I thought I'd take a break from the big assignment for awhile to post some thoughts I've had from listening to the audio clips. Several people have posted about when Junko talks about the "silent period", this too caught my attention. In the preschool where I teach we have a little girl who for 2 years (from the time she was 2 until 4 yrs old) never spoke one word. Her parents claimed she spoke constantly at home and would recap the entire day at school for them, but we never heard her say a word. Although both her parents could speak English, the mother only spoke Spanish to the little girl while the father would speak both languages to her. By the middle of her second year she had developed a sort of sign language using nodding, eye gestures, and facial expressions. It took a lot of patience and repetitive questioning to figure out what she was trying to "say". Interestingly, several of the teachers speak Spanish yet the girl would not even communicate with them in Spanish.
Eventually she started to move her lips but you couldn't hear the words that were coming out. Then she moved up to whispering ever so slightly. Then a bit of a louder whisper and by now the other children were quite excited that this little girl could talk. One day an older child, who was not in the class, asked in a mean voice why this little girl never spoke and before I could even respond another younger boy said "She speaks when she wants to, maybe she has nothing to say to you so just leave her alone". That was the first time I saw a smile cross her face and from then on her quiet one word statements got louder and longer. She started telling so many stories that I couldn't get her to stop talking! She was still a quiet talker and would sometimes have completely "silent days" but she did begin participating at circle time and having conversations with the other children.
This year she is 5 and in kindergarten. She is louder and talkative, although not nearly as much as the average 5 year old. The "icing on the cake" came one day when I was leaving and I heard a child yell down the street to me " Bye Jennifer". I turned around and saw that it was her. Another teacher who was leaving with me said "Was that her who just yelled that loud ? I didn't know she could do that?" to which I said "Neither did I!"
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The audio clip, when Junko talks about the "silent period," was also interesting to me. It is difficult for me to observe this in my classroom because they are not silent at all. They are seventh and eigth graders, so talking is something they do quite well. Although, many of them like to mumble and I constantly find myself asking them to repeat what they have said or speak louder. Anyway, I have been visiting other classrooms from time to time, and on breaks. I have noticed that in the Pre-K and Kindergarten classes, this "silent period," is happening often for some children. One student in particular, Julio, is in the Pre-K class and some days he just won't speak. They actually send him down to the office because some days he will just cry and will not tell anyone what is wrong. I felt so awful seeing this poor little boy cry, but it was so frustrating for the teachers because he won't tell them what is wrong. Julio seems like such a sweet boy and it just seems as if some days are worse for him. He is not "silent" all the time, but they have said that some days he will got the entire day without speaking. I really found this awful and I know that this is also difficult for the teacher, in this circumstance, because he is definitely upset about something. It must be extremely hard to want to help, but you don't know what the problem is.
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