Is It Really Over?

Well my last day has come and gone, I'm actually a little sad it is over. I really enjoyed hanging out with these kids and getting to know about their cultures. My teacher was such a great person. She was always so nice and very kind. She was a saint for having to deal with those kids on a daily basis. Those kids could be the worst of the worst some days, but she handled them very well.
Throughout my experience, I saw many different aspects of interpersonal communication play out. I saw facework everyday, I saw how nonverbal cues played a role in communication, and I also saw how important the different rules of language were to understanding one another. I also got the chance to watch the new kids evolve and go through the process of moving to a new country. I saw their good days, their bad days, and their happy days. It was really cool to see what I was learning in class play out in real life. This project helped me understand what I was learning.
I also have learned that communication can frustrating, especially when communicating with someone who doesn't know your language as well. I know I will have to be a little more patient when I am working with someone who has English as a second language. I also know not to judge someone by my past experiences and to let them show me who they are before I judge them.

Simple Reading Skills

Monday was probably the most interaction I have had with the students the entire time. I got to help this  very sweet girl read an article about a new way to clean water. She was supposed to read the article and find information she thought was important and copy the facts down. She began to read the article and I noticed she was having trouble. She frequently would mix up words. She was having trouble with the word "treatment", and every time she came across a word that looked like the word "treatment" she would just say "treatment" even though it was not the word. I had to constantly help her sound out words that I thought were very simple words. I was really shocked by how much trouble she was having. She was having trouble understanding when to use the past tense of words as well. She was constantly asking what each big word meant. 

I was surprised by her troubles with phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax. Over the summer I took classes for speech-language pathology, and I was taught all the different ages that children learn all the parts of language. Most kids whose first language is English, learn all these rules before the age of 10. This girl was a 15 year old sophomore in high school. It amazed me how well she was doing in her classes, even thought she couldn't understand the simple rules of language. This encounter with this student taught me that I couldn't just assume that all these kids were on the same level as the kids whose first language is English. I knew that they were not going to be as well educated on the English language, but I guess I just assumed that they knew the simplest parts of language. Now I know that I can't do that. I have to realize that they are all on different reading levels and all need different kinds of help.

Verbal and Nonverbal Cues

Last Friday was an exciting day, there was a new student in class today. He had just moved to the US and was from a country in Africa. I got the chance to sit down and talk with him; which went more smoothly than I thought. At his school in Africa he had been taught English, so he was able to carry a simple conversation. We first started off talking about where we were form and when he found out I was from a suburb of Chicago, he tried to describe the big buildings, but could not remember the word "Building". He started to move is hands far apart from each other and I wasn't understanding what he was saying. I started to notice that he was getting frustrated that there was a problem communicating what he wanted to say. He then took a paper and pen and drew the Sears Tower. It was then that I realized what he was saying and he smiled and we both laughed about it.
I felt bad for him when he couldn't think of the words he needed to carry on the conversations with me, his classmates, and teachers. His face would show an angry emotion and he got frustrated with himself like it was his fault that he couldn't carry on a conversation with others. I felt bad, I just wanted to say "Its okay, everyone in this room went through what you're going through now." I was glad that there were two boys in the class that were form the same country as him and knew his native language. I think it made him feel more comfortable and more willing to hang out with the boys. I hope that he eventually gets through the communication barriers, but he seems to be getting along with his classmates better and better everyday.

The Different Faces I See

Walking into this class I knew I was going to be in a classroom full of different ethnicities, cultures, and languages. The classroom was made up of teenagers from different countries in Africa, Asia, South America, and Central America. For the first couple of times I was able to go, I did not get much interaction with the students because they weren't very comfortable around me. They usually just asked their teacher for help instead of me. I think that once they become more comfortable with me, and actually remember my name, they will ask me for my help as well. So for most of the time I just stand by and observe the students.

The students are like normal high school students, you have the troublemakers, the quiet ones, they studious ones, and the athletes. There are about 6 boys that feel the need to make trouble everyday. Now I know its quite easy to when theres a student teacher who doesn't know how to keep control of the classroom, but these boys do not make it easy for him to even attempt to try. After my second time there, I sat down with one of these so call troublemakers and talked with him for a bit. I got to know about his family and how he was from the Philippines. We then go to talking about school and what he wanted to do for college in a few years. This is when I put two and two together to understand why he acts out the way he does. He is not doing well in school because he still doesn't completely understand the English language. I noticed that some of the boys in the class like to make fun of the students who have trouble reading easy english words, and I know that this young boy I was talking to did not want those boys to know that. This boy put on a face of every normal teenage boy. He wanted others to see him as a tough kid and not one to be messed with so he hid his problems with reading from the teachers and rest of the class. I then started to wonder how many more of these kids had put that same face on to cover up there problems with school. 

I got the chance to sit down with the teacher of the class, not the student teacher and we were talking about the boys in class. She informed me that she's been trying to help these boys because she knows that they aren't doing well with school and that it is due to their lack of asking for help. She informed me that I can't expect these kids to ask me for help, I kind of have to just go up to them and start doing their work with them. So I'm going to try to make the effort next time I go to sit down and start doing homework with them.

I'm actually pretty excited to go over to Rock Island High School tomorrow. I'm not really so sure what to expect and what I am going to do, but I think it is going to be a lot of fun. My hopes for the service-learning project are to really help these teens learn and become better at their school work. I've never been over to Rock Island High School, but I have heard that they are very diverse. I'm expecting a lot of different nationalities to be represented in the school. I think its going to be really cool to have a conversation with these students. I want to be a speech pathologist, so I'm really excited to interact with them and see how different they pronounce words compared to how I pronounce them. I think it will be really cool to observe all the components of speech in someone who has english as a second language. I'm also excited to work with the teachers and learn about the different struggles they have working with these students because it has to be hard sometimes to communicate. I also want to know the different accomplishments they have had with their students. My mom is a teacher and I love hearing her stories about her students and the different struggles/accomplishments they have. 

How Service Relates To Learning

The best way for me to learn is by doing hands on activities.  By helping others, you learn more about them and their day to day lives. Since we will be helping families that are not from America, we will be given the opportunity to learn more about their culture. We can learn the different ways they interact with people, the different relationships they have with others, and what is important to them. Service allows you to step outside of your daily life and do something different that you probably wouldn't have done before. You will interact with others that you probably wouldn't have before. By helping others, you are giving yourself the chance to learn something new.

chapter 2