[Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher

[Miriam E Ebsworth]

Thank you Wayne for your thoughtful response.
I agree totally with your characterization of the situation which I will
share with the teacher.

All best wishes,
Miriam

On Apr 18, 2016 7:15 PM, "Wright, Wayne E" <wewright at purdue.edu> wrote:
>
> The whole thing sounds messed up — especially the part about refusing to
sit down with the teacher to talk about the observation.
>
> On the narrow question of the positioning of the Spanish and English text
— I think that’s nitpicking. There may be some argument that the putting
English on top puts it in a more privileged position, but even in
side-by-side text one could argue the one on the left is “privileged”
because we read left-to-right.
>
> More important is the pedagogical purpose, and its sounds like the effort
was to allow students to draw on their linguistic repertoires to make sense
of the texts — sounds pretty defensible to me.
>
>
> Wayne E. Wright, PhD
> Professor and Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy  and Language
> Purdue University
> College of Education
> Department of Curriculum and Instruction
> Beering Hall of Liberal Arts and Education, Room 4108
> 100 N. University St.
> West Lafayette, IN 47907
> (765) 494-3936
> http://www.edci.purdue.edu/faculty_profiles/wright/index.html
> Co-Editor, Journal of Language, Identity, and Education (
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hlie20/current)
> Editor, Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement (
http://www.jsaaea.org)
>
>
> From: <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se> on behalf of Susan Behrens <
sbehrens at mmm.edu>
>
> Reply-To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
> Date: Monday, April 18, 2016 at 10:24 AM
>
> To: 'The Educational Linguistics List' <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
> Subject: Re: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher
>
> HI, seems to me that if the observer won’t meet, “dialogue” with the
observed, the whole observation write up should be suspect.
>
>
>
> From: edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se [mailto:
edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se] On Behalf Of Miriam E Ebsworth
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 8:30 AM
> To: Francis Hult; The Educational Linguistics List
> Subject: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher
>
>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> A grad of one of our programs is a bilingual (Spanish) social studies
teacher in New York City, with 11 years of teaching experience.
>
> The teacher received a super-critical review of a class observation from
somebody outside the school who observed a single lesson. The observer knew
nothing in advance about the teacher's curriculum or approach; there had
been no communication with the teacher in advance of the observation.
After having written a scathing observation report, the observer refused to
have a conversation with the teacher, who sought politely to explain their
perspective and try to understand better the nature of the critique.
>
> The teacher has requested input on one issue in particular:
>
> At the top of the lesson, the teacher had written a guiding question in
English with the Spanish version directly underneath.
>
> The teacher, as I understand it, sought to have the students first try to
understand the text in English, then read it in Spanish, and using all
linguistic resources make meaning out of the question. (And ultimately, the
students will be tested in English.)
>
> One of the many criticisms in the observation report was that the English
and Spanish versions should have appeared side by side rather than one
above the other. The teacher is perplexed.
>
> While the teacher's explanation makes sense to me, I have been asked
whether there is any objective guidance available from the research on best
practices to advocate for EITHER of the 2 approaches (2 languages side by
side versus one above the other).
>
> Thank you in advance for sharing your perspective. I'll pass it on.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Miriam
>
> Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, PhD
> Dir. of PhD & Post-MA Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
> NYU Steinhardt,
>
> 316 East Building
>
> New York, NY 10003
>
> Research Editor: Journal of Writing and Pedagogy
> Chair, NABE Research SIG Advisory Board
>
> Co-chair, ELL Think Tank
>
> office phone: (212) 998-5195
> office fax: (212) 995-3636
>
>
>
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A
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