An "ESL Moment"

I was nervous for my first informal observation. I was going to be observed working one on one with Jose*, a student who I have worked with before, but who has to be constantly kept busy.

A little background on the student: When Jose arrived at Liberty in May two years ago, he was put into a second grade classroom. Before his arrival to the US, he had no formal or informal education. He could not even read, write, or do math in Spanish, his native language. He went back into second grade that September and is in third grade now. However, he is still reading at an1st grade basic level and has trouble with spelling. I had been working with the words "came" and "come", "hen", "goat", and other basic words. I emphasize to him about reading carefully and looking at all the letters because he makes up words occasionally, or will swap words for ones he knows. When he is reading aloud and runs into a word he is uncertain of, he will also look at me with a big smile and hopeful eyes, hoping that I will give him the answer. As much as I would love to, giving him the answer will not solve the reading problems he will have in the future. Giving him the tools to figure out how to read and sound out words will, so I say: "The words are on the page, not on my face". "What do we do when we see a word we don't know how to say?" I ask. "We sound it out." "So let's sound it out, what does the first letter say?". I do this multiple times a page.

Back to the observation: I had pulled out a variety of things for us to work on, including spelling. I want to make spelling fun and approachable so I had a bag of refrigerator magnet letters with the letters of the words I wanted him to spell. I had him spell them on the table, then when he wanted to, put them on the magnetic dry erase board. "Write down what you spelled in your journal!" I would say after every word he successfully spelled. "Close you eyes and spell it!" I would also command. A variety of activities and flexibility are essential to working with him, and having him go from reading a story, to getting up and spelling the words with magnet letters, to sitting down to write what he wrote are ways to keep him active but to maintain an environment of intrinsic motivation. When he, or any student, feels successful at spelling words, (or anything else), they want to do more! I also used words of encouragement to keep him going, and to let him know about his successes. He was doing so much better than normal at spelling and reading. When he saw the bag of remaining letters sitting on the shelf he exclaimed "there's more?!". I affirmed this and let him spell more words, which he was so proud of! My teacher, supervisor/observer and I left him to his own devices as we talked about my lesson. Meanwhile he wrote "Jose is a winner" on the board with the refrigerator magnets. He had risked spelling it wrong  in order to show he was proud of himself! "That is an ESL moment", my supervisor said. "Those are the moments that keep you going". And it truly was. 

Success sometimes is not about the big milestones, it is about the daily, overlooked, baby steps of progress that are made. That is ESL.

*Name changed for privacy.