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An Evening with Mimi Met! Discussing
Language Growth in Immersion Classrooms
The ACIE Newsletter, November 2002, Vol. 6, No. 1
By Amy Egenberger, Immersion Educator and Co-Active
Life Coach, Minneapolis, MN
Eighty-eight immersion educators and supporters from the Twin Cities
metro area turned out on a Friday evening last April to engage in professional
dialogue inspired by guest speaker, Dr. Myriam Met. That so many attended
this event after a long week of teaching speaks to the commitment and
enthusiasm of immersion teachers, their hunger for immersion-specific
professional development opportunities, and the popularity of Dr. Met.
Exploring the relationship among literacy, academics, and language proficiency,
the discussion encompassed information about and approaches to improving
student learning in immersion classrooms.
Designed to support professional dialogue and promote connections
across boundaries, the event was hosted by Park Spanish Immersion School
in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and members of the Twin Cities Metro Area
Immersion Network (MAIN). As participants socialized and connected with
their peer professionals, the energy of the room came alive with animated
inquiry and conversation about the unique combination of issues in immersion
teaching.
Director of K-12 Initiatives at the National Foreign Language Center
in Washington D.C., Dr. Met brings a wealth of experience and passion
for the growth and development of immersion education. She served as
Coordinator of Foreign Languages for Montgomery County Public Schools
in Maryland for fifteen years and, previously, was Foreign Language
Supervisor for Cincinnati Public Schools, gaining experience in planning,
implementing and supervising language programs. Because of these leadership
roles, Dr. Met brings vision and experience in planning, implementing
and supervising language programs. Her knowledge, humor and compassion
resound with her audience.
Dr. Met’s address began with acknowledgement of how things have
changed and improved in our field. Through trial and error and some
important research, we have learned more about good teaching and learning.
Where the premise once was that language learning results as a byproduct
of learning content, we now know that content teaching on its own does
not provide language teaching. Key questions now point to improving
instruction in both content and language. How can we be good language
teachers in the immersion classroom, making good content lessons into
good language lessons? During the presentation, Dr. Met spoke to a variety
of questions vital to immersion teaching.
Why is it important to encourage student language use in speaking
and writing?
Dr. Met highlights literacy, as research findings suggest, as the
key tool for content learning, for successfully gaining, storing, interpreting,
and retrieving information. With oral language as its cornerstone, literacy
is also the primary vehicle for language development beyond childhood.
Distinct from merely the language used for learning, literacy combines
thinking and information in such a way that understanding of content
results. Moreover, linking oral language with literacy is key for understanding,
because, Dr. Met argues, "it’s when kids are pushed to talk
about what they understand that they come to understand."
What kinds of language do children need?
Expanding students’ "lexical loads" is critical for
both oral language and literacy development. Students’ knowledge
of word meanings needs to be developed in several categories—subject
matter vocabulary, which is linked to content knowledge, general academic
vocabulary, which includes the words that make texts or discourse "academic,"
and general vocabulary. Teachers need to help students expand their
vocabulary by teaching them word families and helping them to see lexical
connections. For example, when words begin with "habl..."
in Spanish or "parl..." in French, their meaning will have
something to do with talk or speaking. Explicitly drawing students’
attention to these base morphemes is useful. In addition, Dr. Met identified
the importance of exposing students to various text types that are important
for academic success. For example, narrative, expository, persuasive,
and procedural texts need to be read differently according to their
varied purposes.
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Expanding on Think, Pair, Share: An Instructional
Framework for Scaffolding Oral Language Use by Integrating Oral and
Written Modalities. (Reconstruction of an overhead from Dr. Met’s
presentation.) |
Is it better to use culturally authentic texts or U.S. texts
in translation?
In considering the question of using authentic texts versus U.S. texts
in translation, Dr. Met reminds us to consider the instructional purpose
we have identified for selecting a particular text. Because cultures
express and organize thoughts in different ways, the textual presentation
of information is different and must be read differently. Reading is
harder when readers don’t have the background knowledge or cultural
understanding necessary for understanding culturally authentic texts.
At the same time, such texts can be valuable because they provide an
authenticity of native language and culture that translated texts cannot
provide. Dr. Met calls teachers to ask key questions. For example, is
the text intended for developing vocabulary, for helping students to
develop strategies for approaching a challenging text, or for attaining
content knowledge? "What will my students know and be able to do
after this lesson that they didn’t know or couldn’t do before?
What evidence will let the teacher know?" Such inquiry shapes and
improves instructional choices and needs to accompany text selection.
If literacy builds on oral language and oral language builds
on literacy, what is recommended for immersion instruction?
Challenging the accepted notion that literacy builds on oral language,
at least within an immersion setting, Dr. Met suggests that all four
language learning skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing
be introduced at the same time from kindergarten on. One way Dr. Met
suggests teachers create opportunity for this integration is with the
"Think-Write-Pair-Share" strategy, for example (see diagram
on this page). Students’ oral skills are supported by and strengthened
along with the other three modalities. That is, writing down one’s
thoughts and listening to and reading others’ ideas serve as scaffolds
for students to produce oral language. Because learners build oral language
proficiency by using the language, we need to push students to talk,
but, Dr. Met cautions, too often teachers don’t provide the necessary
support for students to produce extended oral language. The "Think-Write-Pair-Share"
strategy provides the necessary support and shows how the four language
skills can build on one another to further language development.
Dr. Met referred to a California study in which students were encouraged
to write before producing oral language. Students used trial and error,
dictionaries, and collaboration to draft their work on the computer.
From there, student performance was used by the teacher to determine
what needed to be taught.
How can teachers encourage students to increase their use of
the immersion language and decrease their use of English?
Dr. Met sees it as essential for the school culture to hold the use
of the immersion language as a shared value by acknowledging the ease,
power, and status of English while overtly creating esteem for L2. This
means that at the school level, all teachers need to make a commitment
to using the immersion language not only in the classroom with students
but throughout the school day with colleagues and others. For adults
to say, for example, that "Sure English is easier, and I value
Spanish so much that I choose to speak Spanish," communicates that
there is room to honor both languages. Choosing to use the immersion
language oneself and expecting the same from others promotes the use
of the immersion language by everyone in the school community.
What works best for correcting errors in students’ oral
language?
Self-correction is encouraged. It is important for the teacher not
to correct that which is beyond the understanding and development of
the student. Dr. Met points out that when the teacher recasts a student
response, the student often hears this as simply being understood and
the error persists. She suggests that we refer to the studies done by
Roy Lyster and others on the how and when of corrective feedback.
In closing, Dr. Met notes that never before has it been so important
to be bilingual, if not multilingual. Never before has the work of immersion
education been so crucial. She deeply appreciates the hard work that
immersion teachers do every day!
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