Where Do I Start?

Description of learner:
Rosa is a 37-year old Salvadoran who has been in this country for 14 years. She is married, has two school-age children, and works full-time as a hairdresser. Her spoken English is accented but otherwise good, and when she contributes an idea to the class, it is often an astute observation.

Challenges faced:
At her first class, Rosa stated in her quiet but direct manner that she would only be able to attend on Tuesdays and would not have time for any homework because of the demands of her job and child-raising. Although she scored at a 7.7 grade level in reading comprehension on the TABE, (Tests of Adult Basic Education, CTB/McGraw Hill), the academic assessment showed several areas of major weakness. Her only demonstrated math skill was addition of whole numbers, and her writing sample included serious deficiencies in spelling and sentence structure. For example, she misspelled the same word in different ways within the same paragraph, and most sentences were phrases, sentence fragments, or grammatically or structurally incorrect full sentences.

What we did:
During our initial discussion, we narrowed the instructional focus to one of the three academic areas of concern. This way, she could see progress from the two hours per week class participation. She chose to target writing and set a goal to write at least half a page weekly that we would go through together privately. One of her major goals is to write in complete sentences, and for that she chose to work through a section of a pre-GED (General Educational Development Test) workbook. She elected to copy passages of particular interest, because she thought it was how she would learn best. From the copy-selections we made spelling lists for study and set other goals, such as deciding where and how to start and end sentences and what to capitalize. When reviewing her original compositions, a particularly useful strategy is to tell her how many of a certain kind of error there are and then giving her time to find and fix them. Another technique which she likes is to make a "good copy" once she has corrected the errors. This allows her practice with correct writing conventions. Another thing she has done is to participate in almost all group lessons. Even if they are not on skills she is currently targeting, she likes the peer interaction and finds it helps her stay involved.

Analysis:
The copying approach has worked fairly well for Rosa. Also, by focusing on spelling, capitalization, and how to begin and end sentences, her writing is showing gradual improvement in the targeted skills. Since Rosa has attended the learning center about 100 hours over two years (about half the Tuesdays in that time). She continues to work on writing and to participate in most group lessons. Her reading and writing have both improved a great deal, although her writing still shows numerous errors.

What I learned:
I feel that an important aspect of Rosa's progress has been that she made choices of how and what to work on. I think this is benefiting her for several reasons: it gives her autonomy and buy-in, and it also allows her to use learning methods she knows or senses work best for her. While I am generally not in favor of copying, this strategy provides Rosa models she can use for her own compositions.

Discussion:

How did you react when Rosa said she could come to class only once a week and that she could not devote any out-of-class time to learning?
I said I would be willing to work with her on under those conditions, but she needed to realize that her progress would be slower than if she came more often and spent some at-home time on her academic goals. I am pleased that I agreed to her terms, because she continues to come to class and she is making strong progress in reading and consistent, but slow, progress in writing.

Why do you think she is making such good progress on reading when she works mainly on writing skills?
Reading and writing can reinforce each other. As she worked on writing, Rosa was really working on vocabulary as well. As she said the words she was hearing the words. She also was finding better words and phrases to express her ideas. As she copied sentences, Rosa was experiencing appropriate syntax and word usage. In learning to defend a main idea in writing, she learned to interpret how an author supports ideas.

You mentioned that generally you're not in favor of copying, so why did you go along with this approach?
When a student offers an approach believed to be of help, I think it best to accept it for three reasons. First, it honors a student's sense of autonomy. Second, often a reflective student has learned survival skills and, in this case, copying may be one of them for Rosa. Third, whether she is fully aware of it or not, Rosa has a better sense of her individual learning style than I do, since we had just met.

You describe telling her how many errors but not identifying them. Why wouldn't you point out the specific mistakes? Didn't she feel that was your job as teacher?
I feel there is learning in wrestling with proofreading. In the past, I've spent considerable time correcting students' mistakes, only to have them glance at their papers. They fail to process the errors and how to correct them, so my corrections serve little learning purpose. Knowing how many errors there are and of what type offers a reasonable challenge. For example, when first learning to find one's own errors, I might say, "There are six spelling errors. See if you can find and correct three." Generally, students will find all six, but by reducing my demands, individual students take on more responsibility for their own learning. At the same time, telling the student how many errors to look for in, say, capitalization or verb tense allows the opportunity to narrow the search thus making the task a comfortable one. When Rosa finds her own errors, it sets her up for success rather than failure, and the more she is self-directed (with support), the closer she is to writing compositions independently.

I wouldn't necessarily do this with every student. I try to match the approach to the student's needs. But of course, the more they do for themselves, the more students can learn and the closer they are to being able to work independently.

Summary:

Director's Comments:

It sounds like you have selected a workable approach for helping Rosa reach her goals. You may wish to consider the use of a portable CD or tape player Rosa could listen to going to and from the learning center and/or while working alone at home. Commercial material for ESOL learners may include too many words and phrases for Rosa, but if you could tape information appropriate to her learning needs, she could hear the Spanish and the correct English word, phrase or sentence. Translations of this type have been found effective for many years and they may work well for Rosa and her busy life.