Rationale and Objectives
I am writing this unit specifically for a fourth-grade Spanish/English Dual Immersion class. However, the reading material will span many reading levels in both languages, due to the fact that many students enter the class reading two or three grade levels below standard, some students test on a pre-kindergarten level, some read on grade level and a few read above it. Hence, because the material is graduated, the curriculum could easily be adapted to primary level. In fact, it could be used on the high school or even college level simply by substituting much of the bibliographical reference material for classroom use, as the unit contains numerous simplified books that directly mirror the more sophisticated source material in the bibliography. Some of the exemplary activities cited later will work on any level, by merely increasing the level of expectation.
My overarching goal for this unit is to inspire my students to make the leap into being first successful thinkers and then successful speakers, readers and writers. My broad objective is to produce bilingual, biliterate and bicultural individuals who are able to move at will through society speaking, reading, writing and perceiving in English and Spanish. This objective will be achieved by my instructional delivery in both languages, by student speaking, reading and writing in both languages and by providing, through discussion, interviews and literature, myriad examples of cultural ideation and its expression as represented by both cultural groups.
Although I teach in a 50/50 Dual Language Immersion program, my reasons for supporting this delivery system go far beyond my attachment to any particular program. Research has shown, time and again, that teaching a child to think, read and write first and well in his or her own native language, Language 1, provides the needed infrastructure to be able to acquire Language 2 with facility and relative ease. A brain-compatible second language teaching model requires that I provide, first of all, a "silent stage" of learning during which time my Spanish-speaking students are absorbing English and the English-speaking students Spanish, and secondly, that I teach language to children by immersion in a rich language "soup," rather than through an always-systematic program of learning.
This unit lends itself beautifully to the above-mentioned second language acquisition model. I will present the material in three sections that will mirror the process the human brain uses to acquire language. In the first section, students will listen to their target language being spoken and read. They will read literature primarily in their native language, be it English or Spanish. As well, there will be a wide variety of choices of literature available on various reading levels. Students will recount what they have read and discuss it in their primary language.
In the second section or phase, students will continue to read, write and speak in their primary language, but will enter discussion groups in L2 and attempt some speaking in L2, along with listening. This strategy will continue in the third phase with students taking on more speaking responsibility in Language 2, while beginning to read in L2. Students who are already bilingual will speak, read and write in both languages, continuing to strengthen their speaking and reading skills in their first language while increasing their usage of the second one.
Above and beyond my primary goal of inspiring struggling readers to make the leap into being successful thinkers, speakers, readers and writers, my objectives for this unit are threefold: 1) to bring an awareness and love on the part of my students for their rich cultural and literary heritage, 2) to foster an understanding and appreciation for the common roots and cultural influences that they share, thereby cultivating solidarity among them, and 3) to nurture the struggling seeds of self-esteem and bring them to rich flower, and in the process begin to generate metacognitive skills that will continue to serve them throughout their lives.
A word here to teachers who teach in any situation where there exist two cultures living side-by-side that share common roots: the ideas presented in this unit could be well-adapted to fit any bicultural situation. The goals and strategies would remain the same, and it would be only the culture-specific literature that would change.
My primary objective, to promote metacognitive thinking skills first and then produce speakers, readers and writers, hearkens back to the seminal work of Piaget, since his developmental learning theory is biologically based and therefore transcends cultural restrictions and conventions.
While respecting the need to hold students (and teachers) accountable to a given set of curricular standards in order to raise the achievement levels of students, I submit that this must be accomplished within a range of biologically-driven achievement criteria, particularly in cases where the educational delivery system is dealing with English Language Learners. Research has shown that it takes children, indeed anyone, from five to seven years to become fully fluent in L2. It is my belief that the current emphasis on testing and teaching exclusively to standards contained in a year-end assessment examination is leading teachers away from a developmental view of learning that takes into account children's cognitive abilities at any given age.
Piaget's theory of knowledge acquisition reminds us that intelligence is a growing phenomenon. As children grow, they get smarter. Similarly, as children grow in language acquisition, they get smarter. Hans Furth, in his book Piaget for Teachers, advises teachers that "the first job of our elementary schools today should be to strengthen the thinking foundations on which any particular learning is founded"(1). He goes on to say that it is "motivation that really counts in the business of learning to read" (2). And finally, that it is symbols that tie language to thinking. Hence, a "differentiated sign" refers directly to a form of knowing.
This curriculum unit will follow these developmental guidelines by stimulating thinking and motivating students to read by providing a rich menu of listening, speaking, reading and writing activities. In line with Piaget's philosophy of linking language to thinking through the use of symbols, I'll begin the unit by introducing Aztec pictograph writing. In the preconquest Aztec kingdom, pictographs were drawn by artists and then presented by singing/chanting historians who used the pictographs to illustrate the story chronicles. Since that was their purpose, these symbols can lead us smoothly into our investigation, reading and writing about the historical subject matter, and students will be provided with listening and speaking activities. From this basis students will proceed to higher order language skills.
The integrative theme, the warp of my unit, is a work of fiction entitled Esperanza Rising/Esperanza Renace by Pam Munoz Ryan. This is a triumphant tale of a young girl, born into a wealthy ranching family in Mexico, who emigrates to California with her mother upon the death of her father to become a migrant farm worker. Experience has shown me that my students love this thoughtful, thought-provoking and well-crafted story because there is much in it with which they identify. As well, they take great pleasure in listening to me read it. I plan to alternate reading a chapter at a time, one day in Spanish and the next day in English. In line with current biologically based language acquisition theory, students will listen to me read in order to obtain the deep structure of L2; however, and perhaps more importantly, they will listen for the sheer pleasure of being read to in their mother tongue. Sometimes I'll require them to follow along in their own copies of the text, and occasionally I'll invite student readers who enjoy reading aloud to read to the class. At no time will any student be required to read aloud from this book.
I will use this story to chart character development, discuss fictional plot and structure elements and make predictions. After about a week of reading this book aloud and discussing it whole-class, I will segue into the unit formally by inviting students to journey with me on a discovery of where Esperanza's family, and her "helper," Miguel, whose family served Esperanza's family, came from and why they emigrated to the United States. I will enjoin them to take a journey backwards in time to uncover the early ancestors of Esperanza and perhaps discover something about their own roots in Spain and Mexico as well. I will continue to read aloud from Esperanza Rising throughout the entire unit, thus returning always to the spoken word, reinforcing listening skills and simply providing a resting place from the sometimes arduous work of learning a new language.
The three stages or sections of this unit will be chronological, thematic and metaphoric. We will begin by making text-to-self connections in the first section, then move to text-to-world connections in the second, and return to text-to-self connections in the third. I will encourage students to make text-to-text connections as the unit unfolds.
I plan to spend an hour a day for an entire semester in covering this unit. If I need to spill over into the second semester I will, because the unit covers most of the New Mexico fourth grade Language Arts standards as well as some of the Social Studies standards.
It is important to note that I have selected many reading levels of text to reflect the varied reading levels of my student population. Also, since I'm teaching in a bilingual immersion program, the books are in either English or Spanish, but they mirror each other in content, so that students are learning primarily the same information. (Of course, Literature Circles, composed of typically four to six children, may focus on one topic while another group studies a slightly different, but related, topic.) A few of the books have side-by-side text in translation.
Since I always have students who speak, read and write primarily in Spanish, primarily in English or, more rarely, glide easily back and forth between the two languages, I assign more complicated Spanish texts to the native Spanish readers and lead them along with gradually more challenging texts in English, and vice versa for the native English readers. Literature Circles begin with monolingual readers and gradually branch out to include text to be read in L2 and native speakers of both languages. Ability levels are varied and the configuration of the groups changes according to what is needed by individual students at any given time. Again, my goal is to produce bilingual, biliterate children.
However, it is to the third objective, that of producing bicultural students, capable of sympathetic identification with the non-dominant culture (according to their understanding of this at age 10), that I turn now in order to invoke the unit curriculum's substantive learning.
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