Maria Villalvazo

Week 1: Part B English Language Learner (2nd or 3rd Grade)

ITL 510: Language-Literacy Foundations

July 15, 2018

 The student I observed is a third grade female named Fatima that is attending the summer

school program at Wonderful Prep Academy in Delano, California. The students are in their

fourth week of summer school. The teacher, Ms. Mendoza, has fifteen students enrolled in her

class but the day I went to observe, she only had twelve show up. I arrived at the school a little

before school started so I can see the students as they walk in and to avoid any interruptions.

The students are in summer school from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. I observed Fatima from 8:15 to

9:15 in class during their math block/period. The students were in small groups of four in the

classroom. Overall, Fatima scored a 3.8 on the SOLOM.

Fatima scored a three on the area of comprehension. I based the score on comprehension

on the interactions she had in the beginning of the day and in the math lesson while collaboration

with partners and group members occurred, along with general directions from the teacher. A

three on the SOLOM in the area of comprehension states the student, “understands most of what

is said at slower than normal speed with some repetition”. I was really hesitant and stuck

between scoring Fatima a three or four. For the most part, Fatima was able to understand general

directions from the teacher like when she asked the students to take out their math materials, to

put their pencils down, and general directions. The math lesson was on bar graphs. When the

teacher was explaining how the x-axis and y-axis are horizontal and vertical, she tried to explain

that a way to understand the word “horizontal” is by tying it to “horizon”. I know she was trying

to tap into the children’s background knowledge, but it was clear that Fatima was not

understanding. Ms. Mendoza asked for a student volunteer to describe what a horizon was and

the student said, “It’s where the sun comes up”. I asked Fatima if she knew what a horizon was,

and she said she did not. I showed her a picture on my phone and described the direction of the

line in regards to the sun and got her pencil and showed her what horizontal looks like. One of
the scenarios that the students were graphing talked about camping and different bunk names.

The students were supposed to talk about how many points each bunk hand, and I noticed that

Fatima asked her partner what bunks were. I do not think Fatima struggles in comprehension

because of the speed that the words are coming at her, I think she struggles with comprehension

based off the difference in culture and background knowledge.

In the area of fluency and vocabulary, Fatima scored a four on each section. I based this

score on how she interacted with her peers and myself. As stated before, if I were to ask Fatima

a question, she can understand answer back. When she asked her partner what bunks were, she

was able to ask her in a correct way that was understandable. I did not give Fatima a five because

there were instances where she could have used different vocabulary to try to convey what she

was saying. For example, there was a part in the lesson where the student made their own bar

graphs using data collected from a small packet of M&M’s. There was a moment where Fatima

believed her packet was on her partner’s desk and she said, “that ones mines”. The teacher has

the students use sentence frames to share their answers, disagree with someone, or to add on to

someone’s answer. Fatima was going to share how many red M&M’s she had compared to a

student who had previously shared. She said, “I would like to add to Jose’s answer by saying

that I got six M&M’s red in my bag.” A more proper way to say her sentence would be by

having said the end of her sentence as, “I have six red M&M’s in my bag”. Through her

conversations with her friends, it was clear that she can participate in classroom interactions and

everyday conversations but she still struggled using correct language academically, earning her a

score of a four on both vocabulary and fluency.

In the area of pronunciation and grammar, Fatima scored a four on both of these sections.

For pronunciation, you can understand what Fatima was saying, but she did have an accent. The
Some of the vowel sounds that certain letters have to make were obscured, this did not although,

impede the meaning of the message being conveyed by her. The “th” sound sometimes sounded

like the “d” sound. When she would say words like “graph”, she pronounced the word as “graf”.

As shown in the vocabulary and fluency paragraph, there was reversal of some words. Instead of

saying the adjective and then the noun, she said the noun and then the adjective as one would in

her native language, Spanish. For the most part, you could understand what Fatima was saying

and her accent did not get in the way of comprehending what she was saying, so she earned a

four in these sections.

The way I decided to observe Fatima was by conversing with Ms. Mendoza and showing

her the instructions for this assignment. Ten out of the fifteen students that Ms. Mendoza had in

her class are considered English Language Learners. The reason she pointed Fatima out to me

was because she had actually had Fatima in her class when she was a kindergarten teacher. She

said that Fatima was born here in the United States but that she only spoke Spanish because her

parents only spoke Spanish. She said that when she took an assessment in Spanish, her native

language, she did really well so she knew that Fatima was bright. In regards to language

development, I believe Fatima for the most part, has a good grasp of the English Language. I am

not sure who she performed on the ELPAC, since this is the first year she would have taken it.

Basing off my observation and interaction with her, I think by the time she is a fourth grader, she

would have passed it. It was really interesting to compare Fatima, a third grader, to Jayden, the

Kindergartener in Part 1. As far as background knowledge, I would say they were about at the

same level. When you are actively looking for the way people use language, you begin to realize

the errors we do. I myself was an ELL student in school and I recognized some mistakes that I

currently do as well. As a teacher, observation made me realize that I have to always be sure to
be speaking and writing properly because we are the ones that these children are looking at as

models of the language.