Writing Analysis

Guada writes a lot, both in Spanish and English. At home, she writes stories and poems, and has talked about wanting to become a writer.


Everyday, the students start with a free write for 5 minutes. Normally, Guada writes in English. This week I asked her to write two different entries in Spanish so I could see what her Spanish looked like. Here are some things I found about her writing.


 In English, she makes many spelling errors that are common among developing language learners. (tink for Think, bicause for because). Other spelling errors she makes too but inconsistently. In one writing sample she writes "and" "anh", but in others she writes it correctly. "hwo" represents "who," although again, it is inconsistently used. 


According to the Rubin/Carlan stages of writing, I believe Guada's writing in English is in the phonetic stage. She makes some erros repeatedly and  doesn't always include silent letters, and a lot of basic words are still spelled incorrectly. She inconsistently uses correct spelling, so I believe that she is starting to reach towards the transitional stage in English.  Her tendency to write words as phonetically as possible is a clear transfer from her knowledge about spelling in Spanish. 

 Syntaxtically, she makes some erros that are transfer from Spanish. ("having years", or "to do fat" for "become fat") Other times, she omits subjects (is for "it is"). There is clearly transfer when she says "the person hwo like to see sports in the tv", She transfers the verb mirar and uses it literally, and forgets the inflection on the verb like. On top of that she confuses the preposition in/on in English. This is especially common for speakers of Spanish with limited English. 

 She rarely code switches in her writing in English. If she can not find the vocabulary word, she will often ask for it, or she will simply use circumlocution to get around it. (Often using the phrase "the thing that...") When Guada can not find the correct vocabulary, she can still be understood. In her English writing she wrote "like when you have 4 or 5 years or up" instead of "more," and "5 or down" that meant "5 or less."

In Spanish, she makes common mistakes for in grammar and spelling. She confuses por/para, and does not include the letter H in her writing, almost at all. She also intermixes b's and v's in her writing. These are common errors for a student her age, and aren't unique to her English language learning. Her spelling approximations in Spanish are much closer to the correct spelling than when she approximates in English. Because of this, I believe she is in the transitional phase of writing in Spanish. 


Guada occasionally code-switches. She was writing about "being as free as a bird" and wrote " si fuera free..." in her sentence, although early in the same writing piece she used the word "libre." He

She writes a lot, and her ideas are communicated, although not with academic vocabulary. Just as the Montaño-Harmon article stated about discourse patterns, Guada has a lot of run-on sentences, both in Spanish and English. Her Spanish sentences tend to be longer, and veer off on to related topics. However, she does not make this transition smoothly. Her writing lacks transitional phrases in both Spanish and English. 


Guada does not receive any instruction in Spanish, except for instructions about what to do, or explanations in Spanish from me or another BRS. I continue to struggle with where to go from here. I believe the research that she should be developing both her language skills to better her literacy but our schedule does not allow her to get academic reading in English and Spanish for Spanish speakers.


I recently gave her a reading assessment called Achieve 3000. It is a leveled computer program that will increase in difficulty if you answer correctly, or decrease difficulty if you do not. What was really surprising to me was that although her writing in Spanish is in the transitional phase, her reading (only according to this test) is "pre literate."  I am not very familiar with the test, and would like to sit down with Guada one day to get a better sense of her reading in Spanish. It's puzzling to me to think she can be pre-literate in reading and be in a transitional phase in writing. Because I cannot count on this test to be the only source of the measurement of her abilities, I am spending time with her next week reading in Spanish one-on-one to assess it myself as well. 

Oral Development

Guada is a sequential bilingual student. She is clearly Spanish dominant. She has told me several times that although she can speak more in English, she prefers not to for the fear of making a mistake. I have constantly encouraged her with my stories of learning Spanish and confirmed to her that I continually make mistakes when I speak to her in English. Although, that has yet to help her feel more comfortable.

Guada clearly has linguistic transfer from Spanish to English. Sometimes, it is good, because it gives her vocabulary. Examples of this, were evident when she spoke of the book, Touching Spirit Bear, she mentioned the similarities between atacar and attack, injections and inyecciones . However, in her speech, she uses copying from Spanish to English. Sometimes it causes her to incorrectly assume similarities like “having hunger.” With terms that she has learned only in English, she will code switch into English, and then back into Spanish. For example, she will say, “ Tengo maestras que hablan  español en la clase de Social Studies y Language Arts.” This is an example of inter-sentential code switching.
She rarely uses linguistic blending, she more often switches directly into Spanish when she struggles to find the vocabulary in English.  A lot of times, even when I speak to her in English, she will respond in Spanish.
Although she doesn't have the linguistic ability to use longer sentences that are more detailed and have flowery lexical terms, she does use this speech pattern in Spanish.
Guada feels very comfortable speaking Spanish. We also have many Spanish speaking students, with whom she is close friends. So, she feels very comfortable speaking Spanish, and although her English is quite limited compared to most students, she does not feel ostracized by her language skills.
While it is good for her not to feel a high anxiety at school, she also can get by with limited English because she is still able to get her needs met without speaking much English. Most of her close friends are Spanish speakers, and she says that they “sometimes” speak in English, but “mostly” speak in Spanish.
When I asked her who she speaks to in English, she names a few classmates that don’t speak Spanish. When she wants to talk to them, she speaks in English.
In English, Guada’s language development is at the beginning. She can answer questions with short phrases.  “I like to read in English.” She can restate short stories, although sometimes she lacks the correct verb tense. ( He is hungry vs. He was hungry.) She can talk about her classes and what is easy and difficult in school, but has a hard time discussing academic topics. When discussing Touching Spirit Bear, she could retell a short piece of what happened to the protagonist when he was attacked by a bear, but didn’t know why the protagonist was on the island in the first place.

In Spanish, she has little problem communicating her thoughts in a sophisticated way. I would place her at an “Expanding” level, as she continues to learn academic vocabulary.
She can explain things that have happened ( a story about a cousin who told her not to watch telenovelas), or make predictions about what will happen in a story very easily in Spanish. Often, even when a text is in English, she is able to discuss it in Spanish, using more detailed, specific language than she currently is able to do in English.

Guada

Mi estudiante quien voy a llamar Guada, es estudiante de septimo grado. Es de México.  Entró nuestra escuela en el sexto grado, hablando muy poco inglés. Vimos progreso en su inglés mientras trabajaba con maestros bilingues y leía mucho. Recibió apoyo de los maestros bilingues, aunque no tomó una clase adicional especfica par la lectoescritura en ningun idioma.

En enero del mismo año, se fue Guada y pasó 6 meses en Mexico. Durante este seis meses en México, asistió una escuela intermedia, con tenía una maestra que venía a enseñarles inglés, aunque Guada me dijo que no le ayudó porque ya sabía lo que enseñó.. Regresó a nuestra escuela en octubre de este año escolar. Aunque había trabajado mucho en mejorar su inglés, todo el tiempo en México lo hizo difícil mantenerlo. Cuando regresó, solo tenía el puntaje de 106 en su SRI de inglés. No habló casi nunca ademas de a la gente que habla español. Casi nunca me entendió cuando la hablé en inglés.

Este año, está recibiendo mucho más instrucciones trabajando en las destrezas académicas en inglés. Tiene una clase de lectura además de su clase de arte linguisticas. En esta clase, trabajan en actividades de la ortografía, la comprensión y vocabulario académico.  A Guada le encanta leer (siempre me pide más libros, pero que son en inglés), y este año está avanzando muy rápido en su capaz de la lectoescritura. Escribe mucho en inglés, aunque su gramática le falta mucho, por la mayoría se puede entender lo que Guada quiere decir.

Aunque está recibiendo mucho apoyo desarrollando sus destrezas académicas en inglés, no recibe este apoyo en español. Por causa de que tiene la clase de lectura en inglés, no puede tomar lectura y español porque las clases están dadas al mismo tiempo. Por ende, no está en un programa bilingue. Solo está recibiendo apoyo desde maestras que hablan español, (yo) o las interpretes que tenemos. (los BRS)

Ya puedo hablarla en inglés y me puede entender, aunque muchas veces me contesta en español. Hace riesgos académicos en sus clases y da un esfuerzo. Muchas veces aunque no requiere  los maestros que presenta algo, Guada intenta a dar presentaciones en inglés. Habla en voz muy callada (casi no se oye) pero habla bien. Poco a poco, está creciendo su confianza.


Su familia no saben inglés y no tiene mucho comodidad con la escuela. Dicen que al principio no entendieron las calificaciones que recibió, me habló de las diferencias entre las escuelas en México y las escuelas aquí. No tienen libros en inglés en casa, y por eso siempre me piden.

Guada es una muchacha muy amable, tienen amigas que hablan español, pero también se relaciona con estudiantes que no. Sigue trabajando mucho y entiende que este esfuerzo tiene una conexión a su aumento de inglés.