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PORTRAITS OF EMERGING CULTURE IN A DISTRICT NEWCOMER PROGRAM Megan Edmiston, Ed.D. Candidate University of Northern Colorado NOVEMBER 5, 2016 OBJECTIVES This presentation will allow you: • To analyze the emerging results of one study of a Newcomer English Language Development program. • To apply knowledge gained from one study to your own work with emergent multilinguals. WHO ARE “NEWCOMERS”? 1. Grab a piece of blank paper and a pen/pencil. 2. Create a graphic representation of what you think of when you hear the term “Newcomer.” languag e immigration changing family dynamics culture Discourse isolation sheltered lowered expectations shared responsibility ONE DISTRICT’S NEWCOMER PROGRAM • 4 Newcomer programs in the district • 2 elementary • 1 middle • 1 high • Newcomer programs are recommended for students who score 1.0-1.9 on W-APT • Transportation is provided if parents accept the placement recommendation • Newcomer sites have unique curricula, technology, resources, and additional personnel PURPOSE OF DISSERTATION • To understand how emergent multilingual immigrant students (Newcomers) in grades 6-8 experience an English Language Development middle school program designed for Newcomers • To understand how Newcomer students individually and collectively negotiate their multiple identities through interactions over time in the formation of the Newcomer program culture DYAD ACTIVITY What are the benefits and drawbacks of having Newcomer-specific programs? Directions: 1. Find a partner 2. Partner 1 speaks for 2 minutes. 3. Partner 2 speaks for 2 minutes. RESEARCH LITERATURE HIGHLIGHTS • Newcomer programs function as “temporary stopovers—the equivalent of cultural and educational shock absorbers” (Friedlander, 1991). • ”A specialized academic environment that serves newly arrived, immigrant English language learners for a limited period of time.” (Short & Boyson, 2012) • Newcomer programs have increased as accountability measures for academic achievement have risen. • 60% of Newcomer programs in 2011 database were begun in the 2000s. (Short & Boyson, 2012) • Newcomers are often isolated, both physically and programmatically, from multilingual and monolingual peers. • Newcomers become both highly visible and invisible. • Need to recognize differences among Newcomers, in terms of what they know and how they learn. (Decapua & Marshall, 2010) • Lack of proficiency in English is a unifying factor for Newcomers. (Case, 2015) • Students prefer to be with other Newcomers, regardless of their first language. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. How do Newcomer students position themselves in relationship to their Newcomer peers? 2. How are Newcomer students positioned by their peers, teachers, families, and the district? 3. How do Newcomers’ interpretations of their experiences prior to and during the Newcomer program contribute to the construction of their literate and linguistic identities? 4. In what ways do individual identities shape the Newcomer group culture? PARTICIPANTS • 6 Newcomer students, grades 6-8 • 4 Spanish speakers from Mexico • 1 Spanish speaker from Dominican Republic • 1 Mandarin Chinese speaker from China • Families of student participants • Newcomer (ELD level 1) teacher • ELD levels 2-5 teacher • ELD instructional assistant RESEARCH DESIGN Egbert & Sanden, 2014 Critical Discourse Analysis & Sociocultural Positioning Theory Postmodernism Interactional Ethnography & Portraiture Critical & Interpretivist Subjectivist (Epistemological and Ontological Pluralism) METHODS Interactional Ethnography Portraiture Lens for the group culture Lens for individual identities Subjectivism of researcher Challenges traditional researcher/participant dichotomy Make the invisible visible Situate language and literacy practices in group context Critical eye to classroom discourse Focus on the “goodness” of marginalized voices Portrait/glimpse into the whole Narrative with rich description WHAT DO YOU SEE? DATA COLLECTION OCTOBER 2015-MAY 2016 • 2-3 formal classroom observations/week • Total of 23 1-hour formal interviews: • 3 interviews with each student participant and his/her family* • 3 interviews with the Newcomer ELD teacher • 2 interviews with the levels 2-5 ELD teacher • 1 interview with the ELD instructional assistant • Artifacts (student work, home examples, photos, etc.) • Continuous informal observations and conversations DATA ANALYSIS • Concurrent with data collection • Explicit self-awareness of myself in the data • Coding Emergent Themes • Individual • Group • Anxiety • Comfort, but Frustration • Isolation • Dependence • Relative Identity • Narrative NEWCOMER PORTRAITS Teresa Karla Cristian 8th Ju 6th Raúl Jarome Home Country Mexico Mexico Dominican Republic China Mexico Mexico Primary Language Spanish Spanish Spanish Mandarin Chinese Spanish Spanish W-APT (Aug.) 1.0 2.4 3.9 1.0 4.3 4.8 1.3 2.6 2.3 1.0 (Oct.) 2.1 1.9 1.0 (Nov.) 2.6 3.2 1.8 (Mar.) ----3.1 Nurturer Frustration Other Sensitive Outsider Anxious Boredom Reluctant Leader Outsider Target of Bullying Jester Leader Willing Follower Exotic Pleaser Mature MetaCognition Reserved 8th ACCESS (Jan.) MODEL (May) Individual Emergent Themes 6th Frustration Lower Expectations Dually Minoritized 7th Ideal Student Anxious 8th Bully Active Identity Construction ANXIETY Environment • “At the beginning of the year, I could tell they were kind of, like, constantly nervous and overwhelmed, um, with what’s going on. You know, outside of our classroom.” (Newcomer teacher) • “Pues, un cambio muy grande, es un cambio muy grande. Drástico, porque la barrera del idioma pues aquí es muy complicado si no hablas inglés batallas para todo en realidad.” (Karla) Communication • All families have received phone calls/emails/mail in English. • All students admitted to talking rarely or never in their non-ELD classes. Meeting Academic Expectations • “Sometimes they give me homework and I stay try to do it and I took too long, and my sister to do, and she said, ‘Oh my god, this is so hard!’” (Teresa) Family Dynamics • Every Newcomer lives with extended family • Changes in the primary school contact • Changes in parental involvement COMFORT, BUT FRUSTRATION • “Me siento más comfortable en esa clase, porque no hay muchos, because there not much people…Muchas veces ella daba, como, ella daba algunas cosas que yo sabía mucho. Que yo sabía ya, me lo habían enseñado, entonces cuando la daba, me sentía, yo me sentía mal, porque quería avanzar más adelante para las otras cosas.” (Cristian) • “En esa clase es como me imagino que es como para un niño pequeño aprender inglés…Es como más tardante la clase porque no avanzamos casi mucho.” (Karla) • “Como que ahí es, como que me siento más agusto que en las otras clases....Yo digo que está bien que estemos así separados…Yo me siento como más comoda con Cristian y Karla que con Ju.” (Teresa) • [Paraphrase] This class is too easy. I just need to refresh my memory of what I knew before. (Jarome) ISOLATION • “And you know socially, they’d go and sit just them, not anyone else. Not even talking to each other. And they were at the table with other, like, severe needs kids. And it was kinda like they’re being grouped with special needs/ESS kids, you know? They didn’t know anyone, couldn’t talk to anyone.” (Newcomer teacher) • “There are some people who can be mean for me to be Mexican or that I don’t pronunciate like really well some things, and it’s like rude.” (Karla) • “En las clases me siento cómodo pero a veces como asi que yo estoy, voy en el pasillo asi con mis amigos y me siento como si no estuviera en las escuela.” (Raúl) • “我需要学习适应的语言,这是困难的.”(I need to learn the language to fit in, and that’s hard). (Ju) DEPENDENCE On Peers • “I have to help Ju…Sometimes I can’t work with other people, and I have to work with her because the teacher say, ‘You have to work with her because you are the only person who she can talk,’ but she don’t talk, speak, in any class really.” (Karla) On Newcomer Teacher • “I feel responsible for their whole world at school.” (Newcomer teacher) On Whole Family • English-speaking family as school contacts (sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins) • “And whatever she doesn’t understand, she’ll text me what he wrote and then I’ll tell her in Spanish.” (Teresa’s sister) On Institution • Implicit trust in the systems in place • Feelings of being powerless to change anything On Technology • Google Translate RELATIVE IDENTITY • “With how I taught this year, it was very difficult. I started out whole group when it was small, and then everyone started going off in different directions, you know, making progress, not making progress, new kids coming in needing a lot of help. I felt like when I split them into two groups, it worked for 99% of the class…And, when I brought them back, I felt like that was good for morale, but it was also difficult teaching to their levels.” (Newcomer teacher) • “Like the whole class gets bigger she just divide us like, in two teams, who were like advanced and who were not.” (Karla) • “The school treats her [Ju] better because she’s not the stereotypical Spanish-speaking Newcomer. She’s the different one.” (ELD 2-5 teacher) • Every student said that they do not talk or work with Ju unless required to because “she doesn’t talk” or “she doesn’t speak English.” OTHER OBSERVATIONS • Despite conflicts of personality, students all said that the other Newcomers and ELD students were their friends in the school. • Students with educational backgrounds most similar to traditional U.S. schools were most successful. • Non-Spanish-speaking Newcomers experienced implicit and explicit linguistic and cultural exclusion. • Students and families felt inclusion in ELD, but not in the school or district as a whole. • Code-switching and meta-cognition was more apparent with Spanish speakers, Karla in particular • Spanish speakers prefer to talk with ELD Instructional Assistant because she speaks Spanish • When Newcomers are no longer Newcomers is nebulous TURN & TALK With Your Elbow Partner: 1. Do these themes reflect what you have seen? 2. What can be learned from this study? REFERENCES Case, A.F. (2015). Beyond the language barrier: Opening spaces for ELL/Non-ELL interaction. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(4). Decapua, A. & Marshall, H.W. (2010). Serving ELLs with limited or interrupted education: Intervention that works. TESOL Journal, 1(1). Egbert, J. & Sanden, S. (2014). Foundations of Educational Research: Understanding Theoretical Components. New York, NY: Routledge. Friedlander, M. (1991). The Newcomer program: Helping immigrant students succeed in U.S. Schools. NCBE Program Information Guide Series (8). Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. & Davis, J.H. (1997). The Art and Science of Portraiture. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Saldaña, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: S AGE. Short, D.J. & Boyson, B. (2012). Helping Newcomer students succeed in secondary schools and beyond. Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Megan Edmiston [email protected] 970-685-9049