Host: Hi, I’m Hannah
Student 1: Hi I’m Anita
Student 2: Hi I’m Kailyn
Host: And today we're going to talk about our experience with the students that we taught their bilingual Adolescents in elementary school we went to a school locally and taught them how to make slime these kids don't they just came from their country year so they don't know a lot of English and they're learning very slowly but we decided to make a stem project for them and create a engaging activity for them which helped them a lot with their with group work and engaging with each other and helping them learn new things which was great because these students it was really on an
Student 2: excited and I love them to embrace the English language more so they can understand
Student 1: Well learning English they did pretty well it wasn't that bad like our communication differences and especially that they understood the visuals that we had with the pictures of the steps of the Slime Flu in the bowl Etc I think to help with Miss Paulino I know we were like really expecting them in there but I was at a pleasant surprise to have
Host: yeah and we created a lesson plan for them we had a slideshow and the videos and pictures to help them understand what we were doing and what each ingredient was there was a translator in the room too so if we didn't if what we were saying didn't get through to the kids there was a translator there to help them a lot of the students have a lot of fun with this they got to choose their colors and it was a honestly a mix of both like we spoke primarily in English but a lot of the times you know we'll say basic words in Spanish to help them understand and also to make them feel more comfortable in the classroom with us and not let them feel judged or feeling like they're yeah different from others it's a bad thing that they don't speak English so fluently and I also think like help it helped them sing a few words in Spanish few phrases that were really common that everyone knows help them become a lot more understanding closer with us too like when we're teaching them I saw like a difference in when we would say those stuff and they would be more open and it would be easier for them to talk to us especially because they know we're older and sometimes it can be harder to like get rid of that barrier between student and teacher and the kids loved having someone else come in the classroom and have a new like experience some of the kids were a little more quiet than others a lot of the kids were really outgoing though and if one student didn't understand something they would translate for the other student but it was honestly a lot of fun and it helped them I think connect is a classroom and also helped us connect with the kids as well and I feel like we students they're learning English a lot faster this way with engaging with each other and engaging with the students engage with the teachers and without even realizing like reiterating stuff and asking questions or positive reinforcement also helps them in the classroom too and we were kind of doing that lips of consciously not even realizing because it's like what they responded to or like what we are bad reaction we can kind of tell and for the most part all the students not only a few of them were a little more shy than others but they were really outgoing kids and they're really nice but
Student 1: yes I agree
Student 2:The kids I fun and they were very excited when we got there for the most part some of them made slime already some of them it was our first time making slime
Host: yeah it was nice doing something that like was kind of trending cuz a lot of the kids already know what that was by like seeing him like Tick Tock or YouTube they see other kids already make it or they made it at home already so they are kind of an idea of what we were about to do and
Student 2: Cuz I fun and they were very excited when we got there for the most part some of them made slime already some of them it was our first time making slime like trending cuz a lot of the kids already knew what that was by like Tick Tock or YouTube they see other kids already make it or they made it at home already so they are kind of an idea of what we were about to do and we didn't want to make the whole lesson like boring and yeah are engaged in like together as a whole and excited and you know talkative and they had fun
Host: the kids definitely found a lot of interest in and it wasn't just so like oh like you got to learn this learn that learn this it was more like something that they enjoyed something that they didn't even realize that they were learning when they were doing and it helped them in like not only learning English but also help them like lesson plans learning a little more science a lot of kids and Elementary School you know it's when you start learning about like hypothesis if something solid or liquid and we made sure to incorporate that into our Sideshow and make sure to teach them a little bit a little bit of that too instead of just trying to solely face them on learning English and was like more of them it was like learning they learned a little bit of English they learned a little bit of science even on the slides show what they were reading they it was a little bit of reading it was like a really like involved and it wasn't just one topic and there was a stem project it wasn't just one topic or focusing on it was a lot of a lot of different things coming together and it was the end of the day so it was like a fun treat for them and I think the kids had a really great time a lot of the kids they were really happy they were smiling they were so excited in the picture you can see that they're excited to holding their slime they were like stretching it and having a lot of fun with it they were so excited to take it home but yeah I think we had a great time with them
Student 1: You can see their personalities in the photo too it's so cute I think it's interesting that like how slime is like trending right now on tiktok especially this line we made with like the glue and the contact solution that like there's still not like like none of the videos were like educational in Spanish it was hard finding like a video about that like the scientific method in Spanish for students or even just like with some basic translation but overall like regardless of the language barriers that we experience with them I think it just goes to show how there has to be more resources just available to these students other than the teachers that they have like we're grateful we had missed a Garcia in there and the other on like parent-teacher that was there with us but overall like regardless of the language barriers that we experience of us and wanting to participate in our activities They have within the school and then just unlike statistics locally that show that like other school districts spend at most like $6,000 per student compared to like unfortunately the other the Nassu County which doesn't spend as much money on students and these districts within Nassu County have more minority majority populations within their school so that's some reform that should be done Erase Race which is a group on Long Island but it was nice to be able to beat for ourselves in a teacher's footstep and try to understand that their own experience and like take no of the experiences these students are having and just incorporating that on to how we move forward with our teaching staff and just our cross cultural communication
Host:To acknowledge that these students there's it's not only just them there's so many students that come from different countries that are just learning English in elementary school and the resources are really limited for them especially because these kids speak Spanish which is a lot of the a lot of the kids that come from different countries like it's it's not like it's a very common language and these students still don't have enough resources they still don't completely are they're not it's not the same resources as a kid who only speaks English the only resource they have is their teacher and finding these resources for them were a lot it was challenging because there's not allowed out there and but I think we did a good job with our slideshow but I do wish we had a little better of a video that maybe in Spanish that would help them understand better and know this each step but overall they the kids still had did a great job and we got lucky cuz all this kids in this classroom all spoke Spanish they it wasn't different languages which I think would have been a lot harder for us because yeah it would have been a lot more harder because we wouldn't have known if what language this kid speaks or bad kids speaks another language but but that's how it is and usually in bilingual classrooms there's not just one class for students that speak this language in another student that's another language they're usually all mixed in but we got really lucky for this classroom and made a lot of things a lot more easier for us because we could put those slideshows in Spanish and we could you know say little Spanish phrases to them but if we didn't have all these kids didn't speak Spanish I honestly don't know what we would have done because that that would have been so much harder
Student 2: I'm glad that it was kind of like A smooth transition as in it wasn't like damn what are we supposed to do especially in a situation not knowing like Spanish that well and it was kind of fun like knowing or like it kind of made me feel more calm knowing that they snow a little bit of English or they at least understand like basic words of English to even go through with the whole lesson and that they were very like observing as You didn't understand the word and we like kind of demonstrated on how to do it they understood what we were saying
Student 1: Four of us and like 10 of them like they felt comfortable enough to grab us like with the kid that had to make the Slime three times again he felt comfortable enough to come to us hey my slime doesn't look like everybody else's you know and I think that was a lot to show that they're asking for help when they need it which is important
Host: yeah definitely and I think that these kids there they were so sweet they they knew exactly like it it was a little nicer that they knew a little bit English because they they felt really comfortable with us which I really I was really happy about they were they got comfortable with us so fast we were probably in the classroom for like 10 minutes and they were screaming and happy and laughing they were so excited to see us as you know older kids or kids are coming from somewhere else to come into their classroom they felt very special which was really really nice and all these kids I think except one just came from their country so they don't know a lot they don't know a lot about this country it's very new to them they lived a completely different life back there and the fact that they were able to break down barriers and they were so easy to open up with us it shows a lot about their future and shows like they're going to they're going to progress well they're going to learn English well they're going to do everything well in school these kids like have a lot of potential within them and it was it was really nice seeing that because they're so young and it's really nice seeing like how they they were able to learn so much this past year and even if we didn't understand something the teachers made a really easy they came in right away they were like okay it's in English or like you know they told us what these kids were saying and it was it was really easy to communicate with them which was really nice and I know a lot that's like the main problem that bilingual teachers have is communicating with their kids because you know they don't speak English or the same language as them and being bilingual I understand that these kids have a lot of potential because being bilingual it's like it shows more intelligence and it shows that these kids are capable of speaking two languages at once and even they did a lot of translating where like they said half the sentence is English and the rest of it in Spanish if they didn't know a word in English they said in Spanish but you know obviously we can use our context clues and understand what they mean and what they're asking for so it was really nice and these kids are smiling they're happy they were so excited they wanted to show off their slime in the picture it was really fun
Host: how long have we been speaking for?
Student 1: I think that ends our podcast
Host: Bye
Student 1: Bye
Student 2: Bye