Factors Influencing Lin's School Life
by Amanda Van Dalen
1. Celebrate Diversity! Lin shares her heritage through food and customs.
2. Multilingual Approach in Math: Lin often uses her first language to count etc.
3. The Learning Environment
3.1. is in a split grade 2/3
3.2. Receives both in-class and partial withdrawl from ESL teacher
3.3. ESL teacher does home visits montly with family to increase school/home communication
3.4. Has access to chromebooks for google translate etc.
3.5. Reads books in Arabic on Book FLicks
4. Previous Schooling Performance
4.1. some interruption to schooling during time spent in refugee camp
4.2. scaffolding being provided for Lin in the classroom (i.e. cloze passages for science units, fill in the blanks and word banks)
5. Academic Achievement
5.1. Grade 2/3 achievement in math
5.2. Step 1 ELL
5.3. PM Benchmark 15 (but with limited comprehension)
5.4. Experiencing difficulty with content literacy and vocabulary in science/social studies
5.5. is very keen, eager to please and motivated to learn
5.6. no Special Education concerns at this time
5.7. working on identity text so her "voice" can be heard
5.8. Approaching Step 3 in Mathematics
6. Solutions for Lin
6.1. Suggestion to form a cooking club to include Lin and her mom.
6.1.1. Continue to encourage partnerships with classmates/peer tutoring
6.2. increase involvement in extra curricular i.e.choir, sports, dance etc to help with friendships
6.3. cookbook project for Lin to use her writing and get help at home with Mom (dual language home/school connect) *Rich and authentic task for Lin to share with family
6.4. continue to encourage partnerships and collaborative groups to help her form friendships and have access to language models
6.5. provide more tools for vocabulary development (Personal dictionnary, anchor charts, technology etc)
7. Modifications and Accommodations!
8. Use Arabic resources developed by Thornwood Public school:http://www.thornwoodps.ca/dual/books/arabic/0arabic.htm
9. living in small "rural" community with limited resources for new Canadians
10. feedback provided to parents to be translated into Arabic by interpreter
11. Cultural Factors
11.1. born in Syria, lived in Lebanon in refugee camp
11.2. arrived in Canada last year via France
11.3. sponsored by local church group
11.4. First language is Arabic
12. Physical and Psychological Factors
12.1. in good health
12.2. has some memories of refugee camp and recurring worries/fear about family still left behind in Lebanon
12.3. watching a lot of "pirated" television from Lebanon and this keeps Lin constantly aware of the struggles of family left behind in Allepo
13. Personal and Family Factors
13.1. older sister 2 grades ahead, spending time with her on yard/recess
13.2. new baby in home
13.3. dad works long hours
13.4. dad goes into city daily (driven by volunteers) to take ESL classes (not offered in community)
13.5. community caring for the family with grocery runs, driving to appointments
14. Continuing Challenges and possible implications down the road...
14.1. content area vocabulary
14.1.1. post anchor charts, pre-teach vocabulary, co-create visual/dual-language word banks for content area