes. If you have multi leveled people -which usually seemed to happen to me- then this idea can be expanded into several work groups at different tasks of different levels and helping illiterate students to learn to read and write is one of them. I usually wouldn't do this the whole time, however, but only for part of each class. There's lots that can be done orally with eveyone.
Hope this is helpful and good luck!
That's is a difficult situation. I encountered it a few time while teaching in Houston. Here are some thoughts:
Have literacy materials with you in class and when other students are engaged in a different activity that involves reading or writing, work with that student and give him/her a separate assignment. Give them homework too. Sometimes they are so busy with other things they can't do it, but the illiterate students that I encountered were usually highly motivated.
If you have a nice sense of community in class, you can have other student volunteers who spend part of the class time working with the student to help. This can be beneficial to the helpers as well as the helped and allows you as the teacher to accomplish more with the class. Most immigrant and refugee classes I had were happy to help each other. It's one of the nice things about these kinds of classes. If you have multi leveled people -which usually seemed to happen to me- then this idea can be expanded into several work groups at different tasks of different levels and helping illiterate students to learn to read and write is one of them. I usually wouldn't do this the whole time, however, but only for part of each class. There's lots that can be done orally with eveyone.
Hope this is helpful and good luck!
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Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
Great advice Harmony. Does the student write or read in her own language? If not, I would suggest that she learn that first. It is super hard to learn English and learn to read and write in English at the same time.
There are often books in the library about learning to write in different languages and English and if you can't find anything that just teaches her her own language, that would be the next best thing.
Until someone understands the structure of their own language it is really hard to see the structure of English. When you learn your own language you just absorb a million things you are not aware of with how language works and most of those can be transferred to English.
Can you get a volunteer from outside the class who speaks her language and who will give her one on one help? I used to use retired people, mother's home during the day while their kids were in school, people on unemployment who wanted a reference for a job and had no way to get "Canadian" experience otherwise and so on. These volunteers bring a lot of local knowledge and often many talents - teaching the students to knit or shop or how to hunt for accomodation and on and on.
There are often books in the library about learning to write in different languages and English and if you can't find anything that just teaches her her own language, that would be the next best thing.
Until someone understands the structure of their own language it is really hard to see the structure of English. When you learn your own language you just absorb a million things you are not aware of with how language works and most of those can be transferred to English.
Can you get a volunteer from outside the class who speaks her language and who will give her one on one help? I used to use retired people, mother's home during the day while their kids were in school, people on unemployment who wanted a reference for a job and had no way to get "Canadian" experience otherwise and so on. These volunteers bring a lot of local knowledge and often many talents - teaching the students to knit or shop or how to hunt for accomodation and on and on.
Iam also currently teaching high beginning and have a student who cannot read or write in English or Spanish .This is not terribly uncommon,I taught women from Yemen who had never learned to read Arabic. I agree with the advice about having the other students help her,its excellent practice for them as well .I often do this anyway pairing students who learn very quickly with the slower students to keep them occupied .
BUT I also teach adult literacy(American adults) and the problem with being illiterate in an ESL class and high beginning at that ,is that the teacher does not have the time to sit down with the student and teach phonics and letter formation etc.-what they really really need to read adequately, remember how your parents taught you ?This person needs a tutor and honestly I feel being taught to read their first language as well is extremely important.This something that ESL programs in the US ought to address ,classes pre literacy level
there is a site called enchanted learning that has stuff for kids to learn to read ,picture dictionary etc--bilingual too..might help her a bit
she will learn some if she regularly attends ,you just have to keep her progress in perspective ,even the seemingly smallest acheivment is quite big for someone starting from this place .I have my student copy every exersize even if she cannot read it and i try to sound it out .Its hard to imagine navigating the world without reading isnt it?impressive
BUT I also teach adult literacy(American adults) and the problem with being illiterate in an ESL class and high beginning at that ,is that the teacher does not have the time to sit down with the student and teach phonics and letter formation etc.-what they really really need to read adequately, remember how your parents taught you ?This person needs a tutor and honestly I feel being taught to read their first language as well is extremely important.This something that ESL programs in the US ought to address ,classes pre literacy level
there is a site called enchanted learning that has stuff for kids to learn to read ,picture dictionary etc--bilingual too..might help her a bit
she will learn some if she regularly attends ,you just have to keep her progress in perspective ,even the seemingly smallest acheivment is quite big for someone starting from this place .I have my student copy every exersize even if she cannot read it and i try to sound it out .Its hard to imagine navigating the world without reading isnt it?impressive