For the summer of 2003, I have been granted a Fulbright award to work with English language teachers and elementary school administrators in Uruguay.  For two months I will be working with schools and private language institutes (Alianzas).  The goal of this teacher/administrator exchange is to promote innovative ideas in English language teaching and to create a long-lasting link between Uruguayan host schools and US educators.
      In Uruguay, the schools chosen for the exchange are those designated as low performing schools.  The students come from low socio-economic situations.  Because of their status as failing schools, the school day has been increased from half-time (two 4 hour shifts/day) to full-time (one 8-hour shift/day).  Bilingual programs (English/Spanish and Portuguese/Spanish) have been instituted in some of the schools to try to increase language and literacy skills.  The administrators from these schools have come to the US to study bilingual program design and other ‘best practices’ from the US. While visiting schools in Uruguay, I will be looking at how the new full-day schools have designed language and literacy programs.
      Schools are generally seen as independent institutions rather than part of a community.   In order to form closer ties between the school and the community, I have been asked to talk to the parents about the value of PTAs, and to talk to the community about volunteering. 
As an experienced ESL/EFL practitioner, I will also serve as a resource teacher to help the English teachers improve their English and to integrate effective communicative teaching techniques into their classes.  I would like to use this Fulbright experience as my doctoral internship.
 
 

      My objectives can be divided into two major categories: personal and professional.  My personal goals include improving my Spanish language skills since in Uruguay I will be working with parents and administrators who do not speak English.  Here in my present school situation, the parents of my students are Spanish-speaking.   Also, I wish to examine the educational system in Uruguay since public schools follow a national curriculum.  Teachers throughout the country teach the same material on the same day.   I would like to see how this system works.
      Over the past two years, my school has hosted Uruguayan administrators who were in the US to study the US public school system, especially programs for language acquisition (ESL and bilingual programs).  When the administrators were here, I spent time with them in my classroom, demonstrating lessons and discussing language acquisition theory.  In Uruguay, I hope to spend time renewing acquaintances and forming new friendships.
      My professional goals are much more concrete.  As a teacher/teacher-trainer I intend to:
1.  develop a number of powerpoint presentations on language acquisition which can be  used in Uruguay and later with Spanish speaking parents at my school;
2.  study the dual language programs near the Uruguayan/Brazilian border    (Spanish/Portuguese) to see how they have set up teaching in two languages;
3.  study the dual language programs designed for English/Spanish to analyze the program design;
4. synthesize the information I learn from designing teacher-training lectures and demonstrations to put together a workshop which can be used with teachers at  my school and school district.

     My professional goals will advance my research agenda since I will be looking at programs in language acquisition, especially dual language program design.  The students are similar in economic background to the Salvadoran immigrants I work with in Alexandria.  The programs I will observe will be new and still evolving as is the one that I am involved in at my school.  I am interested in seeing the program changes which have occurred as they set it up and refined it in the beginning stages.

      In collaboration with the Fulbright Commission of Uruguay, I will travel around the country (4 sites) to plan and conduct lectures on topics such as:  1) recent methodology in ESL/EFL teaching,  2) Parent/Teacher associations; 3) the value of volunteer participation in schools and 4) conflict resolution.  I will work with teachers, students and parents.  As part of a group of 8 ESL teachers/teacher trainers, I will assist 4 school districts, spending a week to 10 days in each.  Also, since part of the Fulbright time falls during Uruguayan winter break, two weeks will be spent training teachers and demonstrating lessons in English immersion camps.

      The director of the Fulbright Commission of Uruguay, Mercedes Jimenez de Arechaga, will be the site supervisor.  She will direct the activities in terms of planning the schedules and the content of the lectures.  Before arriving at a school, we will plan the objectives and the expected outcomes.  She will assign an administrator at each school to be my guide.  When she is not at the same site where I am working, we will be in e-mail contact.

      At the end of the program, I plan to have a series of presentations on the topics of: 
1:  encouraging parental involvement in a society which holds a ‘hands-off’ attitude towards education;
2.   setting up a volunteer program in the schools in a country which is not accustomed to volunteerism, especially in schools;
3.  designing conflict resolution activities for the classroom;
4.  training teachers about second language acquisition.
      All of the above presentations will be included in my on-line portfolio when I return.  The subjects on which I will be lecturing, are applicable to my teaching situation here in Virginia.  I will be developing workshops and presentations which I can use here with both teachers and Spanish speaking parents.
      I will write a reflection paper for my portfolio analyzing what I learned and how the experience conformed to my expectations.  Also, I will evaluate my experience, what I learned and what I produced in terms of my doctoral program and my research interests in particular.

     The on site working schedule has not been given out yet.  I will be working all weekdays from July 1st till the end of August.  From June 23-July 1st I will be going through orientation and observing in the target schools.

     I expect to be evaluated on the basis of the products which I will produce for my presentations in Uruguay and how I will adapt them for use with Hispanic parents here.  My reflections paper also will give insight on the value of the experience in terms of my doctoral program.
 
 

      For eight weeks this summer, I had the privilege of traveling around Uruguay, visiting schools which had sent principals to the U.S., talking to parents, working with teachers and teaching English classes.  The Fulbright Commission sponsored this exchange in collaboration with ANEP (The Uruguayan national association for public education) and the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo.
      In Uruguay, the public school system operates on a 4-hour/day schedule.  Most schools have two shifts of students, teachers and support staff.  Because of lack of space, some schools have three shifts.  In the early 1990’s a new full-time model began which increased the school day from four hours to seven and one-half.  These schools were created in low socio-economic areas with the goal of not only increasing the academic day, but also providing food for the students.  The meal program includes breakfast, lunch and snack.   Of the 95 full-time schools, 26 have English/Spanish and two have Portuguese/Spanish dual language programs.  During my eight-week stay in Uruguay, I participated in the academic life of six of the full-time schools in various parts of the country.

      My personal goals for the two-month stay in Uruguay included improving my Spanish language skills and renewing acquaintances with the principals who had visited my school in Alexandria.  Both of these goals were very realistic and attainable.  My Uruguayan acquaintances are now good friends.  My Spanish is very Uruguayan in accent and expressions.  During the eight-week stay, I was interviewed on TV 6 times, was the guest on live radio shows 6 times and gave 7 newspaper interviews.  Neither understanding nor speaking Spanish was a problem. 
      My professional goals were more difficult to attain.  The first goal was to develop a series of PowerPoint presentations on language acquisition.  The entire eight weeks were low-tech because of lack of computers, and in some cases, stable electrical connections in the schools and in the homes where I stayed.  Therefore, all presentations were oral and because of lack of printers in some cases and paper in others, no handouts were developed.  Only one time did I find an overhead projector that worked.  Use of an overhead was the extent of the technology in my presentations.
      The next goal was to study the dual language programs in some of the schools.  My understanding was that of the six schools on my schedule, two had dual language programs in Portuguese/Spanish and the other four had English/Spanish programs.  The reality is that the two schools on the Brazilian border have refused to establish Portuguese programs because they feel that English is more valuable.  The Ministry of Education will not permit them to start English programs and so they have no language program.  So far, only two schools in Uruguay have or are definitely going to institute a Portuguese program.  Of the other four schools I stayed at, two have English programs and two do not because of lack of a trained teacher and/or lack of classroom space.
      Since one of my main research interests is dual language program design, I was eager to study how their dual language programs were set up.  Here I found a difference in the concept of dual language.  In the U.S., a dual language program refers to a bilingual program in which students from two language groups learn in their own and each other’s language.  Two languages are used for academic instruction as the two language groups work and learn together.  The goal of a dual language program is fluency in two languages and bicultural understanding.
In Uruguay, the dual language program refers to the introduction of Partial English Immersion (EIP) in some select schools.  Schools with EIP teach all of the academic subjects in Spanish and then teach the math material in English.  Many schools are approved for EIP but have not been able to recruit fluent English teachers.  Therefore, the program exists on the books but not in the schools. 
      The methodology in the EIP classes I visited ranged from Total Physical Response (TPR) with all the children and the teacher using English and responding to English in the one hour block reserved for English language instruction, to a class totally in Spanish with a few responses called out in English.  The amount of English used in the classroom depended on the teacher’s confidence in her English language ability.  Most English teachers told me that they never used English outside of class and that most had never talked to a native speaker.  My visit to their classes was met with eagerness to practice and anxiety that they would not understand a native speaker.
      The last professional goal was to synthesize what I learned during my stay into a workshop which could be used with the teachers at my school and the school district.  When I wrote this goal, my idea was to analyze the dual language programs that I observed and to compare them with the one at my school.  Since I did not encounter any dual language programs that were remotely similar to two language groups learning together, I have to revamp my idea and create a workshop that will be a general comparison between the U.S. public school system and the Uruguayan full-time school system.  This would also include a comparison of attitudes towards volunteerism and parental involvement in the schools as well as attitudes towards discipline and classroom management.  This workshop hopefully will be presented in January at the VESA conference in Williamsburg.
 
 

      In brief, the observations while visiting classes and talking to teachers and administrators fall into two main areas: those inside the classroom and those that support the classroom.  There are many major similarities in the classroom. 
1. The curriculum followed in the elementary years (K-5) coincides with the U.S. curriculum in language and mathematics.  I did not observe science classes and the principals told me that history/social studies is geared more to a global understanding with a focus on Latin America.
2. The teachers are very well trained in integrating reading and language arts across the curriculum.  Even in the EIP program, English is taught through mathematics rather than as a separate subject.
3. The teachers in some of the schools work in vertical and horizontally designed teams for reviewing curriculum and deciding on student placement.
4. The teachers use creativity when materials are not available.  Since the schools were not given money for supplies, the teachers designed many of their own materials with what the children could find and bring to school.
5. Schools that were well run had principals who had a vision for the school and were able to communicate that vision to the teachers and students. 

     Of the differences noted in the classroom the first one is the most obvious:
1. Class size usually ranges from 30 to 40.  Most classes which I observed hovered closer to 40 than to 30.
2. Except in the new schools that have been built to accommodate most of the full-time programs, the classroom size is very small.  In one school with a combined 5/6th-grade class of 39 students, the principal could not separate the classes because there was no space for the class to go.  There was already a class in the dining hall.  The teacher of this class could not walk around the room.  She stood at the door and taught from there.
3. In most of the large classes I visited, the teacher tended to teach to the group rather than teach to individuals.  When I mentioned this observation at a meeting of educators, I was told that teaching individuals was a luxury that large class size did not afford them.  But in the smaller classes of around 20 the teachers continued to teach to the group and spent very little time evaluating individual students to see whether they grasped the concept.
4. Children repeat grades more than once if the concepts are not learned.  In one school in Montevideo where I spent a week, the fourth grade class of 32 students had students who were 12, 13, 14 and almost 15 years old.  Some had repeated 1st grade more than once and 2nd grade more than once.  One girl had repeated 1st grade three times.  After three times, the principal felt that the student should be passed to the next grade.  The age in this fourth grade class ranged from 9 to 14 years.
5. Special education teachers served in special schools and were not part of the public elementary school.  There were not enough special education teachers to serve the number of children who needed their services.  Therefore, the students stayed in the primary schools and passed along until they finished 6th grade and could leave school with a certificate of completion.

     There were many more observable differences such as the calling of teachers by their first names, the greeting and leave-taking which consisted of the students planting a kiss on the teacher’s cheek, the wearing by principals, teachers and students of the traditional white lab-coat uniform with a large blue bow and the standing up of all students when an adult entered the room.
When looking at what happens outside of the classroom, the main difference falls in the hierarchy.  There are many levels of authority between the principal and the education decision-makers.  The principal generally serves as the leader who carries out the decisions of the Ministry of Education.  The education system is national and all schools must follow the same set of rules that govern the administration of the schools as well as the curriculum. 
     The principal in a public school in Uruguay cannot hire his/her own staff.  Teachers choose the schools according to taking a qualifying exam that places them on a priority list.  As their ranking number comes up, the teachers select a school from a posting of vacant positions.  The teacher also decides how long to stay at that school and can transfer by moving up on the ranking list and choosing a better or more convenient school that posts an opening. 
     Another major difference comes when looking at the financial control of Uruguayan principals. They receive from ANEP funds to cover the food, electric and gas bills.  They do not have discretionary funds for other expenses.  All other money for the school has to be earned through the efforts of a fund-raising committee at each school.  Since the schools that have the full-time program are found in the areas with serious economic problems, these schools have very little money for extras.  A worrisome expense for most of the schools I visited was the telephone bill. At the first school I visited my good-bye party was a fundraiser to buy shoes for 50 students at the school.
Relating to previous experience
      My courses in Educational Leadership prepared me to analyze the policy making and the decision making process which were in play in the schools.  Many times during the eight weeks, I found myself relating what I was observing to what I had learned in EDUC 802, especially styles of organizational leadership.  The governmental model of Allison and Zelikow was very much in evidence while watching and listening to explanations on how the education system was organized. All decisions came from above and thinking outside the box was discouraged.  The curriculum was uniform; all schools taught the same concept on the same day in the same grades.  The binders of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) were in evidence in every principal’s office.
     The decision to create full-time schools was a garbage can solution to a problem—low academic achievement, high poverty and high crime where there was no employment.  Something had to be done.   The full-time school started as an effort to keep at risk children off the streets for more than the 4-hour school day.  The full-time program would teach them a second language and computer technology.  But the technical infrastructure does not exist in many areas and so the schools cannot implement the goal of introducing computer technology in the full-time schools.  Fluent English teachers do not exist in the quantity that is needed to start EIP programs in the designated number of schools.  The schools designated as Portuguese dual language schools have refused to institute that program because the principals feel that English is more important for their students in terms of future employment.  The government is also discovering that their goal to expand full-time schools into other disadvantaged areas is too expensive.  Maintaining the schools already in operation has required the use of many international loans since the project has turned out to be very expensive for a country experiencing economic recession.

      The eight weeks studying Uruguayan schools and their education system made me realize how much I had learned in my doctoral program in terms of organization and administration of programs, policy development and implementation, multicultural awareness and validation of world views different from my own ways of knowing.  In my particular interest of programs for language acquisition, I was disappointed that the dual language program was not well developed.  From my observations and participation in the English language classes, I was able to quickly discern whether English was used as a social language or whether the goal was to develop academic language.  In most cases from the way the students responded I could tell that they were learning words rather than developing competency. 
     The internship has spurred me on to find another situation where I can observe effective second language teaching.  It has also inspired me to delve into the aspect of maternal literacy as an important factor in literacy development in second language learners.  Maternal literacy, according to Uruguayan educators, is the most important element looked at other than the family’s economic situation, while deciding on placement in a full-time school. 
     I came back from the internship with a desire to investigate qualitative research methodology because so many mothers, students, teachers and principals spent long hours describing to me their ideas on education.  I felt that the texture of their stories brought life to the real story of children learning in difficult economic times.  Their stories were very similar to the background of the recent immigrants who touch my life in my school.  As I continue my quest for a research question, which would add to the body of knowledge in my field, I believe that through studying children learning English, we all can learn from their stories and not just their test scores.
     The internship was valuable to me in personal terms through the development of friendships and ongoing projects with the schools I visited.  My Spanish has improved since for weeks at a time, I was the only English speaker in a school.  Professionally I studied a national education system and was able to compare it to the US public school system.  Now I am ready to return to my courses and apply my experience as I continue in my doctoral studies.
 
 

     I knew when I bought the books for this course that I would learn what I needed to learn.  This is what I was looking for.  It felt right.  The books, Becoming Qualitative Researchers, by Corrine Glesne and Learning from Strangers by Robert Weiss were the two required books.  On top of those I read Joe Maxwell's own book that I had bought and read during EDRS 810 (even though the book was not used in that course).  I also read Writing for Social Scientists by Howard Becker, Tricks of the Trade by Howard Becker, Tales of the Field by John Van Maanen,  Doing Fieldwork by Rosalie Wax and a few other books.  I could not get enough of how to do fieldwork and how to write it up.  It made so much sense to me.  Quantitative research seems so dry to me because the people involved in the study are not the central focus. To me, the context of a situation is as valuable, if not more, than the statistics that are taken from the situation.

     In this course, we learned about the nature of qualitative research, how to select participants and how to be aware of relationships while doing research (researcher identity memo).  This exercise in looking at ourselves as researchers was invaluable.  I realized that I had a lot of experience in observing and living in other cultures. I also realized that I carried a lot of baggage because of my experiences.  I had very strong ideas about how people behave and how they should behave.  Again, my judgmental attitude was pointed out to me by my colleagues and I learned from that. 

     We formed teams and did group observations and discussed how what we focused on depended on not only our physical position but also our personal identity. (observation memo)  We learned about the different forms a qualitative study can take and we discussed generalizability and validity of qualitative studies. 

     One of the most valuable activities that we did were our scheduled 'consultations'.  We presented our ideas  (idea paper) for projects to the class and received feedback from our colleagues.  This is when I realized that my motivation was to fix a broken program rather than to go into researching a situation with an open mind.  I am very aware when the judgmental attitude creeps into my work.  I can usually catch myself.

      Once I realized how judgmental and biased I was in my approach to the dual language program I wanted to study, I switched to finding out more about the teachers who chose to teach in a bilingual program.  I wanted to find out why they had chosen to be dual language teachers.  What an interesting study! I found out so much not only about how they got into teaching but also about their philosophy of teaching English language learners.  I interviewed three Spanish speaking teachers and all of them had different attitudes towards the use of English in the Spanish part of the day.  They all volunteered this information during the interviews.  Even though my project focused on their backgrounds, their classroom practices entered prominently into the interviews. (final report)

     Dr Maxwell also stressed in the course how important it is to do qualitative studies rigorously.  If not, then we could produce the kind of research report that gives qualitative studies a bad name.  We learned to look at our own biases when we investigate a topic, to decide on a paradigm and remain focused on that paradigm as our lens for the study and to write clearly.

     Dr Maxwell also urged us to look at new and different ways of writing up qualitative research and to evaluate for ourselves whether the finding were valid and reliable.  By looking at different ways of writing, I decided that eventually I would like to explore narrative writing because I believe that short story writing is one of my strengths and that so much contextual information about who our English language learners are could be expressed in short stories.  (Story I wrote for EDUC 800)

     Interviewing is an art form and I have not perfected it yet.  But, I believe that after much more practice, I could get very good at it.  I am a people person and I am learning to be a good listener.  At the beginning of the interviewing process for EDRS 812, I realized when I listened to tapes of my interviews, that I was contributing more than I was getting.  In retrospect, I realized that the interviews always turned to my favorite topic, Why were the Spanish teachers using so much English in their classes?   I reinterviewed teachers and I interviewed different teachers to practice listening skills and to probe to get information from the participants before I began my project.

      During this course I had a revelation that I wanted to look at the two groups of parents who chose to send their children to the dual language program and to find out how their (the parent's) background influenced the way they interacted with the teachers or administration in order to change what was happening in the classroom.  Right now I am watching a situation in this dual language program which shows the lengths that some parents will go through to make sure that their children get what the parent thinks they should.  A dual language teacher just resigned because of the pressure a parent put on her.  I am watching carefully and recording the events to see if it will fit into my research as a concrete example of parental influence which hurts the program.  No, I am not in my judgmental mood.  I am looking for and will record the positive influences that parents bring about, too.

     The study about the teachers' motivation to become bilingual teachers gave me a lot of background on the teachers, how they were brought up, their educational backgrounds as well as their experience in the US school system.  I believe that this is vital information for studying the interaction between the parents and the teachers.  What the teachers went through in their own school experiences as well as why they became bilingual teachers influence how they treat the parents and also how they understand the dual language program.  I found this topic so interesting that I pursued it in EDRS 822 in the Spring of 2004.

      A fringe benefit:  As I have mentioned in other parts of the material for the second portfolio review, my job changed in my school in the fall of 2003.  I am the facilitator of a collaborative problem solving team.  Therefore the skills I learned in EDRS 812, especially interviewing and learning how to listen to what the participants said and what they meant, has helped me in developing the skills I need to be a good listener.  When I am involved in a collaborative effort at problem solving, I frequently reflect on what I learned in this course. 
 

     I had looked forward to this course because I am interested in research on language acquisition and bilingualism.  The course description fascinated me:
 

     Unfortunately, there was no one available to teach the class.  It was offered as an independent study with Dr. Pierce monitoring it.  For my project, I chose to look at how research on multiculturalism, effective schools and language acquisition informed program choice for English language learners. (EDUC 882 paper)

     One of the benefits from this class is that we had to develop an extensive bibliography.  We needed to have at least 10% of our references or sources dissertations in our field.  That was the first time that I had looked at dissertations to see what sources they used for their research. It was a valuable exericise and I discovered journals that I had not heard of before and authors who are publishing recent studies.  I realized that I had been concentrating on well known studies like the Greene meta-analysis, and the Collier & Thomas studies, to the exclusion of lesser known researchers.  By looking at dissertations I have now many more areas to research. 

      This course was also valuable because I started to look at effective schools research which seems to tie in very neatly with research on multicultural school reform and also with best practices for teaching language minority students and specifically, English language learners.

     This was the course that almost broke me!  I was disappointed to begin with since there wasn't an organized class.  Dr. Pierce generously met with all 9 of us every three weeks to check on how our research and reading was going.  I missed the stimulation of the classroom give and take.  We did not have a Blackboard site and therefore, it was a very 'independent' study.  I would not recommend to anyone who seriously wants to understand bilingual education, to take a foundation course such as this with little or no guidance. I feel that I missed a lot. 

      I could go on about this course but it would sound like sour grapes.

      I almost changed my minor area of study at this point but I persevered and had a much better experience in the following semester in EDUC 881.