Hannah Gookstetter ELL Student Interview

September 30, 2017

T&L 333-01

English Language Learner students come from a variety of backgrounds and origins.

Each student has their own unique story. I chose to interview Betsy Camacho-John, a good

friend of mine and a current college student at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington.

We chatted on September 27th at around 1:15 in the afternoon via FaceTime in a study room in

the Education Addition building. Betsy and I went to high school together and were a part of the

same graduating class. I chose to interview Betsy because she is also an elementary education

major who is getting an ELL endorsement. Because of this, I thought she would have a unique

perspective on language learning and teaching. Betsy is from Bolivia; from Bolivia she moved to

Canada and then to Bellingham, Washington (B. Camacho-John, personal communication,

September 27, 2017). Her first language is Spanish and she started learning English at three-and-

a-half-years old (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017). Her mother

was already fluent in English, therefore Betsy was able to learn English quickly; she learned to

speak English in six months (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017).

She had to learn English because her family had moved to an area where English is the most

common language spoken (B. Camacho-John, September 27, 2017). When asked to define a

language, Betsy said that one must be able to “[speak], read, write, and [understand]” to know a

language (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017). She also listed

these off as the components of a language. When asked what is teaching a language and how she

would teach it Betsy stated that she would start by having her future students listen to the

language and then have them attempt to speak that language (B. Camacho-John, personal

communication, September 27, 2017). When asked what it means to know and use a language
Betsy said she believes that one should “be able to communicate orally and [through writing]”

and should be able to “understand fluently” (B. Camacho-John, personal communication,

September 27, 2017).

Throughout the course of our conversation, I noticed some themes appearing from

Betsy’s responses to my questions. The first theme that emerged is that learning a second

language at a young age may actually be beneficial in the development of the one’s proficiency

in that language. Teaching children multiple languages at an early age because they can ‘absorb’

the language quicker is considered a myth. However, it appears that learning a second language

at a young age is beneficial because one has more opportunities to practice utilizing the

language. For example, Betsy began to learn English at almost four years old. By the time she

was in Kindergarten, she considered herself proficient enough to confidently communicate with

her peers (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017). She attributes this

confidence to the fact that she was exposed to and learned English at such a young age (B.

Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017).

Even though Betsy felt confident communicating with native English speakers at an early

age, Betsy struggled with writing; this is the second theme (B. Camacho-John, personal

communication, September 27, 2017). Writing is hard for ELLs simply because English is a

challenging language that consists of a multitude of grammatical and phonetical rules. “Learning

to write in English is really different,” states Betsy. “In Spanish, you write what you hear” (B.

Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017). She says that if she were to learn

English over again, she would learn how to write sooner (B. Camacho-John, personal

communication, September 27, 2017).

 The previous paragraph leads in to the third theme: ELLs struggle in ways that teachers

cannot always visual observe. Betsy felt confident in mainstream classrooms; however, she felt

looked down upon when she did not understand what was being taught (B. Camacho-John,

personal communication, September 27, 2017). She felt slow to keep up and would often lose

track of the information she was learning (B. Camacho-John, personal communication,

September 27, 2017). Teachers can see when students struggle while speaking, writing, and

reading, but they cannot see when students are struggling internally. As teachers, we need to be

more mindful of how our students are struggling internally in order to manifest a better learning

environment for them in the classroom.

The fourth and final theme that emerged during the interview is that being bilingual has

its perks. For Betsy, one of these perks is being able to help those who do not fully know English

yet (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017). Specifically, Betsy

enjoys being able to translate for those who only speak Spanish (B. Camacho-John, personal

communication, September 27, 2017). Also, she has found that being bilingual is beneficial

because she can communicate with a variety of groups of people and it has been helpful for

school (B. Camacho-John, personal communication, September 27, 2017).

I believe that second language teaching is not only teaching students how to speak, read,

and writing. Second language teaching is about teaching students to communicate with those

surrounding them. The communication skills that we teach our students will affect them for their

rest of their lives and set them up for success. The skills that second language teachers teach their

students are responsible for building the foundation upon which those students will learn upon.

Based on Betsy’s responses and the readings out of the textbook, as a second language

teacher my goal is to promote bilingualism in a proper way. I will do this by encouraging the
principle of additive bilingualism – when a student develops proficiency in a second language

without losing his or her home language – in my classroom (Wright, 2015). According to Wayne

E. Wright, the author of Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners, “English should

be viewed as an additional language rather than as a replacement for their home language”

(2015). One way I can promote the principle of additive bilingualism in my classroom is by

labeling objects around my classroom in both Spanish (or whatever home language is the

majority in my classroom) and in English. This gives ELLs an opportunity to learn English and

to continue to practice their Spanish by allowing them to practice reading and possibly speaking

in both Spanish and English. Also, I could conduct some rituals in both Spanish and English. For

example, if I was to lead my students in singing the days of the week each morning, I could sing

it once in English and once in Spanish. This way my students would be practicing their English

and Spanish. As previously mentioned, Betsy has found being bilingual to be very beneficial; as

a future second language educator I aspire for my students to reap the benefits of being bilingual

and I can attribute to this goal by promoting additive bilingualism in my classroom.

 Works Cited

Wright, Wayne E. (2015). Foundation for Teaching English Language Learners: Research,

Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing.

 Appendix

1. At what age did you start to learn English?

a. Did you learn English because you wanted to, or were there other contributing

circumstances?

2. How beneficial is your second language? For example, does knowing your second

language provide you with more opportunities? Why or why not?

3. Who is your favorite ELL/ESL teacher and why?

a. What did they do that was beneficial for you as a student?

4. What is the best part about knowing a second (or third) language?

5. Grammatically, what is the biggest difference between your native language and English?

6. What was the hardest content area for you to learn?

7. How did you feel in the mainstream classroom?

8. Did you ever feel like you were losing your culture, or understanding of your native

language while learning English? Why or why not?

9. How did you feel when learning a new language?

10. If you had to learn a language over again, what would you do differently?

11. How do your parents feel about learning a second language?

12. How did you feel when people around you were speaking English and you couldn’t

understand?

13. At what point did you consider yourself comfortable enough to communicate with native

English speakers?

14. How comfortable are you now? Do you consider yourself a proficient English speaker?

15. What is a language?

16. What components form a language?

17. What is teaching a language and how would you teach it?

18. What does it mean to know and use a language?