Jorge Prado Biography

The interviewee for my project, Andres Alejo, is currently a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. He was so excited to express his opinions for this interview, as he grew up traveling back and forth between two cultures. Due to his father’s job, he traveled between the United States and the Dominican Republic until he was in fifth grade, when his family returned to the Dominican Republic to stay. During his time in the United States, his time was divided between Mt. Vernon, New York and Miami. Andres eventually returned to the United States to study Piano Performance at Boston Conservatory. His experience with learning English was not as difficult for him, since he started learning during his formative years. He mentioned that his

Learning a new language seems to have only positive effects. However, for a Mexican American, accomplishing this goal brought him drawbacks in the interaction with his family. In his essay, ‘’Public and Private language,’’ Richard Rodriguez describes the difficulty in learning a new language and the sacrifice he makes to accomplish his goal. Richard Rodriguez shares the difficulty for older people, as they learn a new language; however, for younger generations is easier to learn a new language. Also, the new language creates a lack of communication for Richard Rodriguez.

Many of their learning needs are similar to those of other children and young people learning in our schools. However, these learners also have distinct and different needs from other learners by virtue of the fact that they are learning in and through another language, and that they come from cultural backgrounds and communities with different understandings and expectations of education, language and learning”. (NALDIC, 1999).

While living in the Dominican Republic, I studied English every Saturday in an institute. Since I only got to exercise and strengthen my English skills once a week and had no one else to practice with, I didn’t excel in the language until I arrived to the United States. As a result, when I started school in the United States, despite being in ELL classes, I struggled academically and socially. I became frustrated since I wasn’t excelling in school as I had done previously, and I felt lonely because I had a limited group of friends. The language barrier, I concluded, was holding me back. This realization made me determined to find ways in which I could enhance my skills in this new language.

The following Global assessment is for Mrs. Elizabeth Flores and includes a Learner Profile (Appendix). Emigrating from Puebla, Mexico 14 years ago, Mrs. Flores is married with two children. According to Elizabeth, learning English is essential to improving her ability to communicate with, government agencies, medical professionals, and support her children in learning. Regrettably, she has limited opportunities to use English outside of the classroom, living in a Spanish-speaking insulated ethnic community.

The following Language student profile is for Mrs. Elizabeth Flores and includes a Learner Profile (Appendix). Mrs. Flores is a stay at home wife and mother of two, the oldest in kindergarten. She has lived in the United States for the last 14 years emigrating from Puebla, Mexico. Before having children, she worked within in the community she resides not requiring English language skills. According to Elizabeth, learning English is important and will enable her to communication with schools, medical professionals, support her children in learning, and increase future job prospects. She completed Upper Secondary school in her native country, although she states, “it was a burden on her family due to the cost.” While there she completed one year of English, clarifying that “it is very different than what you hear in the US.” Regrettably, she has limited opportunities to use English outside of the classroom since Spanish is the only language spoken in the home along with most of her daily tasks are within the Spanish-speaking indigenous community she lives. The exception medical and education-related interactions that require English particularly due to her son’s High Definition Attention Deficit (HDAD) diagnosis.

This presentation that I will be displaying is to demonstrate the schools, parents and teachers the importance of English language learners and to encourage all parents to get involved and be part of the school culture activities. The involvement is important in assisting students in the schools. Also these courses and affiliations to include families, parents are to value the support and raise the level of their participation, whereas students progress their accomplishment, way of thinking,

“English as a second language” is an essay composed by Lucy Honig. She talked about the protagonist Maria, who came from South America, Guatemala, endured obstacles due to lack of communication or language barrier. Despite the fact that she went to school at night, she would not be able to address her message fluently.

A huge majority of students wish to be able to speak English fluently, but there are some major problems in the conventional teaching strategies which lead to poor listening skills. Most of the teachers focus on more explanation and during which they often drop the use of English language. Even though it’s a sound way to deliver students with understanding and knowledge but this mode of teaching hinders cultivation of linguistic

Candelaria Lopez tried to learn English before, but it did not work. She could not always make it to class on time or at all, and even when she could, it was hard to find the energy to sit through a three-hour session after working for many hours on a farm in New York. After living in the United States for twenty years, she was still not comfortable holding a conversation in English as a Mexican immigrant. That changed after the state of New York offered a unique English language learning program for Spanish-speaking immigrants. Now, a whole new experience has opened for the 38-year-old mother of four. The program works through phone calls and text messages. It has provided her to take on added obligations at work, communicate with her daughter's teacher without a translator, and even help another Spanish-speaking family find an apartment to rent.

As we discussed earlier, Mainstream English language development (MELD) program’s goals are first to develop English language fluency, second, to provide an equal opportunity for native speakers as well as bilingual students to accomplish academic success and to facilitate academic support, and finally to promote each student 's sense of self-worth while, at the same time, enhancing his or her familiarity with key cultural factors. Language is part of the culture and culture was described as a capital that gives identity to each individual. Therefore, it is essential for us as educators, to understand the importance of culture and language of the immigrants or bilingual students, especially Spanish speakers (Hispanics) and to value them by integrating their language and culture as part of their educational process. This integration will facilitate the teaching and learning process for both teachers and students. But the question is, whether the Mainstream English language development program has been successful not only to achieve its goals, but also to integrate the language and culture of the students as part of the teaching process?

This instruments helped in knowing more about the students’ backgrounds, about their language skills, and the activities they usually do using English to figure how to properly address their needs and help them in the areas that they need help in or find difficult to do. It also helped in knowing what they want to learn in order for the teacher to use a learner-centered approach to engage the students in their learning process and keep them interested in learning the language.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze how the needs of the students will be met, while researching how to teach. Nowadays students of the entire world are learning to speak English, but their reasons are different from student to student. The purpose students have for learning will have an effect on what it is they want and need to learn . In this essay the needs of the student Paola Jovanna Alfaro Rios will be discuss, her motivation for study English, learning style will be describe as well as her weakness in English and also how to solve some of them.

Before we start off with the activities, we need to know what the word listening means. Harmer (2001, p.228) viewed listening as a fundamental language skill. “It provides the perfect opportunity to hear voices other than the teacher’s, enable students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the spoken English they absorb, and helps to improve their own pronunciation”.

Rodriguez and Espada both share their opinions on the public use of Spanish and their experiences with the transformation of becoming bilingual with Spanish and English. Espada’s second language of English, and Rodriguez’s second language of Spanish seem to determine what community they belong to as an American citizen to their identity as whole.