Professional Documents
Culture Documents
➤The students read the book Dona Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman
with a Great Big Heart, by Pat Mora aloud with the teacher. The book
contained quite a bit of Spanish words as well as cultural references
familiar to the students.
Alan 2 78
Jennifer 1 74
Lucas 9 98
José 8 91
Brian 8 93
Rebecca 5 81
100
75
50
25
Students
EssayMost
ScoresEngaged
(Mean)
SUGGESTIONS
➤ Teacher could write misunderstood directions/vocabulary on the
board in Spanish.
➤ Language breaks were most helpful during the introduction and instructional
portion of the lesson.
EXPANSION
The survey itself was also meant to discern how much the students enjoyed
the book as well as whether or not they found it helpful. The groups’ results
were then compared accordingly to illustrate whether or not this had any
effect on how the book itself may have shaped the data.
One concern was that the use of a culturally relevant text would spike student
interest levels in the lesson and skew the data on whether or not native
language inclusion itself was beneficial to engagement and writing quality.
Based on the aforementioned data, the book itself had little, if any, effect, on
the students’ desire to engage in on-task conversation after having been
given time to ask for clarification in Spanish.
Did not enjoy the Had no
Enjoyed the book
book preference.
Students 4 2 1
Mean
Essay Scores 87.5% 86% 91%
Data showed that 4 students enjoyed the book Doña Flor, 2 students
reported not really enjoying the book, and 1 had no preference.
Effect of Book Interest on Academic Performance
100
75
50
25
➤ Another issue that could arise is the presence of a more diverse ENL
class. If a pull out class is composed of ten students who speak two,
three, or more languages, an educator will have a more strenuous
time attempting to include (and understand) all of them.