Here is another teacher story from my archives, dated 2004.
Paloma wept over a picture book today. She came into my office-sized classroom hot and sweaty from recess. First we studied the curriculum lesson, a poster about thermal currents. Then I handed her a book to read: Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie DePaola.
“Read this and then choose from the list and write a response in your journal,” I told her. On the crowded walls is a list of possible ways to respond to reading: What surprised you? How are the people in the book like your family? How are they different? Etc.
As Paloma read, I previewed the lessons for the coming week and made notes about materials needed for the next project. At some point she paused in her reading and said, “It’s sad.”
“Yes.” I said.
We returned to silence and our respective tasks.
DePaola’s story is about a five-year old boy, Bobby, and his Grandfather, Bob. Bob teaches Bobby to walk. They have a loving, special relationship that DePaola depicts with an economy of words. Then Bob has a stroke and loses his speech. Bobby helps his grandfather learn to walk again.
When she finished the story, Paloma chose to write about what impressed her. We were quiet again as she wrote a page in her notebook, and I organized my notes in my daily log.
“Done,” she said.
“Do you want to read it to me?”
“No, you read it.”
I read aloud a passage about Paloma and her grandparents in Mexico. She told how they taught her to take care of the animals and feed the chickens.
I finished reading and looked up. Her eyes were shiny with tears. We talked about missing grandparents and I told her about growing up with only my grandmother, who was not a warm and fuzzy grandmotherly person. She asked about my mother and father and how they died. We talked quite a while past her lesson time.
After she left, I felt an angel had passed over. Something magical happened there. I sensed it but I couldn’t say what it was. A heart was touched by a simple story; a connection was made between a 10-year-old Mexican immigrant girl growing up in the year 2004 and a five-year-old Italian boy growing up sometime before World War II.
It’s a tribute to Tomie DePaola that he writes so well, and also to Paloma that she allowed so much of herself to be present and sensitive. As for me, I think I witnessed a small miracle today.
I wrote this article over a decade ago, but the ideas presented are just as relevant today.
In the time I taught English language learners, I was daily intrigued by the differences in their backgrounds, their stories, and their learning behaviors as they struggled to master the vagaries of our language.
Along with their material belongings, many of these children brought emotional baggage with them to their new schools. A child’s emotional state can impact the manner and speed with which s/he learns a new language. Researchers in language acquisition call this factor the “affective filter.” The filter can be loosely meshed and let in a lot of new information, or it can be almost a solid wall of resistance and shut out communication.
The concept of the affective filter originated with Stephen Krashen, an expert in language acquisition. It is one of five hypotheses Krashen developed about the process of language acquisition. (The other four are acquisition-learning, monitor, natural order and input) The affective filter addresses the socio-emotional variables that impact language learners. According to Krashen, the most important affective variables that encourage new language acquisition are: low anxiety learning environment, student motivation to learn the language, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
Learners of a new language may not only lack motivation, they may also be downright resistant. I experienced this first-hand when I lived in Israel. The summer after I finished sixth grade, my parents sold our home in Los Angeles and took me to Israel with the intention of emigrating. For almost half a year we lived on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and I attended the local public school, where all classes were taught in Hebrew.
My parents found a tutor who tried to teach me Hebrew. Six months is plenty of time to pick up the basic functional communication skills of a new language, especially if you’re young. But I was uprooted, pubescent, lonely, and sullen. My affective filter was on high and I determinedly learned as little Hebrew as possible.
Fast forward thirty years to the summers when I worked with high school age migrant students. One boy from Colombia was a continual behavior problem. From his writing, we learned how angry he was at being taken from his home, and how desperately he missed his grandparents and friends. He was passionate about his country. The longing he had for his home was heartrending. And yet, amidst all this turmoil, he was supposed to learn English.
Another time, a classroom teacher and I met with the parents of one of my ENL students. This little kindergartener refused to speak in school, in English or Spanish. Our inspired principal arranged for the parents to record their daughter at home. In her own house, the little girl rattled on in both languages, teaching her younger sister all the stories and songs from school—in English.
During the conference, the child’s mother said that, a few days before, her daughter had asked her, “ Mami, should I talk like you or should I talk like my teacher?”
What amazing discrimination for a five-year-old! We teachers could only wonder at the way this child chose to deal with her conflicting loyalties. How to choose between her mother, and mother tongue, or her new teacher and English? Silence was her answer to the problem. Her affective filter was tuned to let everything in and nothing out unless she was safe at home.
Teachers who interact with ENL students need to be aware of the power of the affective filter. Emotional issues can strongly influence the rate of English acquisition. Cultural conflicts can impact students’ learning as well. Children can find themselves caught between the traditional or religious practices of their family and the freer American lifestyle of their peers.
A child who seems unresponsive, lazy, slow, or sleepy may be showing just the tip of the iceberg. If we have ever traveled in another country, we know how tiring it is to keep trying to decipher the speech. Eventually we may shut down in self-protection, just to get some rest.
It’s up to the teaching adults to inform themselves about each child’s country, culture, and customs. Were they willing or reluctant immigrants? How did they come to our country, and whom did they leave behind? The more teachers can help to lower that affective filter, the more comfortable the child will feel when tackling our rather complicated English language.
I suppose I saw the ENL students as being a little more fragile than our homegrown kids. Sometimes enormous sacrifices are made so that these children can take advantage of the opportunities offered in this great country of ours. Families often endure long and painful separations, not to mention stressful living conditions. Listening to their stories, I was constantly reminded that this kind of fortitude and aspiration is what built the United States.
I have permission to post this true story. Names have been withheld.
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Electric shaver buzz hums along my scalp. Hairs trickle and prickle down.
When I am shorn short, writing a check, I ask the stylist, “What’s the story of your tattoo?”
She has a Native American woman’s portrait in full fur and feather headdress from shoulder to elbow.
“Oh, I’ll tell you the story,” she says, sitting in one of the styling chairs. “When I was twenty, I decided that I wanted to be a permanent make-up artist.”
“Like tattooing eyeliner and eyebrows?” I ask. “A friend of mine did eyeliner.”
“Yeah, but you can do a lot more than that. Lip liner and shading, and blemish erasing. It’s awesome. So, I went to a training school. And as part of the training, we had to practice on each other. I chose a Tree of Life for my back. Each of the students got so many minutes to work on my back.”
I’m already thinking, this is not going to turn out well.
“Of course, I couldn’t see what they were doing. They put all these stupid things hiding in the tree branches, like an emoji happy face, cartoon characters, and some joker tattooed a penis on my shoulder.”
At this point, I’m wondering why she didn’t look at her back while they were doing the tattoos. I don’t ask, though.
“This happened ten years ago. I didn’t let anyone see my back for ages. I never wore a bathing suit or a sundress. I was so embarrassed and angry.
“I took them to court, and I won. They paid the fine, but they never showed any remorse. They still thought it was a big joke.
“Finally, I showed the tattoo to my boyfriend’s friend who was a tattoo artist. He didn’t laugh. My boyfriend paid him to fix the Tree of Life. And this one, the woman on my shoulder and arm? That’s my grandmother. I’m part Romanian and part Native American. See—she covers up the pee-pee that was right here.”
Stuffy nose! Sinus pain! Headaches! Unable to breathe at four a.m.! Since September, I’d been having nose trouble. Was it allergies? A sinus infection? If I went to an ENT doctor, would she tell me to get rid of my cat?
Finally, in December, I’d had enough so I went to a new ENT in Middletown. She peered into my facial orifices and pronounced there was no sinus infection. But I should, she said, see the allergist. I went the next day and met Dr. P., a young Korean doctor. While typing rapidly on the computer, he took down my medical history. I was impressed with his speedy keyboarding.
I mentioned that I’d been retired from teaching for eleven years.
“Oh, what did you teach?”
“Second grade for sixteen years, and then ENL—English as a New Language—for eight years,” I answered. “I loved it,” I added. “I loved working with those students and their families.”
Dr. P. stopped typing. “I was in ESL when my family came to the U.S.,” he said. “I still remember my teacher’s name and her face.”
He went on to tell me that he’d come from Korea to a high school in Baltimore in ninth grade. The teacher was so caring and helpful, he said, and she provided a comfortable space for him and her other students.
“She didn’t just teach English,” said the doctor. “She taught us about American culture and customs—stuff we needed to know.”
I nodded in agreement. “It’s a special person who chooses to teach ENL,” I said. “I ended up hearing things about my students that a regular classroom teacher with twenty-five or more in a class would never learn. ENL teachers become advocates for the kids and their families.”
In my mind, I saw my students: the kindergartener from China who only knew one word in English, toilet. The fifth-grade girl from Mexico who wanted to be a doctor. The first-grade girl who refused to speak for an entire year. So many that I loved and nurtured and watched adjust to the new language, new school, new everything.
Dr. P. was now putting on his blue non-latex gloves to examine my sinuses. “You ESL teachers do really important work,” he said. “I will never forget my teacher and her kindness.”
I sat in the exam chair feeling warmed, like a golden shower of light had just poured down on me. This was grace, a sudden rush of appreciation from someone I’d just met, for a job I did a decade ago. Dr. P. offered his gratitude to me and all those dedicated teachers who reach out to immigrant students. And on my part, I was filled with gratitude for the recognition.
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The Karakesh Chronicles: fantasy adventure for middle grade readers.
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen–Random House, 2013.
Here is a wise and humorous commentary on life, women, and aging. It’s a memoir plus reflections on women’s lives at home and in the workplace. Quindlen comments on the many aspects of our lives, from aging bodies to mothering to friendship.
On friendship, she writes:
We trust our friends to tell us what we need to know, and to shield us from what we don’t need to discover, and to have the wisdom to know the difference. Real friends offer both hard truths and soft landings and realize that it’s sometimes more important to be nice than to be honest.
I particularly appreciated Quindlen’s musings on solitude, as I’m an introvert who, like Quindlen’s son, would probably choose to hide in my bedroom at my own party.
Quindlen writes about solitude: I feel as though being alone is hanging out with someone I like.
I totally agree.
On my wall, I have a quote from Lori Gottlieb’s book, Maybe You Should See Someone. It says:
Being silent is like emptying the trash. Introverts need solitude and silence.
On women in the workplace, Quindlen writes: It’s amazing how few women are required on a corporate board to satisfy the suits that they’ve done the woman thing.
If you’re a woman of a certain age, especially one who juggled work and parenting, you’ll likely enjoy this book.
Tangled Magic 