when joy is a habit, love is a reflex

During my time visiting Lambrick Park Secondary I paired up with another UVic PDP student, Jenna, and we grouped up with three students – Francis, Leo, and Jason. It was nice working in a group of five because I didn’t feel pressure to constantly be helping and observing a single student, and I think that Francis, Leo, and Jason also appreciated being able to work completely independently at times (but knowing Jenna and I were there to help them when needed).

One minor obstacle we faced with this assignment was not knowing how to use iMovie (or really any other video-making software), plus many of the iPads provided didn’t have iMovie downloaded and many apps (including Google Classroom which the students needed to login to to view the assignment) were updating during the first block we were working together. Technology continued to be a minor issue throughout this entire assignment, which I realize is sometimes inevitable but also – I think that the instructions regarding technology and programs to use to make the video portion of the assignment could have been explained better. If I were to replicate this assignment in one of my own classrooms, I would give a brief demonstration/overview of how to use iMovie (by projecting it on the board for the entire class to see) and/or list other apps or programs that the students could use to make their video. Although a bit of a downfall, the problem-solving and creative thinking that Leo, Jason, Francis, Jenna, and I had to do all together provided interesting conversations and allowed us to connect a bit better. Working on something all together (i.e. figuring out how to make videos with voiceovers, in the correct format, etc.), which no one originally had an answer to, I think built a bit of trust and increased comfortability between us all.

Leo, Jason, and Francis were all born and raised in China, but are all from different cities/areas and all had unique stories regarding their upbringing, family, and culture. Jason and Leo were both quite advanced in their English language skills and only needed help with specific grammatical phrasing and placement of words when writing their poems. This was expected because of the metaphorical nature of the poems – for example stating “I am from my grandmothers homemade soup” doesn’t exactly make sense when considering proper grammar rules, so this had to be explained a bit more thoroughly – that we were using poetic phrasing and terminology (sometimes breaking certain grammar rules). This is also something that I would do a bit differently if I was using this assignment in my own classroom – as a teacher I would very thoroughly explain that saying you are from an inanimate object or idea isn’t correct English – but it is acceptable when writing poetry.

I was working primarily with Francis (while Jenna was working primarily with Leo and Jason), who needed a little bit more guidance when writing his poem. He had excellent ideas for his poem and I absolutely loved hearing his stories about his hometown and memories he had made in China with family and friends. When he wanted to include a certain object, food, idea, place, story, etc. in his poem he would often use Google translate on his phone to find or double check the exact wording/terminology, for example ‘braised duck’ – a food he often enjoyed with his family. Then I would ask something along the lines of “who made the braised duck?” or “did your family roast the braised duck?” or “did you eat anything else with braised duck?”, he would answer, and we would come up with a more complete sentence together.

I was very impressed with Francis’ motivation to work and get all his ideas out on paper. He was very focused and seemed to really enjoy writing his poem. One of the papers we read in class by Flint et al. (2018) discussed the importance of letting ELL students share their personal stories and culture with others. The article gave examples of assignments and projects to do with ELL learners that allow students to present their stories with the use of technology, and how “teachers can overcome many language difficulties through using technology, particularly videos… and visuals” – which is exactly what this assignment allowed students to do. Using photos and videos to talk about yourself, your values, and your experiences is an extremely useful way to tell a story. It was obvious that the ELL students really enjoyed sharing aspects of themselves with other students – and I heard various remarks of “wow! I’ve known so-and-so for a whole year and I didn’t know that about them”. It was very cool to witness these deeper connections being made between students on presentation day. In fact, at the end of class after everyone had presented their poem and video, one student raised his hand to say that he was used to writing an essay or something as a final assignment for an English/ELL course but he really, really enjoyed doing the poem and video assignment. He expressed that it was a meaningful assignment and that he didn’t often get the chance to reflect on and remember his past and home country. It was such a heartwarming comment to make to the entire class and I could tell that many students agreed with him. Although my time with these students was short, I learnt so much and it was extremely warming and uplifting to witness a collective of students from a wide-range of backgrounds come together in such a harmonious, respectful, and supportive way.

Featured Photo by Andrew Butler on Unsplash

During the PDP June Institute ‘Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World’, I was fortunate to visit an ELL class at Lambrick Park Secondary School on three separate occasions. Prior to our first visit I realized that I had very little (practically zero) experience working with English Language Learners (ELLs) and I hadn’t taken the optional ELL course titled ‘Principle of Teaching English Language Learning’ in the winter term. During my six-week practicum I had a couple international students in my classes, but they were all relatively advanced in their English language skills and I never had to help them with any language barriers, answer any questions related to language, or provide extra time for them on quizzes or worksheets. Reflecting now though, I was probably just unaware and not expecting these international students to be faced with issues or lack of understanding due to language barriers and/or confusion – though I should have been more aware and mindful of this. Now I feel more capable, informed, and like I have the tools and resources to teach ELL and international students.

At the beginning of our first visit to Lambrick we sat amongst the class of grade 12 students and received an introduction and instructions from their teacher. I liked that the UVic students sat scattered throughout the class of high school students so that we were all intermingled and their wasn’t a great divide between the two groups. I imagine that this could have eased or minimized some of the nerves the ELL students may have felt. If the UVic students were to have stood at the front of the classroom beside the teacher for the introduction, the general vibe/tone may have been ‘there are now a dozen or so teachers present in the classroom – observing and assessing you’, but it was instead ‘theres another group of older students in the classroom now that are here to help us’ as we sat alongside the ELL students at tables.

The assignment that we were working on with the ELLs was writing a poem and then creating a video reciting the poem with relevant photos and/or videos. The poem was to be titled ‘I Am From…’ and included various metaphorical statements that described each students personal life and past with details about their family, hometown, family traditions, culture, memories and stories from their life before moving to Canada. The teacher provided a couple exemplars and a template that the students could follow if they needed or for inspiration and ideas. This was super helpful and motivating for the students to understand the format of the poem and begin writing after they understood the expectations for the assignment. I imagine in a non-ELL English 12 class the teacher wouldn’t provide both exemplars and a template to work with at the beginning of an assignment like this. There might even be some hesitation with providing this amount of “help” in an ELL class as well, fearing that every student will follow the template word-for-word, line-for-line and every poem would end up the same. But this wasn’t the case at all in this class as every poem ended up being unique and personal to each student.

I think it was very beneficial to provide exemplars and a template to generate ideas and creativity, which motivated these students to complete their best work. It was a great way to help students understand the assignment better and it allowed ample amount of work time (as the teacher didn’t have to repeat the instructions and intentions multiple times and in different ways to make sure every student understood – the resources did this on their own). Providing thorough exemplars to ELL students was discussed as a very useful strategy in the readings we have completed in class, for example “By displaying simple examples… and prompting students to follow the template when speaking or writing, STEM teachers can explicitly teach STEM language without taking time away from content instruction” (Hoffman & Zollman, 2016). Although directed towards STEM subjects in this article, this can relate to all subjects and is exactly what I observed during my first visit to this class.

Featured Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash