José’s Oral Language:
José and I had a nice conversation in Spanish and in English
last week after school. As I
mentioned before, José is a bright kid who often stays after school with a few
of his classmates to complete assignments and take advantage of his classmates’
and teachers’ help.
José told me that he began school in the United States at
Sandburg Elementary as a kindergartener but before that had lived in Mexico and
spoken only Spanish. Because he
was introduced to English after the age of 3 and before 7, José fits under the
category of a sequential bilingual student according to Beeman’s working
definition. Although I normally
interact with José in English, lately I have been observing him use more
Spanish in the classroom due the recent arrival of a student from Colombia who
has very minimal English proficiency.
José has been kind to assist the new student in many of their
classes.
In terms of his ACCESS scores, he has scored between 4.8 and
6 on the “oral” and “speaking” sections dating back to 2006. These scores indicate to me the speed
at which he picked up oral language abilities in English and also the
reliability of the ACCESS speaking test – there are several years where he
scored a 6 one year and then a 5.2 the next.
As José and I spoke, I was impressed by his ability to
converse in both languages very fluently and articulately. He was able to clearly separate the two
languages with minimal “interference” from either one. The 8th graders are in the
process of selecting courses for their first year of high school so our
conversation naturally hovered around this topic. I found it interesting that there were several instances of
code-switching when he was speaking in Spanish but only one discernable miscue
when speaking in English. As I was
asking him about what a normal day in Algebra class looked like, José
code-switched to English when saying the word “function”. Apparently, he was used to seeing and
using this word in English but not it’s cognate in Spanish. Similarly, he asked me “¿Cómo se dice Language Arts? When our conversation
veered towards the classes he did not enjoy. One other interesting detail was that he used a linguistic
blend when speaking about language arts.
At one point he said, “tenemos que hacer nuestro págrafos del cuento….”
These examples of code-switching and linguistic blending indicate
the dominating effect of English on his school life. It also made me realize that I should have prepared for a
conversation in both languages that touched on bases other than school. If I had asked him questions about his
home life I might have found that he had an easier time discussing this topic
in Spanish as this is the primary language he uses at home.
Our conversation in English centered around some of his
class selections for the coming year and also some of the activities he does at
home to keep himself occupied.
Besides learning that he got in trouble a few years ago for playing with
fire I found that he spoke like a regular 8th grader. His language skills were definitely
more “social” than “academic” (e.g. often used “cuz…” and “we play around…”)
which I would say reflects the majority of the 8th grade population
at my school. Some words were
slurred/blended together but this seems to be his style of speaking in both
languages. One final note that I
made was his inability to come up with the word for “cabinet” in English or in
Spanish. I don’t believe this had
to do with any negative transfer or interference, but merely forgetting a word.
Overall, José is willing and able to communicate very
effectively in English and in Spanish.
At school, he prefers to speak English because it is the lingua franca
and also because his friends use this language – he tends to hang around
students who don’t speak Spanish.
With the arrival of our new student from Colombia, José is using Spanish
more frequently but does not appear to go out of his way to use his Spanish
abilities.
According to the assessment rubrics, I would place José at a
level 5 for his English and Spanish proficiency. He was able to use a variety of sentence lengths and
technical and colloquial vocabulary when conversing in both languages. He is not a loud, outgoing student so
he gets less practice speaking in class than some of his peers, but one on one,
he is at least “approaching” his English proficient peers in terms of his
comprehensibility and fluency. In
Spanish as well, he appears to be as proficient as other Spanish speakers. My only concern with José is that the
English-dominant context of his education experience is leading him down a path
where his Spanish abilities are devalued.
This may lower his academic language skills in Spanish – as I found as
he code-switched several times back into English as we discussed school-related
topics.
Thanks for sharing on José, especially the detail on how the new student from Colombia has affected his use of Spanish. It was interesting to read about his different reliance on code-switching when speaking in English versus Spanish. Given that he is a sequential bilingual student with Spanish as his first language, and that he still hears Spanish at home, I was very surprised that the majority of code-switching occurred when he was speaking in Spanish and not English. At first glance, I would have thought that his vocabulary and language would be more developed in Spanish and he would not have to rely on code-switching as much.
ReplyDeleteDo you think his use of code-switching in Spanish is due to a lack of those words in his Spanish vocabulary or is it out of habit because he mainly speaks English at school?
You bring up a good point in your reflection as to whether the topic of conversation would have changed his Spanish oral language. I wonder if he is always responding to family members in Spanish, or if they only speak to him in Spanish while he responds to English. It would be very interesting to observe his Spanish oral language when talking with the new student from Colombia. I wonder what the prevalence of code-switching or interference with English would be.
You rated José at a level 5 for both Spanish and English oral language. Do you think the development of BICS and CALP in each language is about the same in each language? Is his academic vocabulary stronger in English (you give the example of “function” from Algebra) since that is the primary language of instruction he receives at school?
Hi Grace,
DeleteI am of the opinion that his code-switching in Spanish is probably due to his contact with "school vocabulary" in English - he is aware of the Spanish equivalents but does not use them as often.
José is comfortable speaking in either language but he is also very aware of the his social surroundings. For example, if I ask him a question in Spanish around English speakers (teachers or peers), he will usually respond in English. However, if I'm speaking with the new student and we are all engaged in conversation he will use Spanish so that the other student can understand. At home he tells me that he speaks Spanish with his parents but sometimes uses English with his siblings.
Regarding your question about BICS and CALP in each language - it certainly seems that his academic language is stronger in English than in Spanish, probably a 'function' of his schooling being almost entirely in English.
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading Jose’ oral analysis. I was wondering, do Jose’s parents speak English? Does he have older or younger siblings that attend school and may also be learning just in English? What do you think has helped the most to Jose on becoming bilingual? Also, how are demographics in your school? You mentioned that there are English language learners, but in which percentage?
Flor
Hi Flor,
DeleteJosé's parents speak a little English but use Spanish at home and with their children. He has younger siblings who are learning both languages as well. The fact that José lives with a family that speaks Spanish but attends a mainly English-speaking school has probably been the two most influential factors in his bilingual development. About 20 percent of our school is Latino with Spanish speaking abilities. I do not know what the Spanish literacy abilities are of these students, however.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts about Jose and his abilities in Spanish and English. He seems to be very strong orally in both languages. I'm also curious as to what the conversation would have been like in Spanish if you had talked about his home life. I'm guessing he probably would have had an easier time conversing and would have used less code switching. What do you think his general attitude is toward his native language? It's interesting that he tends to hang around with students that only speak English, maybe that says something about his attitude toward Spanish?
ReplyDelete