Volunteering at Clinica Health Center allows me to interact and read to many children, an awesome activity that I love. Unfortunately however it doesn’t allow me to build a strong bond with a specific child since I may only see that child once. Although I am very grateful for you allowing me to continue volunteering at Clinica Health Center and counting this as a credit, I believe that at the end of this semester I will no longer work with them. Yes, I will continue volunteering reading to children after this class is over, but I want to build a relationship with a child. In other words I might transfer over to the buddy system at the library or one of the other programs that you offer. Listening to my peer’s stories about working with one child has made me jealous of the bond that they built together.

All that being said, one of my favorite experiences happened two weeks ago. At any given point there can be anywhere from zero to ten children in the waiting room. Often I’ll go up to one of the children and begin reading to them, and then another child becomes curious and often joined. While volunteering two weeks ago I did exactly that, I began reading to one child, but what was different is ALL the children in the room came over and began listening. This alone made me very happy. Additionally, one of the older girls raised her hand when I asked if anyone else would like to read. This experience was especially enjoyable to me because I could see the joy and excitement on all of the children’s faces and the confidence in that one girl. It takes a lot to say you will read out loud in front of strangers and even more confidence to be able to read out loud in front of other kids.

Volunteering reading to children not only makes me sound like a saint but also allows me to grow as an individual. I can see the appreciation on the parent’s faces when I tell them I am a volunteer and ask if I can read to their child/children. Reading is of the utmost importance and if I can act as a role model, even if it is only one time with any given child, then I have accomplished my goal. I hope to inspire these kids to read and inspire their parents to understand the importance of reading.

Creative Process

Alexas and I are in the process of finishing the book. We have edited it a few times and now it is typed up and in the ending stages of illustration. After initially writing the book, every week Alexas would mention details in the book she wanted to change. Sometimes I would make suggestions about altering certain aspects of the story and she would take them and run, adding in her own details after that. Writing her About the Author section was fun because she got to talk about things she found important. One part of her About the Author, which she sadly asked me to take out in a later session, was about wanting to be a hula girl when she grows up. She talked about how she has a “hula girl” skirt at home.

Alexas feels very comfortable at reading buddies now. She openly talks to the other kids, sometimes helping them find a certain color marker or joining in a conversation. However, she does tend to forget the rules. She has a lot of energy and will sometimes run around the library. However, she always listens when asked to stop. I have found it very difficult to get Alexas to do things she do not want to do. She refused to illustrate her book unless I helped her. I tried to help for a bit on the first few and wean her onto doing them herself. She reluctantly did and the process was very slow. Eventually, though, Alexas did do some very nice drawings.

Working with Alexas has been a lot of fun. Learning more about her personality every week is one of the best parts. It has been a long time since I was in first grade but Alexas has reminded me what a transformative time of life it is. She is very observant and keen. I am looking forward to practicing reading our story and seeing how she handles the new challenge.

The last couple weeks not many kids have been coming the day I volunteer, which is a Thursday. Even though not many kids have been there, I have still been able to help out the kids that are there. Sometimes another volunteer and me have to double team a kid, but every kid gets checked on and helped. I love to help the kids with their homework but sometimes the free time after homework is the best. This is when we really get to know the kids. We can sit down with them and talk about their lives and get to know what they like and what they don’t. A couple weeks ago, me and the other volunteers, Meghan and Sarah, were talking to two girls toward the end of the program time. We were telling each other jokes and stories and it was great! But of course we made sure they finished their homework before this :]. The best part was when one of the girls, I would write her name but I have no idea how to spell it, told us we were her favorite volunteers because we always stayed after and talked to them. I think this was so important because I believe we should get to know the kids and not just be there to tell them what to do. And when they actually know us then they will respect us more. This experience really related to linguistics in a sense we are creating a group identity through our discourse. By talking to the kids and each other the volunteers create an identity and a group identity with the kids.

What's Up LING 1900?!

I'm going to try to make this entry interesting, you know, spice it up, but I'm having some issues uploading photos. SO we'll see.

Reading Buddies is winding down and I don't like it!!! I really love seeing Josiah every Wednesday. It's always so fun just goofing around with the little guy. I like to hide from him behind all the books but that kid finds me every time! It's like he does some crazy inception thing on me and makes me think my hiding spot is an original spot but really he planted that thought... I wonder what dream level he's penetrated...

...

ANYWAYS!.. Josiah and I finished his book "Jar Jar Binks and C-3PO" last Wednesday and.... it's good. REAL GOOD. It's got a good fusion of humor and moral lessons as seen on PG 7 when JAR JAR BINKS brings C-3PO a life jacket in hopes it would help the poor rust bot out of quick sand and C-3PO yells "Life jackets are for the water! Not quick sand!". So quick life lesson there and I mean.. it's funnier when you see the illustration I guess.... I'm going to go get the book binded tomorrow and we're expecting Scholastic to publish real soon. It's only a matter of time.

I'm really hoping with my encouragement and help Josiah will have the courage and ability to read a page or two when we present the book. He's really shy though and I don't think he'll be able to get over it. He won't even read for just me.. But no biggie I was really excited for reading buddies because I thought it'd make me a better story teller and it's done that and more!

Bad News, I don't know how to upload photos... no 'bleeding cat bleeding cat' for you!

Is the system fair?

Weeks have passed since I have met my student, Valentina, and with each class that we are both improving. I have gained some more confidence in teaching the material and have learned how to better prepare for each class. I am constantly modifying my style to better fit what Valentina wants. My student has mentioned that she wants to get better at conversational speech. At first I was wary of venturing away from the book but now I keep trying new techniques because my current strategies are not working. At first I started off with just going through the book’s suggested activities however they are only working to some degree. Whenever I would review the previous day’s material at the beginning of class, it would be as if my student was seeing the content we spent a whole class on, was new again. This worried me because it showed that I was not teaching effectively and I was letting Valentina down as a teacher. While experimenting, I next made flashcards for the day’s material because I figured that helps me when I study. This tactic only works to a degree because the examples are so specific to a particular type of sentence that it is hard to apply the new word in conversation. For example, using the word “on,” it makes sense that “I have class on Monday,” but my student is having trouble using the word in conversation when she talks to me. So I think my new idea for fluency in speaking is to start writing stories. I will use the words in the book as guidelines but I think it is best to step away from individual non-related sentences. I am also going to try the suggested “role play conversation” that was given from my last blog post. This week will be the first time I try this so hopefully it works better!

My relationship with Valentina has also dramatically improved. We are talking about more personal topics and I find it very easy to talk to her. Even though I am teaching her, she is becoming more of a mentor to me. Valentina once told me about how she studied for the immigration test for weeks in order to pass. I am still amazed by one question on the test in particular. One of the questions Valentina said she had to know was who said the quote, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Off the top of my head I thought it was, John Locke. Well I was wrong because the answer is Patrick Henry. What does this say about the credibility of the immigration tests? I, was born and raised in the United States, graduated at the top of my class in high school, a sophomore at one of the top State Universities didn’t get a question right on the test that would require me to live here. As Valentina continued with her experience, I was getting more and more upset. At the end of the story, I told Valentina, “it is crazy some of those questions you had to know, even ridiculous.” Her response took me by surprise. She just shrugged her shoulders and said “that is just what you have to do to become a citizen.” Here is a person who has reason to be bitter but in fact she is still humble and grateful to be an American citizen. That is amazing. We criticize, especially Latino immigrants, for coming to America illegal and not taking citizen tests but when they do, we fill these tests with information that many natural born Americans probably can’t pass. That is not fair.

SWAP: Moving Away from the Book Nov 9, 2012 3:55 PM

As part of SWAP, each person was handed a teacher's handbook and student's workbook. On about the second week my student accidently misplaced her workbook. Faced with this ordeal and having the teacher's handbook differ from the student's workbook, I made the decision to 'wing it' without the book.

My lessons changed from simply 'filling in' the necessary information to more code-switching style. I was already aware that my student knows a lot of English words so I decided to have a type of oral quiz with her. I asked her questions about the days of the week, months in the years, numbers 1-100, and important holidays that are celebrated in the US. As we went through this orally, I realized that although she knew many words, she was mixing up a few or relying on me to supply her with an answer when she did not know. Unsure of how to enrich her experience, and not just feed her the information, I asked my personal friends after having an unproductive day with her. The advice that I received from the majority of my friends was to have her write down the information and that supplying it is sometimes necessary--it's important to not expect her to know every English word that I ask her about.

With this in mind, the next teach day I went in with a pen and notebook. I once again quized her orally to see what words she was able to retain and which ones she still needed help with. As I was going through the quiz I noticed that there were still a few words that she was struggling with. I decided that perhaps seeing the words written down would help her visualize them better. Once I did this she asked me if I would go through the alphabet with her, because she had a few anxieties about her English writing. I went through the English alphabet with her and was stuck with the "e" 'i" differentiation. The English "e" sounds like the Spanish "i" This differentiation had come easily to me, because I had learned English as a 5 year old, but it was a very difficult concept for her. I stumbled my way through different explanations why the phonology of the letters was different and provided word examples, but she still seem confused. This was a bit frustrating for me...but I was able to calm myself down and remind myself that she had not grown up surrounded by these distinctions.

As I was reminded of this, I took a deep breath and apologized for expecting her to understand this information right of way and attempted to expalin it once again at a slower rate and explain the different positions that the tongue takes with the vowel distinctions and common words that have an "e" or an "i." I am not sure how much she understood the second time around, but I decided to move on. I explained to her that I needed to think of a different way to illustrate the differences between the vowels, because she had been unable to understand my different examples, and that we would get back to it at a different time.

These lessons allowed me to understand that having Spanish as my native tongue and then learning English at age 5 was difficult for me, but evenmore so for adults who are past the critical age of learning a different language.