A10.4: Week 10 Participation Memo

Aims and Objectives: 
My personal goal this week with regard to CD 315 was to locate and read research articles concerning bilingualism and its relation to learning to read in the second language.  I set out to read a few articles each day.  While reading the articles I wanted to highlight important points and make some notes about connections I was making with other sources.  I also wanted to see where my findings were leading me and find more sources if necessary.  I set out to do this because I wanted to get started on my project.  The draft of my paper is due in a couple of weeks, and I want to have enough background information in order to complete my project.

Declarative Knowledge: 

This week I learned alot about bilingual children in the United States.  About 5.5 million students in this country are considered English Language Learners (ELLs).  The research process is returning many teaching strategies that have been implemented to aid these students.  As I had previously assumed, much more research is needed in this area.  This population is often overlooked due a lack of funds or lack of teacher and adminstrative education in the area of bilingualism and second language learning.  I have learned that speech-language pathologists can have a great influence on the reading skills of these children.  From first-language maintenance, to family and teacher education, and to direct teaching strategies, the speech-language pathologist can truly facilitate reading skills in the second language of these children. 

Procedural Knowledge:  

As far as procedural knowledge goes, I did not really learn how to do anything this week.  I have been practicing (and hopefully improving!) my researching skills. 

Conditional Knowledge:

The knowledge I am gaining during the completion of this CD 315 project could possibly aid me in my future career as a speech-language pathologist.  If I ever have the opportunity to work with bilingual children, I can call upon the knowledge that I learned my senior year of undergrad! 

As a student and pre-professional, the information is obviously important in that it is preparing me to work with this population.  However, I am able to make a connection between the research process and my particular mindset.  Honestly, prior to beginning research on this topic, I thought, “I will just read enough articles to complete the minimum requirement for the project.  I don’t really care if or what I learn from it.”  After reading some articles I have found this topic to be extremely interesting!  I am actually enjoying the research process, and I can say that this is a first for Yours Truly!  I can imagine myself possibly working with this population someday, and that excites me!  So, my “connection of material to me as a student” this week is this:  the research process can actually change one’s mindset, and you can learn interesting information!  As a citizen, I think it is important to stay educated and up-to-date on things happening in your world.  I believe that if everyone was educated about bilingualism in this country, this population would receive the attention that they need in order to thrive.