For this blog, I
observed ESI screenings being conducted in an Early Childhood setting and spoke
with the Child Development Manager and the Mental Health Coordinator in regards
to assessment in ELL’s. After observing the screening process my belief in the
necessity of conducting screenings in the child’s native language was only
enforced. On this particular day the
screenings were done by teachers, over a four hour period, as parents brought
their children in to be screened for the next school year. The children were
taken by teachers into a separate area to be screened. There were English
speaking teachers and Spanish speaking teachers and the materials were
available in both English and Spanish. Children have to follow directions to complete tasks, repeat key words, finish sentences, describe objects, copy pictures, match pictures, and do several large motor skills per directions depending on age. These screenings could not be completed for non-English or Spanish speaking children. Observing the Spanish speaking teachers screen
those children who spoke Spanish demonstrated the need for materials in all
languages, and/or screeners in those languages. In this setting, the Spanish
speaking children flourished and were easily supported. The
process was not unnecessarily stressful for them and the screenings were able
to be completed. I spoke with a teacher
that has been teaching for 15 years and she recalled a time when screenings
were only available in English and the children were all screened in English.
She is pleased with the progress that has been made, one thing leading to
another, and now we have bilingual screenings, bilingual classroom, and ESL
classrooms. This teacher was one of the first Spanish speaking teachers hired
for Head Start in Rockford and now nearly half of the staff is classified as bilingual.
After speaking
with the Child Development manager, it is apparent that screening capabilities
in other languages are not in the works. Lack of resources, lack of screeners, and
I believe a lack of advocacy, contribute to this not being on the priority list.
As a teacher with many ELL’s in my
classroom, this is absolutely on my radar and a priority for me. My ELL’s are
immersed into an English speaking classroom and the uphill climb begins. I can’t
assess them, usually, for at least a year. These children come in with no
English language, without being screened, and sometimes without the ability to
communicate with others. Right now I have a 4 year old girl that speaks Arabic
and she is the only Arabic speaking child in my class. Unless her and I sit
down and look at my Beginning Arabic Dictionary, she is unable to have any dialogue
over the three and a half hours. When we
work in the book, her face just lights up and yet we are limited to words,
individual words, labeling common objects where I can support with English and
try to pronounce it in Arabic. Sometimes she laughs a lot at my Arabic.
The Mental Health
Specialist confirmed my concerns and experiences, saying that essentially when
screenings the ELL’s without a translator it is a matter of going through the motions
to demonstrate on paper that an attempt was made to screen a child. I guess, as
long as a paper trail demonstrating attempt is acceptable to the powers that be,
change will be slow.
After conducting
this field work and considering my classroom experiences, I think that for the
purpose of this paper I will focus on assessment. It is a concrete topic and
there is definitely a need for advocacy and education regarding assessing ELL’s. I believe that I will be able to focus on
this topic, find enough research to write a paper demonstrating the need and
possible solutions, and then eventually put something into action in the second
part of this course.
