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Rosetta Stone Project for ELL Students - Travis Franklin
I am very excited about this optional blog post because I have some exciting news from my class to share. It is interesting that we are reading this book for this program because I have felt the frustrations and self-imposed disappointments that are mentioned early on in this book with my school staff and administration over the past few years that I have been there.
I teach in a low-income school, which I love, and we are so blessed to have such rich personalities among the kids. However, there are a majority of our teachers who view these kids as hopeless or unteachable so they choose to do activities with them that wouldn’t challenge another student 2 grade levels below so the kids can feel a false sense of success. This is until they take our state and district testing and score poorly because they aren’t prepared. The give these kids an F to begin with it feels like.
I have taken it upon myself this year to change, in my class at least, the atmosphere of how we view learning. I have gone out of my way to apply for and receive as many grants as I could this school year to enhance the learning experience and engagement level of my students.
Besides the iPod touch grant that I received which is the focus of my Action Research project, I have just received news that I have been funded for another major project to begin this fall. I applied for and received a Pepsi Refresh Your Neighborhood grant for $5000. My project is to bring the Rosetta Stone language learning software into our schools to use with our growing ELL population. The amazing thing about this is that these kids will have access to professional and authentic learning experiences that I am just not trained to provide. I initially thought that I would take the money and buy the CDs for my classroom, but I found out that with my money I can purchase their Manager software and put it on the school server so all of our kids can access it. We can create as many user accounts as we would like and track and monitor the progress of all of the students using the software.
I am extremely excited about this opportunity and will be blogging more about how this is goin. This will be my own mini Action Research project next year, for no credit other of course outside the fact that these kids will finally be receiving the teaching that they need and deserve.
Wow Travis!
I don't think I've visited your web site before. The first thing that impressed me was you have the same order of importance in your life that I do. My Lord and Savior, Jesus, My Husband and family, My job, My other things in life. About 20 years ago, I had a principal who didn't like that order. She informed me that I had my priorities mixed up. My job should always be first. I explained to her that my job is very important, BUT, if she wanted me to be the best Music Specialist around, and she did think I was a very good teacher, then my priorities HAD to be in that order, or I wouldn't be a great teacher. When she didn't respond, I softened my voice, because I had gotten a bit higher in frequency, and I said that Jesus is my Lord and Savior and He is the one who made my husband my best friend through college, leading us to marriage. I then told her that she hired me based on the fact that she had watched me teaching in Grand Ridge ( in our county), as Band Director and Elementary Music teacher (it's a country K-12 school) and that she thought enough of my teaching skills to want me at her school. I then said that she saw me with Jesus first, family second and my job was third. If she was that impressed with the job I did in Grand Ridge those 10 years, birthing 3 babies during that time, then she wouldn't want me any other way. I asked her was there anything I did wrong? She said to make sure my next on site concert at a grocery store (business partner) needed to be Christmas songs, because she remembered that I didn't do any Christmas songs at all the last time we sang there. (she said it very Uppity), so I said that of course we were singing Christmas songs (it would be the second week of December) and if I had known she wanted Christmas songs last time, I would have done them, but it probably would have sounded funny being we sang there in March. She never said another word about my priorities or what we sing when we do programs.
So, that aside, I'm excited about your grants. I don't know what ELL is. I'm sure it's like ESOL or ESL (English as a Second Language). My middle son, 26, and his wife have just moved from Malawi (Chichewa language) to Uganda (Swahili), so while in USA for a couple of months to work at Teen Missions and pick up USA teens coming to work this summer, they purchased the Rosetta Stone for Swahili. They are also taking back my 3rd grandbaby they have carried. We are praying for a healthy baby.
Baby number one ended up being a tubal pregnancy and she fainted in a store at 3 months, while I was in Nepal.. Hannah was born a year ago, May 26th and lived an hour. Both sets of grandparents were driving but didn't get there in time. Their local friends decorated the labor room and had a birthday party and the photographers association, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, had a photographer waiting and he took a family portrait of them, and both happened in the hour that Hannah lived. 'She and the other baby are in heaven. They have not been given good chances, but the Dr put her on 8,000 mg of Folic Acid ever since Hannah died and that gives them a 2% chance of a healthy baby. Last week, she spotted some, but the dr said the baby appears healthy and they found a wheel chair to take back to Africa. They even had 2 nights in hotels and one airline, from Washington DC to Ethiopia gave them first class seats so she can recline. We don't know, but we know it's in God's hands and he is the only one who has control over this baby. We are praying for a healthy birth and life, but we have put them in God's hands.
I came back from Haiti in time to get to see them for the Commissioning Service and they even got to go eat lunch with us, while the assistant leaders watched the team, before they left the country.
So, I am excited about your program. God loves my grandbabies in heaven and he loves your and my kids we teach. I am at the only elem. school in my town, except for a Christian school with about 200 students K-8. I teach over 850 k-2 students.
One year, a Kindergarten student told me I was saying her name wrong. It was after Christmas. Her class pronounced her name wrong and so did her teacher. When the child pronounced it for me and I got it right, I wrote it phonetically, as it was not pronounced the way you would think it was. When her teacher came to get the class, I told her she and I had made a big mistake in the pronunciation of her name. The teachers' response (and most of our teachers NOW are not like this), said "What does She know? Their names are so weird now, how is anyone to know how to pronounce these names?" She never learned to say it right, but I got the kids to learn to say it right.
I've taught long enough that kids have grown up and thanked me for respecting them, their families and their homes. Some are now bringing me their kids to teach. Some come to me with babies, asking how to sing some of the songs I taught them, so I've started a night class, one time only, twice a year, for parents to come with babies up to 2 and I will teach them to play with their babies musically.
Most kids who hear music as babies can already keep a steady beat and match pitch without being taught. I know that anything you do to help these children will be a plus. I know there are alot of teachers who love the kids as much as you do, but there are some who are jaded, tired and lost their memory of why we are teachers. Some have changed careers, in FL, and can teach if they can pass a test. They want the vacation we have. But there is no light in their eyes, in wanting to help the poor, dirty, smelly children we teach. They can't help the fact that no one gave them a bath, or has taught them how to bathe.
This past year, when I mentioned parents reading bedtime stories, he said, "do you read to your boys?" I have pictures of my family in the room, I have pictures of all 3 boys as Kindergartners and I have a family picture as teens and pictures with their wives in wedding dresses. He didn't think about them being grown. When I said I read to them every night unless they were spending the night at grandma's or unless my husband read to them, he asked if he could come live with me. He doesn't think anyone has ever read to him at home.
Sometimes, our hugs, our stories, our songs, our love are all they get. Fortunately, there are alot of children in poverty homes with good parents who try hard. Some of my poor kids are some of the richest families in my town.
I need to learn about getting big grants. I always apply for a mini grant for fine arts teachers, but it's only $200. I will pray for you and your job and ministry with your kids.
By the way, Teen Missions could use you on summer teams. Check it out. http://www.teenmissions.org
My sun is leading the upper nile team in Uganda. I've gone on 1 team, in 1973 and led teams, 20 of them, in 1974 and 1976, plus the other 17 were in 1991 - 2008. I've volunteered a few summers, at Boot Camp training when my husband didn't want me gone all summer. I plan to go back next summer. I didn't this summer because of our masters degree, so I went to Haiti for a short trip and last summer, I wasn't emotionally ready to go days after burying my granddaughter, so I went to Scotland to a place I've been befor, and led Football Camps with a Christian slant. I'm overweight due to meds I have to take and do NOT seem like a soccer player, but I got some of the teen street kids to help me, as they remembered me from 2001 and 2002 when I was there before. A young Christian man, a football coach in Glasgow, adopted me as a second Mom back then. He now works with the Paisley Pro team, St Marion, or something like that, and helped me in a tremendous way. I spent 5.5 weeks there last summer, but I didn't start until my grandbaby's funeral was a month old.
So, Keep up the good work. Try to not get discouraged about all that happens at your school. What you do is important and makes a difference.
Rosetta Stone image taken from Rosetta Stone Web Site
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