Even though this article used data from a lesson about the Rock cycle, I had a difficult time getting through the article. I think the points posed by the authors are very significant and valid, but I had a very hard time understanding those points. The author's certainly were using academic language, to the point where I was very challened to understand the sentences! I also found myself confused and disagreeing with much of what the authors had to say.
However, even with my difficulty in understanding this artcile, I found this statement of partcicular interest: "Both the verbal and visual data attest to the lexicalization of Linda's rock cycle lesson (pg.49)". In my personal experience, I feel that providing students both visual and linguistic information enhances their learning. I am currently tutoring ELL students in chemistry and I always back up what I am saying with pictures. So far, it has not failed me! I had an amazing teacher moment when I was trying to get my student to understand the word "precipitate". I talked to her like I would any other high school student; there is no need to dumb down science or my vocabulary. I explained how I drink a lot of coffee and that I put sugar in my coffee. I then drew a coffee cup with a spoon of sugar. I then explained how sometimes I put too much sugar in, so I added more sugar on top of my spoon picture. I then explained to her that all that sugar can't mix in so there is some sugar on the bottom of my mug. So I drew little sugar particles on the bottom of my mug. The student went "Oooooh!" and I saw the lightbulb come on. She had not said a word before then (probably because she is shy about speaking in English) but after that moment she started to talk to me in fluent English.
Thus my confusion when the authors of this artcile seemed to describe how using visuals to help students with vocabulary "overshadows the semantic relations...". The authors then go on to say, "In doing so, it ignores and thus fails to not only model, but also simply provide for the students linguistically constructed meaning to fully realize and articulate those relations." I completely disagree with this statement. When pictures are used in teaching science, it helps students connect to the topic; otherwise the words on the board are just a bunch of jumbled letters that scientists put together to make a vocabukary word for future students to learn. When the picture is taught in the midst of a linguistically rich lesson, the students are not losing out on vocabualry or meaning. The pictures are there to enhance meaning for ALL students.
But neither can you teach an entire lesson in pictures; that dumbs down the lesson (at least in the upper grades!!). That is where it is important to continue speaking English to ELL students - it will help them understand pronounciations and meanings. The pictures are there for when students need help understanding meanings. For example, in children's books, the pictures are there to enhance the meaning of the story because young children have most likely not developed advanced enough reading fluency to have the story "play in their mind". So why not use pictures in science lessons to enhance the meaning until the ELL students become fluent in English?
As I said before, I had a difficult understanding this article so perhaps I misinterpretted the authors. However, I found their statements about visuals in vocabularly lessons distrubring. Vocabulary is vital to science - if you cannot speak in "science" you will have a difficult time. If I didn't speak "geologist", for example, I would muyself floating around in the ether in my upper level geology classes. That is why it is so important to push our students to expand their vocabularies, no matter if they are ELL or not. I personally believe that when pictures are coupled with a rich verbal and written language it enhances meaning for ALL students of ALL ages and abilities.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I definitely agree with what you wrote here. The pictures and sentence starters that were provided for help in the science class that was taught to us in Spanish were definitely helpful. I think that the authors were trying to say that pictures have the potential to dumb down the material if overused or used in the wrong manner. I think that the way you used pictures could help any student learn the content, not just ELL students. I really think that as long as what we are doing in the classroom is pedagogically sound, trying to help students understand by any means possible is not a bad thing.
I also agree with your comments and i also believe that pictures are great resource for students to comprehend the material visually. I had a hard time understanding the author as well because of the language and clarity of the sentences. I think that the authors were trying to provide evidence that ELL teacher don't provide enough resources and time for students to perform science. They believed that students are merely learning words without actually comprehending the content.
I didn't read that article, but I'm thinking that you cannot use the both extremes too much-meaning you can't always use just words or always use just pictures. Like you said, to use the pictures and the words together. I was thinking about how beginner readers learn to read, like students in kindergarten, and a lot of their beginning reading is starting by looking at the pictures. That's what the pictures are there for! to help us make meaning and understand what we're reading or learning better. so to me it makes sense to use both words and pictures. I also agree with you that the science vocabulary is very important, and students should be using the vocabulary in their speaking and writing. You have to figure out how to sort of gradually ween them off of the pictures so that they are not always relying only on the pictures.
Post a Comment