Second Language/Adoption issues and where to start at 14yrs

[6ducks7to17]

I'm looking for something to use with my newly adopted 14 yr. old daughter. I'd like to put multiple children together since I have six. My 14 yr old is from China and is just beginning to learn english (2 months worth informally). She's smart and picking things up quickly, but there is no way she can do age appropriate work in English by next fall. She may be able to work through some of the english in either Beyond Little Hearts or Bigger Hearts. I don't want to dumb things down for her since she is 14 but maybe working through the English and learning American history for the first time will be challenge enough for her. She's working through an 8th grade level Chinese language and lit. book with a Chinese tutor. Due to my toddler level Chinese I have little idea of what they do, but it seems to be going well (via tudor's report). I would like to school her with my 7 and 8 (nearly 9) yr old daughters. My 7yr old was also adopted from China (4 yrs ago) and is an emerging reader (in english). With use of the placement chart, it looks like Beyond Little Hearts is a perfect fit for her. My 7yr old still has some second language issues, her vocab., expressive and receptive language skills are still a bit shallow for a 7 yr old which affects her reading comprehension as well as understanding of what is read to her. I think Beyond Little Hearts would be too easy for my 8yr old, however since she is a constant reader and would be able to read most of the books herself including read-a-louds independently and has already read a lot of the books in this listing. At this point I'm leaning toward using Bigger Hearts. What do you think? I'm hoping we can work through the english so that my Chinese 14 yr old will understand some of the english and get something out of it. Lots of issues to work with here not to mention any of the adoption/attachment stuff that also can interfere big time with learning. I have not used anything from HOD so really have no clue other than from the web site. I just discovered your site and am impressed by what I see. I also have a 17 yr old son, 15 yr old daughter and 13 yr. old son. I have a general idea of what they'll be doing next year. We've been homeschooling since my oldest was in K. He'll be a senior next fall. Anyone else delt with second language / adoption issues?? Any thoughts/ideas about my situation would be appreciated. How has HOD worked for you in these situations?
Thanks,
Cheryl

[sw1ssm1ss]

Wow! Reading your post makes me feel so happy that your 14 year old has all this ahead of her!

I have no experience with adoption and only one year experience with HoD. I have worked as an ESL tutor for Koreans for the past seven years. I've worked with many, many students in that time--all different ages and all different English levels. My students all go to public or private school, so I have no say in their primary education, but I try to help them succeed in that environment. Also, Korean parents are very driven to have their kids succeed academically, and at times I have to encourage them not to worry and not to rush their kids.

It sounds like right now she is really just learning English, and I'm guessing living in your household every day is quite the conversational English lesson! My students live with their Korean families, but just the constant English at school is quite the work-out for their brains. I think it makes them more tired and in need of less academic challenge--at least during the initial adjustment period. In light of that, I wouldn't feel bad about keeping her schooling 'light' as long as it doesn't make *her* feel dumb. In my very humble opinion, Beyond might be a better place to start although I'm not sure how she would feel about dropping down below the level of the 8 year old. I think that the fact that it goes through American history from the beginning would make it a better place to start than Bigger, which takes a biographical approach. I know as a tutor that I would find it harder to help a student read/understand a biography if they didn't know the story of American history so they could see where that person fits into the big picture.

I also think, from what you say about your 7 year old, she will need to do Beyond before doing Bigger. Maybe if you could look at the placement chart and see where the 7 year old and 8 year old would place, and post here more about their abilities.

Going back to the 14 year old, I think that starting out easy--if you can frame it in the right way--will be the best possible thing for her. But maybe you should also be guided by her. Honestly, with my students, I do not "place" them. I talk with them, have them read out loud, etc., and then I take a wild guess as to what work they will be able to do. I ask them (and separately, their parents) to tell me honestly if something is too hard or too easy. I encourage them to be honest with me if I'm talking too fast and they can't understand me!!! So, if you make a plan for her to do Bigger or Beyond and she feels like both of those are too easy, I would give her a chance to try your 13 year old's work or something else and see if she can do it.

My tutoring students often read a significant number of Magic Treehouse books--even kids who are in middle school--because the English is a level they can handle, and the books are short and "informative" (sort of!). After a couple months of that, they can take on harder stuff.

Also, you will very likely need for her to do different math than the math in Beyond or Bigger. Maybe the Chinese tutor can help you assess her with regard to math? I know my Korean students often have math workbooks that are in Korean. If she is good at math, that might work well. If she struggles, you would probably want the book to be in English so you could help her.

Anyway, I just want to encourage you to stay strong and be patient with her. I love working with students who are new to English and new to America! I feel like they have so much to learn and there's so much I can do to help them. So I hope you will feel that way also.

[4littleones]

Hi there,

we are homeschooling in English and Greek, but we are a Greek family living in the Philippines! So we don't have adoption issues. However, I am taking my MA in TESOL and have been teaching adult Asian students English for academic purposes.

I would agree with what the previous poster said.

I just want to add that when dealing with ESL students, it is important to go back to the very basics and start from there. It is like Math. You cannot afford to have gaps or black holes of half-understanding.

ESL students lack what we call "schema" (please forgive my jargon) - schema is all prior knowledge what we take it for granted. You and me have a lot of background knowledge about our western civilization/culture/philosophy/etc and that help us with infering -guessing- and comprehending information when we read a passage. Your 14 yo is obviously, and understandably, lacking in this department. (Ask yourself how much you know about Asian history/culture/norms/traditions/underlying philosophy of life, etc? I know I know nothing and I have been living in Asia for two years now! )

So here are my points:
It is that it is better to start "from the beginning" and take it from there.
Also, do be alert for things that require that "previous knowledge" she might not have yet, and be quick to fill in the info/understanding with a simpler picture book perhaps?
Another suggestion would be to inform yourself (time permitting) about the Chinese history of that era and try to make connections (whenever possible) between what she knows already and what she is learning know. Children do learn by making connections and that strategy will activate her already existing schema! On top of that, it will show that you appreciate the knowledge she already has, which will be a great confidence booster.

All the best! It is not easy or simple but I am sure that your loving ways will find a way to her heart *and* brain!

[my3sons]

HI Cheryl, and welcome to the HOD Board! Thank you for sharing about your family with us here. I think you'll find this board to be such an encouraging place to meet other ladies and share ideas with one another! Have you had a chance to look at the placement chart? We've used it to place our 3 sons and found it to be very accurate and easy to use. Here is a link to that:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

From what you've shared, I think you could combine your 7, 8, and 14 yo in Beyond Little Hearts, and have your 8 yo do just the right side of Bigger Hearts to up the LA and math. Many, many moms who are combining do this. Since your 7 and 8 yo are only a year apart, and you'd also enjoy combining your 14 yo in with them, this would be a super way to do it! We have moms using Beyond with older dc so they can happily combine, but still challenging their older child by doing the right side of Bigger Hearts, as well as using some of these ideas from a previous post by Carrie, HOD's author:
Carrie explains how to beef up Beyond for a fourth grader:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3247&p=24196

The following year, you could have them all do Bigger Hearts together, which has extensions written for the areas of history and science geared toward 10-11 yo's. I'd love to hear more about your dc in regard to the placement chart, and would enjoy hearing your thoughts about this idea! We like to spend some time on fine tuning placement here at HOD, for even though it takes a little more time up front, it helps everyone have a more satisfying, enjoyable year overall.

In Christ,
Julie

[sw1ssm1ss]

Yes, that's a very good point about the previous knowledge by 4littleones. Some books are much easier to understand than others. To use a specific example, Amelia Bedelia books are emerging readers, definitely, but the humor relies on puns, many of which do not make sense to my students. Some of them might not make sense to your average American student either--things like "dressing a chicken" or "trimming a steak" are probably not something 2nd graders know, so they don't know why it's funny that she dressed the chicken in clothes and trimmed the steak with lace.

On the other hand, Frog and Toad stories seem to rely less on culture and idioms.

But again, definitely starting at the beginning and moving forward is good. I have also had students move to America in middle school and start learning middle school vocabulary... great! But six months later they find out they don't know words like "owl" or "fridge" (though they might know refrigerator) because they skipped over some elementary school vocabulary.

[my3sons]

...To use a specific example, Amelia Bedelia books are emerging readers, definitely, but the humor relies on puns, many of which do not make sense to my students. Some of them might not make sense to your average American student either--things like "dressing a chicken" or "trimming a steak" are probably not something 2nd graders know, so they don't know why it's funny that she dressed the chicken in clothes and trimmed the steak with lace.

On the other hand, Frog and Toad stories seem to rely less on culture and idioms.

I am grinning reading this! So true! There are some dc that read "Amelia Bedelia" and laugh outright right along with me as I'm laughing. However, there are other dc that read it (even read it well with no mistakes) and look at me as if I'm from another planet when I'm laughing. However, "Frog and Toad", pretty much everybody's laughing. Great example!

In Christ,
Julie

[sw1ssm1ss]

Thank you, Julie.

I also try to watch out for British books, which is ironic because *I* love them. But it's hard enough learning English without getting into "mad about" means "really like" and a "biscuit" is a cookie. I find we can do okay with the Chronicles of Narnia, though. They are less "British" because most of their stories are taking place in Narnia, so there's not so much vocabulary that is specific to the U.K.

A recommendation for when she's ready for independent reading would be the Classic Starts books. They are "re-told" from classic stories, like Tom Sawyer, Wind in the Willows, Anne of Green Gables, etc. They seem to be a good transitional book for somebody who's not ready for the advanced vocabulary, sentence structure, and length of the real books without being outright twaddle. The only one I don't recommend is Little Women. For some reason, that one seemed much worse to me.

[6ducks7to17]

Thank you! Thank you!! You've all brought up good points about ESL and helped me think with a little more direction. I did look at the placement helps and my 7 yr old fits well with Beyond while my 8 yr old fits well with Bigger, but I think I could make Beyond work for her too, or use part of Bigger at the same time as Julie suggested. I have a lot of the books for Beyond already and "just for fun" I pulled out our copy of American Pioneers and Patriots (APP)to start with the girls. We've done 2 pages each day for the past 3 days. My 14 yr old, E, uses a hand held palm pilot-type Chinese English dictionary and we went back and forth between languages. The words I knew in Chinese she didn't need to look up, but even words like breeze instead of wind which she knows, are confusing. We've had some fun with it, though. I first read the 2 pages through so the younger ones hear the story, then if they want to they can stick around while occupying themselves with quiet play or drawing/coloring. E and I then go through the 2 pages again slowly going back and forth with English and Chinese. She looks up the words I don't know in Chinese and we write things down. I'm expanding my Chinese vocab and so are the 2 little ones. One of you ladies did mention patience!! OH YES!! A few times these days I've said, "How can I do this next fall with 6 kids, Lord?" Todays TWO PAGES was ONLY 45 minutes. It IS getting faster Patients, yes patience... 6 pages total and more than 3 hours spent.... I'm sure Bigger would be too hard!! We listed 58 new words in these 3 days from pages 2 through 7 - more Chinese than I can learn in 3 days. Hmmm ... Maybe I need to try a reader with more controlled vocabulary that builds on itself a bit more and forget the history for now. However, she has read some of Frog and Toad herself and she does seem to enjoy APP. After our two pages each day we've both reached our limit and we do something fun and non school related. I need to come up with more for her to do that she can do independently. While in China we purchased a lot of western classics in Chinese and she's read through all of them that I want her to do for now. I've sent her outside to draw, which she still is not crazy about, but she has started drawing cartoons and copying simple pictures and she is doing really well with her drawing! She's been interested in the birds that come to the feeder. I tried to have her look up some information on the computer about Cardinals using the google translater and she laughed and laughed saying the chinese was really goofy and didn't make much sense. Going from Chinese to English is terrible too. She's taught the other kids paper folding and they all spend time outside playing, but by next fall I need to find things for her to do related to school that she can do independently and aren't expensive.

By the way if anyone is interested in our adoption adventure go to http://www.journeytome.com click on adoption blogs or journals (they've redone the site and I'm not sure what it's called now.) Then for child's name put in: Esther Xiaohong. God has done amazing things and He's only just beginning. I've been feeling rather weary today though. Any other ESL suggestions would be great! Thank you so much!

Cheryl

[4littleones]

Wow! I just finished reading your Blog. What can I say.. God Bless you!

Esther
(Yes, I am an Esther too! )

[2ndTimeAround]

Hi Cheryl!
What an amazing story your family has! God's timing was clearly evident in your process. I would think that you set a record with that timeline!

Everyone has given you great advice and encouragement. I just wanted to chime in since we are in your shoes, but with an 8 year-old who has been home from China for 7 months. After our experience adopting a 6 year-old a few years ago, we have decided to repeat what worked so well for him. We will be using Bigger Hearts with the older one (now 9) and keep it simple for the newly adopted 8 year-old. We will postpone using a formal curriculum for a while longer. Older children have so much catching up to do and can become overwhelmed at times from the enormous task of just understanding what's being said around them. We're planning to focus intensely on reading and math, while reading, reading, reading aloud for English comprehension and vocabulary. We read frequently but briefly and progress to having him tell me anything he can about what we've read. He will see, hear, and write phonograms and learn to read using this method. We've already started this and it's going very well. Copywork is also very helpful for handwriting practice. Not sure if your daughter can write in English at all yet, but the Italic handwriting series is beautiful and quite often used in China for writing in English. These books are not "too young" for her at all if you start with Book C or D.

I take a slightly different approach in the reading aloud. I'm not sure if Esther will allow this, but I read without stopping to explain what every new word means. We will talk about some of the new vocabulary, but my boys seem to gain a lot from just hearing the flow and cadence of normally spoken English. It seems that over time as their comprehension improves the vocabulary just falls into place when they hear it spoken naturally. However, Esther is older and has the tool for translating and may want to use it for every new word. So that you don't wear yourself out, ask her to alternate between these two methods.

You have a great advantage in surrounding Esther with a big family. She will absorb so much from your daily family life. What a blessing you will be to each other!

Rebekah

[my3sons]

...I take a slightly different approach in the reading aloud. I'm not sure if Esther will allow this, but I read without stopping to explain what every new word means. We will talk about some of the new vocabulary, but my boys seem to gain a lot from just hearing the flow and cadence of normally spoken English. It seems that over time as their comprehension improves the vocabulary just falls into place when they hear it spoken naturally.

I was actually laying in bed last night thinking this very thing! I am not sure why, but I began thinking of your specific situation here, and then thinking of the advice CM may have given. The portion I copied of the above post is exactly what came to mind. I think CM would have advocated just having your 14 yo snuggle up on the couch with the rest of you as you read the read alouds from start to stop without pausing. (As CM thought one should not stop to define a word as it interrupts the flow of reading and therefore the flow of comprehension). Of course, you have a different situation here, but I think hearing the flow and cadence of English would be so helpful to your dd.

The next thing that came to mind is CM's love of the "short lesson", the idea of doing something for a shorter period of time with total concentration, doing it well, and then being done with it and moving on to something else. I wonder if you could incorporate the "short lesson" with your dd by going over only 15 minutes worth of translating, discussing in detail, etc. with the history reading you'd just read to all of the dc. Setting the timer would help her know if she gave it her all during that time, then that would be good enough, which would hopefully lead to focused concentration during that time and would hopefully alleviate frustration from too much time spent on that difficult task. (I am trying to imagine myself translating Chinese to English and getting it! ) I wondered if you could then do the same thing with science? Just to change it up a little. So, you could read the science as it is to everyone, not stopping to define anything (the pictures will be of help here). Then, you could set the timer for 15 minutes after that, and just do however much translating you could from that. I think the Lord laid it on my heart to share this, as it was directly after I thought of you and prayed for you. Anyway - just a few thoughts I had - you'll know best here. May the Lord bless you as you love on this precious dd, and as you homeschool all of your dc with HOD as well!

In Christ,
Julie

[sw1ssm1ss]

I agree with the other ladies about not looking up every word, especially not while she is with you. It will take so long, etc. I think just reading it and hitting on key words that are essential to that lesson might be good. If that seems to frustrate her--because she can't really understand it--I think another idea would be to have her "prepare for" her lesson with you. Have her go through it beforehand, look up words with the electronic dictionary, and write down the Chinese equivalent on a piece of paper or something. Then, when you have your lesson together, she can "see" right there what that word is, without looking it up, and it should go much faster. That will also give her some control over how *many* of the words she wants to do. She can do every word she doesn't know if she wants; it will just take her more time to prepare for your lesson.

As far as things she can do by herself, maybe she can write in a journal in Chinese? Or even teach Chinese to some of the other siblings? It might be good to look for her natural abilities and interests and try to tap into them. Also, I've got to believe there are Chinese language materials you could find in America for her schooling. There's such a *large* Chinese population in this country. Maybe try to connect with some other Chinese people and see what they do for their kids or if they have stuff they are done with. Check eBay? My Korean students always have math books and reading books in Korean that they use while they are in America.

[Carrie]

These are all such great ideas, ladies! This board is a wealth of information!

Blessings,
Carrie