“As I taught her the names of many basic things, she would gleefully translate the word into Farsi, teaching me and testing my ability to repeat after her. ” —James Madden
James Madden, Member 2006–2007
I have been an ACEE tutor at Walnut Creek Elementary School since September 2005, and in January of this year one of my teachers asked me to tutor a first-grade Iranian girl who had recently arrived in the U.S. and spoke very little English. I was delighted to accept the challenge. The first order of business was the ACEE focus child assessment. I figured this would be nearly impossible since the little girl would not understand the test instructions/questions, and there certainly was no translator available. My supervisor Sheryl Prater urged me to try my best and, after much slow guidance, the focus child was able to identify 18 of 52 letters (among both capitals and lowercase). Granted, most of the letters were the ones in her name and she was unable to complete any other test sections, but she displayed tremendous potential and enthusiasm to learn.
Tutoring my new Iranian focus child became a unique experience because of her limited proficiency in every element of English. While living in Iran, she spoke nothing but Farsi, was exposed to a vastly different alphabet, and saw printed text that ran from right to left. The English set of alphabetic characters, style of print, and grammar rules were all completely new to her.
Our lessons followed classic ACEE format (read alouds, guided reads, fluency reads, word study, and written expression), but I always saved plenty of time for conversation skills and vocabulary. The 45-minute, twice-per-week tutoring sessions produced some priceless moments. As I taught her the names of many basic things, she would gleefully translate the word into Farsi, teaching me and testing my ability to repeat after her. She adopted the habit of calling me "Mr. Monkey" for three good reasons: she overheard me call a group of kids on the jungle gym "monkeys," it was one of the first animal names she learned, and my last name begins with an M. She really began to excel, although there was the occasional slip-up—like the time she asked me for an eraser but accidentally called it "popcorn." I always hid my laughter well.
After roughly 3.5 months of our working together, my Iranian focus child knew all the letters of the English alphabet and most of the sounds, and she could phonemically blend 15/20 words on the assessment. She scored a 12 on the spelling component, had complete control over the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of simple words, and successfully read 22 first-grade nonnegotiable words. These are enormous achievements considering that, weeks earlier, I could not even communicate the test instructions for her and she registered scores of zero on everything except letter identification.
The incredible progress made by this first-grade Iranian girl cannot be completely summarized through test results, reading levels, or word-study benchmarks. It seems that Walnut Creek may become even more diverse in the future. Soon after my focus child arrived at school, another half-dozen or so Iranian immigrants enrolled as well, including three more first-graders. Guess who translates all English messages from the teachers and kids into Farsi for the Iranian newcomers? Perhaps we are witnessing the slow development of yet another magnet program at Walnut Creek. If so, they may already have their first bilingual instructor.