Returning to Work- Kayleigh Robb

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Students are full of surprises, and I know that almost goes without saying, but I enjoy learning that and re-learning that everyday. Upon returning from our week’s break, I was extremely pleased that it seemed lie one of my ELLs had basically made leaps and bounds in his progress with English language acquisition.

We all returned from break refreshed and ready to go, and, interestingly enough, one of my ELL students was exhibiting some new behavior. He was speaking in full, English sentences.

            My MT and I could not help but praise him, and I was incredibly curious about how this had seemed to really develop over a short amount of time. While playing a math game together, I asked him what he had done over break.

“I hanged out with my cousin and watched a lot of T.V.”, he said smiling his ever-happy and confident smile.

“What did you do with your brother?”, I asked interestedly.

“Oh well we talked and played a lot. He speaks really good English so he was telling me what I was saying sounded not right. He helped me a lot.”

            Naturally, I didn’t say, “Oh, yeah, I can tell!”, but I did say, “The more practice you get, the better you will get at English.”

            Typically my student is interacting with his mother and father in Spanish. His older brother is 19, works a part-time job, lives away from home and studies at a local university. However, my student got to stay with his brother last week, constantly surrounded by English. I can really only speculate what happened, because I was not there, but whatever interactions he had with his brother and the constant influx of English, they were positive enough to really start building his skills.

            This student’s mini-immersion over the course of the break seemed to really bring out some language skills I had previously been unable to tap into. But with a cousin who speaks fluent English and lots of primarily English television, it occurred to me that my student had most likely experienced something I had experienced when I went to France in my senior year of high school. As I spent more time in Paris, immersed in the language, venturing away from my English-only speaking counterparts, the better I got at speaking French.

It did not take very long to begin gaining more knowledge of the language and I was 17 years old at the time. My student is 5, turning 6 soon, in a prime time for language acquisition. His brother had a similar beginning, as my MT had him as a first grader, but is certainly fluent and successful with English as of now.