We have a set of siblings in our class who are not native English speakers, their family speaks primarily in Japanese at home. The older one,N, has been in the classroom for two years at this point and her younger sister S has only been with us for a year. N has had a lot more opportunities to learn English and usually does a lot of the speaking for both of them. We've been trying to get S to say more for herself, but it's been difficult.
Not because she doesn't understand, but because she's so strong willed! S would rather have a battle of wills and stand stone silent, rather than say a simple word like "blue". For the longest time she would also take out only the same 3 or 4 activities. She'd cycle through them, all things she long ago mastered, and spend the rest of the time with her older sister. We teachers tried to help her branch out, but she was so unwilling to talk to us that we could barely get her to participate in being shown a new material! This is so opposite of most children, who love the one on one time.
Recently though S has begun to make huge breakthroughs. She not only has been involved in any new presentations, but has actually been ASKING for them...aloud. Let me clear this up. The child who hasn't spoken more than 50 words all fall semester, is coming up and asking 'show me this?" without any prompting. She is now working on a variety of things in the classroom, and though she still really likes to sit by her sister, she's now more likely to go and choose another table, rather than stubbornly wait for the other child to leave.
Today I saw how far S has come. She had taken out the table scrubbing activity and began attacking a table vigorously. I noticed her scrubbing on the carpet and came over to help her move it to the tile area in case there were any major spills. Then I noticed that she still had all the items in the basin and had filled it with water, not exactly how it was supposed to go.
I didn't say anything about the objects, just asked if I could help her. S looked at the table, turned back to me and nodded. A huge step for her, to accept help. Together we moved the table, and I sent S to get an oilcloth while I pulled the tools out of the soapy water. I helped her set up the objects so she could re-fill the basin with clean water and then began the actual presentation because by this point I was pretty sure she had not been shown how to scrub a table before.
But S quietly watched and copied my motions when it was her turn to scrub. She was super interested in it...and then it was time to get ready to go home. I stalled as long as I could, to give her time to finish scrubbing to her hearts' content, but eventually I had to get all the go-homers ready to leave. N bounced over, telling her little sister it was time to leave, and S immediately went to get her label to put on the wet table. I gently told her she needed to dry it and clean up, then she could get ready to go.
S stopped. She looked at me, her mouth open in a little O and shock on her face. But then the amazing thing happened. She did it. As stubborn as she can be, as focused on being near her sister as she is, S turned around and began drying the table with vengeance.
But she didn't just rush through it, she did a thorough job. By the time she was done we had 4 orange towels drying on the line from all the drying and S went in to the coat room to get ready. What a change from the little girl who wouldn't say a word or do anything new.
Wait....I guess she still didn't say much...oh well, maybe next time.
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