Erin - T 1

Last Thursday, I volunteered with the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC) in their K-5 summer program. I assisted one of the teachers, with her group of 8 students who are around 6 years old. Overall, I was very impressed with their English; the major obstacle that I was noticed was that students were timid to speak, and especially to write. While the teachers speak to them in English, the vast majority of the kids have parents who only speak Spanish; therefore, their speech would, at times, come out as a mixture of Spanish and English.
I have realized the truth behind the chapter in our book about grammar...that it is not the be-all, end-all of speaking a language...that truly learning English is about communicating. Espcially for students who are so young and forming their first impressions of English, it is important to be more encouraging than accurate. Given how shy many of the students were, especially when it came to writing, addressing picky grammar rules and analyzing every mistake they were making at the time, would have discouraged them further. It is also important to acknowledge the validity of a student's response, especially when the student is a younger child, even if it is not the exact answer we were looking for. For example, I was helping a little girl with a workbook exercise which addressed the beginning sounds of words, and there was a picture of "ice"; she said a word several times, which was not "ice", and I kept saying "no, iiice..." until I finally took the time to listen to her and realized she was saying "hielo", which is "ice" in Spanish. Once I realized the validity of her response, I was able to encourage her by saying "yes, that is what this picture is; however, that words is Spanish. The word in English is 'ice'."
Overall, I was extremely impressed by the intelligence of the two girls whom I worked with most. I found that simply benig emotionally supportive of someone who feels out of their comfort zone can significantly alter the amount of skill they feel comfortable displaying. I can't wait to go back tomorrow!