Shannon Young

TLS 416

Danlei Chen

13 November 2017

Interview With an ELL Students

For my interview I picked a little girl in my class who is our student who has the hardest

time with English in the classroom because she didn’t start learning English until kindergarten. I

know that no one in Leahs family speaks English but her because she is in school and she is an

only child. She knows most words but when she shares during class it can be hard to understand

her but what I've noticed most is that she does a great job at understanding and executing

whatever instruction she is given. Leah is a very bright and loving student who is always willing

to help us out and she loves helping out other students as well.

When asking her about her family at home Leah told me a lot about her family and what

they do together. She told me how her family is always together and her Tia always comes over

and helps her mom cook for her and her cousins. They play outside a lot and she loves to play

soccer and she always beats her cousins every time. To me it seems like family is a huge part of

their life and their extended family is always together which makes sense to me because she is

always helping out and looking for things to do in the classroom. From what I know and what

she tells me Spanish is the only language spoken at home which is why I think she hasn’t made

as much progress as the other ELL students because she is not getting that practice at home.

Food is something that I can tell is a big part of their family. Leah told me all about her

and her family cooking tacos together and that it is her favorite meal that she makes. She loves

chicken tacos and loves a lot of cheese on them. When she comes in for school her mom always
has a lunch of her with her different types of favorite foods and the way that she does it is that

Leah tells her mom what she wants for lunch the night before and she makes it for her that

morning because her mom says that food is a very important part of their culture and it is what

brings their family close together.

Leah loves to read and she loves to be read to which I think is super important for her

English learning and I think because whenever we have free time she always asks me to read a

book to her. I believe that this helps her a lot because she is able to hear and understand what I

am saying and some of the time if I know words she would struggle with I will have her repeat it

back to me and give her the definition so that she can have a been comprehension of the book. I

thought it would be a good idea to ask her about how she chooses her book. Our books in our

classroom are all labeled with pictures to determine what the book is about. For example, if the

child wants to read a book about animals, there is a bin of books all about animals and has a

picture of different types of animals so they know that it is what the book is going to be about.

This is from our reading about labeling in the classroom and using pictures so that the students

can have a better understanding of what it is without having to read or ask the teacher or other

students what it is. It also helps them put words with pictures so if they see a picture of an animal

and the word animal that helps them make connections. I asked if this helped her pick out her

books and she told me she usually goes to the books with he picture of the little girl on it and that

is our section on feelings.

Leah loves to learn new things about people all of the time. She always will come up and

ask me questions about my family. Something that she is constantly asking me is if I am married.

I finally asked her why she always asked me that question and she told me because I have so

many rings it looks like I'm married. From there I was able to teach her what finger the ring goes
on if you are married and showed her her left hand and her ring finger and told her this is the

finger that you put a ring on if you are married and she thought it was so cool and interesting and

went on to tell other students in our classroom about it.

After learning about Leah even further I have a better understanding about why she is our

lowest English language learner. If she is not at school she is not getting any practice with

learning and speaking english. What I have noticed is how good of a student Leah is and how

much she cares about her teachers and peers and I think that is why she has gotten so much better

with her English and why she is making so much progress. She gets excited about learning and

doing new things and that is why she has been succeeding so much over the past year. From this

interview I have learned to always clarify things with her and to always ask her if she understand

a word that I think she is having trouble reading or writing. I think giving her this support with

reading and writing it will help her succeed even more then she already is and it will help her

English expand.

I think that this assignment was extremely helpful for me because I work with Leah all of

the time in the book report station and I can tell when she is struggling so now I know what I can

connect it to. If she is reading a book about food I can connect it to her family and what her

family makes and make it relatable for her so she understands it better. I also can relate her

family into any story and talk about her experiences to understand writing about her day which is

something we do every morning. Moving forward I cant wait to implement this into Leahs

learning and see how much farther she comes within the next couple of weeks.