Claribel Gonzalez observation

2022-03-17

Raw notes

My focus is on the presence of language ideologies in the clasroom.

I’m in a third-grade classroom, about 18 students, in a grid of

10:15am

No estoy sonriendo de nada. Claribel starts the lesson by introducing herself, engaging multiple repertoires.

There is a new student who just arrived from Colombia.

Me encantara visitar a Colombia.

The previous class exits.

10:20am

Someonesaid a little girl had a very fancy dress.

Buenos dias, –buenos dias– Good morning –good morning–

Do you remember when I introduced Scratch Jr a few months ago.

I don’t want you to open up your iPads just yet, I want to show you a few things. We’ve done a log of different projects utilizing Scratch.

– Document camera showing the use of Scratch.

Who can tell me what the word Dialogue means.

? Sabe lo que la palabra significa ? ? Cuando alguien tenga una conversacion, que le significa?

Students turn to their neighbors to –>

Teacher: Es un cognado–same thing, English, Spanish, ok?

Wait a minute, conversacion, English/Spanish?

Cuando una persona habla con un otra.

10:24

Voy a salirme de aqui y hacerme un Scrach neuva.

(Using slide show to just show the blocks. )

I think you have played with these two blocks, but I don’t think you have played with this one.

– I tried, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Gesture: Porter… received a message…

What about this one?

Dime.

Me di una carta.

Aqui

Can I start with this block? If you start with that block and press the gree flag, it won’t do anything.

What do you think this block does? Rojo. Un bloque rojo. What do you think this does? When you’re driving with your mom or your dad or your auntie and they see a red sign, what do they do? – Stop

[10:28]

Students all pull out their iPads and many put on

Boys and girls, it’s really important that when I ask for your attention, you look up here. I know you’re really excited

I don’t need el gatito. Pues voy a click aqui y sacar el gatito.

Voy a escoger una persona que representa la senora paura. –Que sea linda. –You always look pretty – Thank you

Sara y Adrian.

<I’m loving the mapping of the Scratch jr. space to this classroom>

It’s the morning time. What do you think Mrs. Mauras wants to say?

La senora maura dice solamente “Good morning?” O la dice tambien, “Buenos dias”? Que la dice?

One boy is stuck. His isn’t working

[10:34]

Look what Oscar did. He decided to just use one speech bubble and say, “Good dias” so he merged the two langauges.

We have to honor the accents in Spanish. Shows students how to hold down keys to use the accents. –> Interface enacts ideologies of langague.

Let’s say I want to send a message to Porter. I make the message orange. The colors have to match. Girl in the back: Oooh!

Buenos dias, Sra Maurás.

Why doesn’t Adrian need a green flag?

You can’t connect the green flag.

–> shapes

Even if you could, they would be speaing at the same time.

I want to distinguish between the message sent by Sra Maurás and the message sent by Adrian.

[10:44]

Gesture: I received a red message, so I need to send a different message.

What’s going to happen now?

The students’ attention is remarkable.

We could continue forever, but I want you to create your own.

I put a smiley face (Students don’t understand this as speech) So I see people putting emojis.

Have a great day. –Ten un beun dia.

(Mrs. Maurás acts out her role from the back of the classroom.)

Tienen dudas o preguntas? Salio como el principio. Recuerde, hay que usar colores diferentes.

[10:50]

Ten-minute timer starts, playing music.

< A lot of students have difficulty typing. English-only autocorrect. >

[11:03]

Today we only have time to share maybe three. Remember, when you are sharing to the class, I want you to share your thought process behind your Scratch.

Claribel narrates the story as they play it.

Que linda el oceano.

So tell the class, what was your thought process. When the girl drives, it was important for the bunny not to run the girl over.

Let’s look at the bocks. I see a lot of blocks here. I see a timer. Why did you put a timer? So the bunny could jump out of the way so it didn’t get run over by the car. You put a timer on Grandma too. Why did you put a timer on grandma?

Revised notes

I am observing today at the BPS Bilingual School, in the classroom of a third-grade teacher with whom Claribel collaborates to teach translanguaging Scratch Jr. the focus of my observation is on the presence of language ideologies in the clasroom. I’m particularly interested in how language ideologies appear–either carried into the classroom by teachers and students, or enacted in the technological interfaces they use.

As I entered the boxy cinderblock-and-brick school, I saw and heard combinations of English and Spanish everywhere–in discourse at the front office, on official signs and forms, and in student work displayed all over the hallways. I had the warm impression that the school is a place where children are known and cared for, and also that the school is a highly-disciplined space. Students proceed through hallways in single file, pausing to let other lines pass at intersections. It doesn’t feel rigid though; I hear voices everywhere, teachers and students greeting each other, giving instructions, asking questions.

The heavy wooden classroom door looms large compared to the size of the children, and as we enter Mrs. Maurás’s classroom, I feel a tranquil quiet even though the room is full of children. The classroom has 18 desks arranged in a socially-distanced grid. I see several decorated bulletin boards, a bank of bright windows, several groupwork stations at the back of the classroom, and a cheerfully-messy teacher’s desk in the front corner. Prior to the lesson, I ask Claribel and Mrs. Maurás whether I should be an active participant in the lesson or whether I should recede into the background; they both warmly invite me to participate.

[10:15am]

The prior group of students prepares to leave for lunch after a St. Patrick’s day assembly. One student, apparently misbehaving, is sternly corrected by Mrs. Maurás: “No estoy sonriendo de nada.”

Claribel orchestrates a conversation during the minute before students leave, asking which part of the assembly students most enjoyed. A new student has just arrived from Colombia; Claribel says to her publicly, “Me encantará visitar a Colómbia.” The previous class exits.

[10:20am]

The newly-arrived class gets seated; Mrs. Maurás welcomes them with a call-and-response: “Buenos dias,” –buenos dias– “Good morning” –good morning–. She reminds them that they will be working with Claribel today. Claribel starts by asking them about what they liked at the assembly. “Someone said a dancer had a very fancy dress.”

Claribel has her iPad set up under a document camera, displaying a Google Jamboard with a few Scratch Jr blocks on a white background. I notice that she has decided to introduce the blocks outside the context of the programming environment, perhaps to reduce distraction.. “Do you remember when I introduced Scratch Jr a few months ago? … I don’t want you to open up your iPads just yet, I want to show you a few things. We’ve done a log of different projects utilizing Scratch.”

Today we are going to learn how to create dialogues. “Who can tell me what the word dialogue means? ?Quien sabe que significa la palabra diálogo? ?Cuando alguien tenga una conversacion, que le significa?”

Students are very Students turn to their neighbors. (there appears to be a bit of confusion about who will speak with whom; a girl near me doesn’t have anyone to speak with.) Mrs. Maurás responds to a pair of students comparing the Spanish conversación with the English conversation. “Es un cognado–same thing, English, Spanish, ok? Cuando una persona habla con un otra.”

[10:24]

Claribel begins a demonstration of how to create a dialogue in Scratch Jr. She starts with a Google Jamboard presenting the blocks they will be using today. “I think you have played with these two blocks, but I don’t think you have played with this one.”