Make-up Day

28 May 2012

Since I'm going to missing a day next week (because I'll be in Morocco!), I went to school today to make it up. However, before going to my school, I stopped by an American friend's school in order to observe some of the similarities and differences between our English programs.

My friend was a Fulbrighter last year and continued working at the same school this year with the Ministerio de educación (Ministry of Education) program. She's invested a lot of time and energy into this program and I was curious to see what sorts of results she's had.

Her school's English program is rather unique in the Alicante-area. It's a English immersion program targeted at reading. However, the program starts in preschool--when the students are only 3 years old! These students are learning how to read in English before they ever learn to read in Spanish!

Furthermore, I would argue that they are learning to read even earlier than most American kids. When my sister was in kindergarten, she was learning to read simple sight words--like "cat," "the," "a," etc... However, these Spanish kids are learning to sound out some more difficult words. I think this is partially due to a difference in educational practices. In Spain, students learn to read at a younger age because reading in Spanish is straightforward. Each letter grouping only has one pronunciation--not like in English with words like "tough," "thought," "though," "through."

I had the chance to see the kids in action, and they were incredible!

The 5-year-olds were able to read books to me--even reading more difficult words like "caterpillar" and "butterfly." Their reading comprehension was also impressive.

There were a couple things that I noticed that did intrigue me--though these observations are based on just a short amount of time with the kids. First, I noticed that the kids tended to sound out everything and that they knew fewer sight words--like "the" and "a." I figure that part of this is due to the fact that their native language is still Spanish even though they are in an English immersion class. Second, the students do a lot more code-switching than my students. For example, when one student was asked if the book was too hard, she replied, "El libro era too hard." In some cases, the students use some phrases more in English than they do in Spanish, and so I heard phrases like, "Vienen de huevos like the dinosaurs." 


Later, I went to the 4-year-old classroom--where I got to see how it all works. At this school, they teach the kids to read using Jolly Phonics. The English language has 42 phonemes or distinct sound combinations. With Jolly Phonics, each phoneme has a little song and gesture to help remind the kids of how to pronounce the phoneme. They use these songs/gestures to help kids sound out words.  

Visiting my friend's school was an interesting contrast because my students are never taught how to read in English. This is part of the reason why even in 6th grade I hear the most appalling pronunciations like "bow-at" (boat) and "ga-may" (game).

I wish there were some way to combine these programs! I think that my students would benefit from a crash course in reading in English. I often hear from students, "Se escribe de una manera y se pronuncia de otra." (English is written one way and pronounced another). However, the real problem is that they don't view English reading and pronunciation as separate from Spanish. I've contemplated going to school one day and pronouncing everything in Spanish as if it were English in order to help them get the idea that English and Spanish reading and pronunciation are two completely different things.