Language Artistry

Ah, we finally hit useful, concrete terra firma in my third TESOL class, at the foundation of the "what-does-it-all-matter" pyramid:  Methods of Teaching English Language Arts to Second Language Learners.  Although I entertain myself no end with musings on first impressions, I think I am learning not to put much stock in them.  I figured the professor -- still teaching in the primary classroom and instructing her first university level course -- for a pretty young thing, her blond, petite cheeriness emblems of a want of substance.  This literacy coach would have to rein herself in not to overshadow the sweet sylph.

Need I admit I was off a bit?

The first sign of her classiness, in my typically egocentric view, was her actually seeking out my input after we had shared our professional backgrounds in the first session.  She continued to do this -- asking my opinions, brightening with no sign of ego when I volunteered an interesting slant -- throughout the semester.  But make no mistake about this overshadowing business:  as Wayne Campbell would put it, I am not worthy...

I have written here about my tendency to pit organization and fastidiousness against joy and substance.  In my life, in my classroom.  I am sure I do this as a defense, after the fact of my own stubborn, lopsided inclinations.  But if I needed a role model to embody and convey the power that the two combined unleash, and the possibility that it can be done, this student was ready and the teacher appeared.

Her class unfolded, as her teaching must, too  -- like a gorgeous, brilliantly engineered K'nex project. Each well-planned, delightful structure connected to others, captured attention, provided support, looked deceptively like child's play. She shared enormously affectionate anecdotes and tapes of her own second language learners, who became the flesh-and-blood backdrop of our work together.  In each session we practiced what we'd discussed  --- internalizing, socializing, collaborating.  We planned and executed read-alouds and shared reading incorporating picture-pointing, yes-or-no questions, and other scaffolding for ELLs.  We made Monster Clozes for creative language structure deconstruction.  We placed everything in meaningful context.  We created elegantly integrated units of study with the highest but most supportive of standards.  And we did it all with her infectious warmth and collegiality, and tenderness about our students, even as we fretted, productively, about them.

And in the last class -- just as I worried about over-saturation leading to complete non-absorption -- we made our own personal word walls of what we'd learned, and then applied it all to complex, realistic scenarios.  Brilliant, just right.  But as the soft blur of the too-muchness of the semester came into refocus, flashing lights and rude buzzers announced what we thought was a fire drill.  We all, the whole university, fled the warm finals crunch of our classrooms and spilled grumblingly but spiritedly into the frigid night.  I chatted, shivering, with the professor and some classmates as blaring fire trucks pulled up and the pungence of smoke wrinkled our noses. Learned that the professor's in-laws were visiting from Spain, and were adjusting to this winter climate.  Discovered that a classmate's brother was a fire fighter. Told them about my upcoming trip to Italy to practice my own second language learning.  The professor made me promise to send her the link to my sabbatical log, and I will do so with pleasure.  I realized out loud, shivering but cozy on the plaza, that this class and the others had led me to trust the messy magic of the process, while learning a bit about some elegant structures that can make the ride a little smoother.  It was all coming together, the dizzying, heady theory and the steadying but playful methods.

My own colorful, second language roller coaster of K'nex-tions.

P.S. The professor has written a fabulous book, not used in this class, but recommended highly by others:
http://www.heinemann.com/products/E02682.aspx