Deaf ESL Students - Gallaudet University

My students were sitting down
again, looking at me, and anxious to
participate. To French fries and pizza,
we added brownies, chicken, popcorn,
potato chips, drinks, and hamburger.
“Let’s vote on who likes what,” I
suggested. “Then we’ll graph the
results.”
The lesson wasn’t turning out exactly
as I’d planned, but it was definitely a
way to integrate math with real experience.
Classrooms for second language
learners need to approximate real
world settings, researchers say. This setting
involved pizzas and a bar graph—
and democracy.
“Everyone has two votes,” I said.
We voted with brightly colored construction
paper, cutting it into rectangular
shapes, writing our names, and
making labels for ourselves. All of us
made at least two labels. Then using
large poster paper, we began the
graph. Snacks were listed along the xaxis
and the number of students along
the y-axis. Each student placed his or
her paper label directly on the graph
above his or her favorite snack, pasting
it carefully above any labels that were
already there. Chris, Ashley, Ram,
Juanita, Megan, and Alyk put their
labels above pizza, making it the most
popular choice and the highest bar on
the graph. Ice cream and French fries
followed with four labels each. There
were a few votes for the other items as
well.
By the time the graph was finished,
we’d settled into our topic, made a bar
graph, and stopped noticing the smell
of the pizza.
While we worked, I thought about
Juanita.
In some ways, watching her was like
holding a mirror up to myself. My parents’
first language was Spanish. My
father had been born in Mexico and
moved to Texas, where he met my
mother. Her family had lived in Texas
for over 100 years, since European
maps said that the land was Mexico.
Fortunately, at Kendall there are
more services now for ESL children
and their families. When we called
Juanita’s father, an interpreter translated
the signed or spoken words of her
teacher into Spanish. The interpreting
office translated all official notices into
Spanish. Juanita’s father was doing his
part, too. When sign language classes
were offered for Spanish families, he
was among the few parents who came.
When we had meetings of Parents as
Partners, he was among those who
helped us forge communication
between parents, children, teachers,
and our work in the classroom. When
we sponsored Family Math, he came
and brought his entire family.
There had been rumors that
Juanita would leave soon to visit her
family in El Salvador. Actually Juanita
had told me so herself. We wrote about
it in her journal. She was excited and
happy. The other teachers said she
went home periodically.
“She’ll come back just in time to
take the standardized test,” someone
remarked. I could see the frustration
on my colleague’s face. I understood
it, too. As teachers, we are responsible
for our children’s education. This
translates—at least in the perception of
taxpayers and those who oversee our
program—into improving test scores.
We would be held accountable for
Juanita’s education—even when she
wasn’t in our class to receive it. Of
course, our loss paled beside that of
Juanita. Not only would she not
advance; regression was a normal part
of absence. The biggest loss would be
hers.
As a child, I missed a lot of school,
too. Every spring, my family would
pack up my brothers and sisters and
TOP: Pages from a journal—On the left page, the child, her name obscured to protect her identity,
tells the author that she is leaving for El Salvador, and when she reappears in class the next
day it appears that the family postponed the trip. On the right page, the author reminds the
student of the pizza party. ABOVE: Chris crafts a question and the other students suggest answers.
20 Spring 2000