Interesting point about bilingual students not being as competent in English as they appear to be. I have noticed this often with students, and others, of all ages. Everything from a plumber to tenants. Certain people learn to deal with a second language by repeating back the phrases they have just heard, as well as nodding and smiling. The repeating back means they produce quite fluent and meaningful sentences — but whether they understand the meaning or agree with what they are saying is an open question. The combination of meaningful sentences and agreeability makes you think they are following you, when in fact they may be miles away. Some also choose to take offense because they misunderstand the connotations of your words. I have learned to be very cautious in assuming understanding.
One time I did a little “reading” exercise. The passage to be “read” included a bunch of nonsense words, and the “comprehension” questions were the simple fact-based type that can be answered by writing a boilerplate sentence the appropriate word or phrase. Everyone in the class scored 100% on comprehension — and none of us had a clue what the passage was supposed to be about. Beware of students doing this!
Example:
Jane went to the abertquanty to get a florstwap. I really need this florstwap to swenyupe my doplzix, she said.
Answer in full sentences:
(1) Where did Jane go?
(2) What did she get?
(3) Why did she need it?
See, your comprehension of the passage is perfect, isn’t it?
Re: des - re comment under RAVE-O, bilingual comprehension
There is a popular myth that learning two languages will somehow harm a child. This myth has been observably wrong throughout all history as children have grown up bilingual and successful all over the world, and it has been proven wrong scientifically since around the 1950’s (Dr. Wilder Penfield in Montreal, among others.) Nonetheless it is still widely believed, even by people in schools who should know better. You end up getting a lot of students who are illiterate in two languages because they don’t get a full, rich language experience in either. You also end up with cultural loss and family breakdown as grandparents can’t talk to the grandchildren. A real waste.
The comprehension test idea isn’t mine; I saw an example like this in a literacy tutor workshop.
Actually a bright student can even fake some of the inference questions — I know I’ve pushed some limits in my second-language classes. It’s often easy to fake multiple choice, too.
Re: des - re comment under RAVE-O, bilingual comprehension
>they were equating it with high test scores. I have a big problem with this. One example I discussed with someone is a person afterwards was a kid who could write a perfect essay in terms of sentence structure and
YIKES!
Should read: One example that I discussed with a person afterwards was.. I could claim drunkenness. :-)
Yes as to your comments that a kid can learn to speak two languages, many do. It is the old argument they used to discourage sign language in deaf kids.
—des
I love your comprehension test!!! One of the things in our inservice for school was that they discussed achievement and I thought they were equating it with high test scores. I have a big problem with this. One example I discussed with someone is a person afterwards was a kid who could write a perfect essay in terms of sentence structure and spelling but not *say* anything. But I was hard pressed to be able to give an example in some other area but I knew they existed. And there you gave one. (I am quite sure I ran into those in my tutoring, as some of the kids could not actually read enough of the passage to really understand it. They would miss the more questions involving inference for example.)
Also I had a Navajo kid whom I mentioned before. He did not speak much Navajo, but his mom and grandma constantly spoke it and would then speak to him in English. I’m sure it was one reason he had difficulty reading. The phonemes were off just by enough… I also worked with kids from Spanish speaking homes like this. They themselves did not speak Spanish but they heard it used constantly.
I always felt a bit sad about this that their children did not speak that language.
—des