| Abstract |
- Problem (research question): How important is friendship for ESL students?
- Method: I did semester-long teacher action research. I gathered observations and artifacts about an ESL student in my preschool student teaching classroom. At the beginning of the school year, (August 2015) this student was 3. She was able to understand and write English beautifully. She wrote so well that I compared it to a first grader and the results were almost identical. This student however, would not speak. Not to the teachers, not to me, not the other students, no one. Over the course of the semester I watched the friendship between her and another student blossom. I observed how this friendship helped the ESL student become more comfortable in the classroom and more importantly how it helped her language development.
- Results: I found that friendship is very powerful for children learning a new language. At just the age of 4 and in just 4 months, this student was able to accomplish the first 4 stages of language development and is now working towards stage 5. This was all made possible by the beautiful friendship she has created with another student.
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| Modified Abstract |
I gathered observations and artifacts about an ESL student while student teaching. At the beginning of the school year, (August 2015) this student was 3. She was able to understand and write English beautifully. This student however, would not speak to anyone. Over the course of the semester I watched the friendship between her and another student blossom. I observed how this friendship helped the ESL student with her language development I found that friendship is very powerful for ESL students. At just the age of 4 and in just 4 months, this student was able to accomplish the first 4 stages of language development and is now working towards stage 5. This was all made possible by the beautiful friendship she created. |
