«Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.» – John Maxwell
Hello again everyone!
Welcome back to my blog and this week’s entry. Hope you all had an amazing week.
Today, in order to continue with my child study project I will be focusing on analyzing the student’s English notebooks.
Through a notebook, you can get to learn more than you would initially imagine about a student. You can tell a lot about a child when seeing the way they write, the way they decorate their front page, the way they keep their notebooks organized (or not, for that matter), etc. It really shows their personality as students. Hence, that is what I will be looking into today.
Let us begin, shall we?
One of the first things that catches my attention is that Noah has a front cover that indicates that his notebook is for English; whilst Mateo did not think that it was necessary to draw one since it was self-explanatory. If you ask me, even if it is not a big deal and does not affect them in any way having or not having a front cover, it comes to show how different they are when it comes to academics. Noah, one the one hand, drew the cover without having to be asked to; Mateo, on the other hand, was not bothered by not having a cover and decided to skip it.
While we are at it with some differences that I found in both notebooks, I have got to say that Noah tends to keep his notebook rather neat and formal-looking. He does not make drawings or doodles in his work; Mateo, though, tends to doodle a bit more, which shows his sillier personality.
It is also worth mentioning that, when paying special attention to their activities and corrections, none of them make the kind of errors that are alarming. Noah makes small mistakes in dictations that can easily be corrected, showcasing a good control over the language; he sometimes misspells words, for example, he writes ‘difficult’ with one f instead of two. Contrarily, Mateo tends to make more numerous mistakes and, therefore, showcases a lower control over the language; he confuses some words like ‘his’ with ‘he’s’, sometimes writes ‘me’ instead of ‘I’, misspells some words like, for example, writes ‘butterflies’ with a y instead of the i, and forgets to ad the ‘a’ infront do singular nouns.
In addition, I was also able to see that they make some false friends and sometimes tend to confuse English with Valencian. For example, both Mateo and Noah wrote ‘redaction’ instead of ‘composition’ on more than one occasion, thinking of the words ‘redacción’. In this case, it was actually Noah the one who did not correct his mistake multiple times and had to be helped by the teacher. Mateo, contrarily, made the mistake and corrected it himself. Nevertheless, he also used some Valencian and Spanish words in his notebook, for example, ‘unitat’ instead of ‘unit’, ‘harina’ instead of ‘flour’ and azucar instead of ‘sugar’; in addition, he tends to make more mistakes when it comes to writing producing his own text.
As seen underneath, Noah is very much capable of expressing his ideas in English and tends to use small sentences to do so. Elseways, I would not say that Mateo is not able to express himself in English, nevertheless, he does make some more major mistakes; for example, as seen underneath as well, instead of writing ‘My turtle is 11 years old’, he wrote ‘My turtle have 11 years’. Once again, this portrays how he translates what he is thinking literally from the Spanish way of saying it. Moreover, he does not separate the sentences for the most part, so it is a lot more difficult to understand what he is trying express.
All of these different aspects that I have been discussing in today’s entry are mistakes that Mateo and Noah can most likely grow out off if they practice and are made aware of their mistakes.
Multimodal classes are a great way to experiment with the language and gain motivation to learn and get better at it. A great way to work with some of their spelling mistakes is by preparing reading activities and teaching English through literature. This would require for them to pay full attention to what they are reading, not only to makes sense of the story but to focus as well on the way it is written, the vocabulary, and the spelling. Addiotionally, they would learn new vocabulary and would improve the way they express themselves.
Hopefully you have enjoyed this entry. Feel free to ask any question or the leave any comment, as well as feefback.
Lots of love,
Mariana.
Hungry for knowledge 
Good evening, Mariana!
First of all, I completely agree with you on the fact that a notebook from a student tells you a lot of information about his/her. It tells you about his/her personality, linguistic level, identity, etc. Hence, I consider that examining the notebooks of both children is a brilliant idea to reflect upon them and their differences and similarities.
Secondly, I think that the things they draw and write or do not when they are not compulsory give us a lot of information about these people. Something little such the cover can inform you about how important is the organization in life for this child and how it is not for the other child.
Thirdly, regarding your intervention, I think picture books could be a good multimodal resource to improve their linguistic, thinking and aesthetic skills. In this way, they become literate while they enjoy the literature. To achieve this goal, planning interesting activities related to children’s backgrounds and interests is very important in order them to feel significant in the class.
To conclude, I think we have to examine each piece of work from each child because everything they do explain their own personality, interest, culture, etc. that will be essential to connect the school with them; and, hence, make them learn significantly.
I’m looking forward to reading your next posts!
Best regards,
Mar
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Good afternoon Mar,
Thank you so much for reading this entry and for leaving me feedback. As I always say, I greatly appreciate it.
I am pleased to read that you agree with what I wrote and that you found my choice in analyzing their notebooks smart and right, that is what I was considering.
I, too, agree with everything that you have written. It is very important to keep in mind that every single one of our students is different and that is reflected in their notebooks and way of organizing themselves. Hence, why I wanted to go through them and compare the notebooks of Noah and Mateo.
Moreover and to conclude, thank you for what you mentioned about lesson design with multimodal resources. I also consider that picture books are a great way to improve many aspects of their English expression through an interesting and attention-captivating method.
Best regards,
Mariana.
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Good night Mariana!
I totally agree with you that through the notebooks we can see what students and their personalities are like; it’s a very interesting way to analyse pupils. With just one comment on the cover you can see what kind of students each is.
Mateo tends to make more mistakes and is a little more childish so it’s good that you chose him to look at this kind of student profile and contrast it with Noah who seems to be more serious and takes great care of his notebook.
I found it very curious that both confuse many words of Spanish or Valencian with English words and sometimes they are invented believing that they are fine. I also suppose they try to take out all the resources they have saved and what looks like an English word they put in, not a bad strategy for their age.
It is very interesting that Noah makes short sentences in his essays, this way he has fewer mistakes.
You are absolutely right when you say that multimodal classes help students to learn and express themselves in English. Because when they are entertained, having a good time, they do not realize that they learn and retain more information in their head.
It has been very interesting this entry Mariana, I look forward to the next one very much.
Best regards,
MARIA
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Good afternoon Maria,
Thank you so much for reading this entry and for leaving me feedback. As I always say, I greatly appreciate it.
I also want to thank you for your observations regarding the students’ way of keeping their notebooks, as well as their mistakes and details that I was able to identify and touch on. It is truly curious the way they try to find the right translation of some words by relying on their first languages (Spanish and Valencian), just like you mentioned. Noah’s way of writing his own compositions is also particularly smart. It shows that he has a good level so that he can express himself and be understandable, but also that he needs to gain confidence and practice reading and writing in order to improve. Then again, he has a very high level and it is visible the teacher’s remarkable work in both cases.
I am glad that you mentioned that the right way to work and practice with them is through multimodal lessons. Just like you specified, they tend to retain much more information without working the conventional way and through working with sticking resources. Hopefully, we will be able to put in into practice on our own soon.
Best regards,
Mariana.
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