Springdale : Youths act out English lesson
Posted on Monday, September 25, 2006
SPRINGDALE — Tyson Middle School student Candy Perez listens attentively as her teacher reads a skit about a Hispanic boy’s first day of school.
Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 floats in the background.
Candy and her eight classmates are listening to the music and watching the way their teacher’s lips move when she pronounces words like “bus” and “time.”
The students later don camouflage caps, pineapple-topped hats and other props and act out the skit.
They are some of the estimated 120 low-level Englishlanguage learners in Springdale picking up the lexicon through an unorthodox teaching method that relies on role playing, music and games.
The students are taught in Springdale’s eight “new arrival centers,” where English-language learners are pulled out of regular classrooms for portions of their days to receive intense language instruction.
The teaching method is called “suggestopedia” or “accelerated learning,” said Marsha Jones, Springdale’s assistant superintendent for elementary instruction.
A Bulgarian psychologist developed suggestopedia’s basic principles more than 20 years ago, and a California-based professional development company trained Springdale teachers in the method.
Proponents claim suggestopedia can teach language up to three times faster than more traditional approaches.
Jones said suggestopedia is meant to be the primary instructional vehicle for new arrival center instructors; however, schools are using the method to varying degrees.
“It’s a holistic model that integrates both sides of the brain in order to learn a second language,” Jones said. “While I learned Spanish mostly from the grammatical, left-brain perspective, this model is more about total physical response, oral reading and learning language through music.”
The lessons begin with instructors reading texts to students that introduce new words and grammar. A more traditional lesson would begin with vocabulary and grammar drilling before moving to reading.
Instructors read as the students listen, and then the group reads together.
Tyson Principal Susan Buchanan said her teachers play classical music during the reading sessions, trying to capitalize on the “Mozart effect” — the belief that students absorb material more efficiently while listening to certain types of music.
“Brain studies show that classical music opens up parts of the brain to receive new languages,” Buchanan said. “It’s different from how you and I took Spanish in school.”
The students then practice using the language through games and skits.
“Are you going downtown, young man ?” a classmate asks Candy, who is playing the role of the boy, named Jose, who gets lost on his way to school.
“I’m going the other way. Thank you, sir,” Candy says confidently, wrapped in a black-feather boa as a prop.
Making learning fun and nonthreatening is at the heart of the method.
Along those lines, teachers must try to make the classroom as inviting as possible — a place students want to be, Buchanan said.
Lorena Calderon, a teacher at the Tyson new arrival center, covers the walls of her classroom with posters filled with English words. A comfy couch sits in the corner next to a lamp and table draped with a tablecloth. Colored placards dangle from the ceiling that list “compare and contrast” and “time order” words.
“You’re trying to change the atmosphere in the classroom,” said Calderon, a 1999 graduate of Springdale High School who was once an English-language learner herself. “It’s supposed to be homelike so they feel comfortable.”
Judy Hobson, director of Springdale’s English to Speakers of Other Languages program, said the new arrival centers opened three years ago at Westwood and Lee Elementary schools. There are centers this year in six other schools: Tyson and Kelly middle schools; Bayyari and Parson Hills elementary schools; George Junior High School and Springdale High School. The Tyson students spend three periods a day in the center and are in regular classes the rest of the day.
A number of school districts across Arkansas offer similar programs, with slightly different wrinkles.
Tricia Todd, director of Rogers’ English to Speakers of Other Languages program, said Rogers has new arrival centers at Kirksey Middle School and the high school, and English-immersion classes at many of the elementary schools. She said instructors use methods similar to their counterparts in Springdale — modeling, chants and skits — but they don’t use the term “suggestopedia.” The district serves 385 students through these programs.
Karen Broadnax, director of Little Rock’s English to Speakers of Other Languages program, said her district has new arrival centers at the secondary level. The centers use English as a Second Language-endorsed instructors to teach low-level English-language learners the core subject areas. She said the district serves about 200 students through the program. Betty Ansin Smallwood of the Center for Applied Linguistics said it’s unusual for a school district to use suggestopedia as its primary method to teach Englishlanguage learners. The center is a Washington-based nonprofit that researches and offers guidance on language instruction.
One drawback, Ansin Smallwood said, is that the method’s reliance on scripted skits reduces the amount of free dialogue between students.
It’s most commonly used to teach adults who are nervous about learning a foreign language.
“I, frankly, have not heard about a school district using this as a core method,” Ansin Smallwood said. “It would not be my method of choice.”
Judi Jenkins, De Queen High School principal and the former head the of the district’s program, said the testing demands of the federal No Child Left Behind act force schools to look for creative ways like new arrival centers and suggestopedia to help their English-language learners thrive. Starting this year, Arkansas English-language learners must take the standard Benchmark Exams after the state Department of Education abandoned the Alternative Portfolio Assessment. New arrivals to the United States get a one-year reprieve before their scores count toward whether schools make Adequate Yearly Progress. “The pressure is there,” Jenkins said. “We are having to show gains with these students whether or not they are at the same level as the other kids, or they can put us into school improvement.”
To contact this reporter: jkrupa@arkansasonline. com
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