July 28, 2022

Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles County is taking a creative approach to helping students become proficient in English faster —a journalism class for English learners. Students learn to interview and write articles, and at the same time, get a boost to their confidence, crucial for participating fully in class.

Guests:

  • Alison Mendez, Adrian Espinoza, Ayleen Andrade and Camilla Vasquez, Students, Compton Unified School District
  • Kendra Hatchett, Summer journalism teacher, Compton Unified School District

Read more from EdSource: How a journalism class in Compton boosts students’ English skills

Education Beat is a weekly podcast hosted by EdSource’s Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald.

Transcript:

Anne :

Welcome to Education Beat. I’m Ann Vasquez, executive Director of EdSource. Research shows most students who speak a language other than English at home become proficient in English. Within about six years, those students who take longer are known as long-term English learners, and they’re at risk of missing out on academic content in middle school and high school if they don’t get extra support. Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles is taking a creative approach to helping students become proficient in English faster, enrolling them in a special summer school class where they become journalists.

Journalism student:

I have learned how to come over my fear of talking to someone on camera. I’ve learned more about how to speak correctly, and I learned how to make my writing better and more exciting.

Anne :

How can journalism help students’ English skills? And what can other districts learn from Compton Unified? Here is this week’s Education Beat with host Zaidee Stavely.

Zaidee:

The kids in Kendra Hatchett’s summer school class in Compton are used to adults asking them questions. Teachers ask them questions in class and on tests. Principals ask them questions in the office and in the hall. But this summer, the tables were turned. Students interviewed teachers and coaches, and even the principal.

Camila:

It felt like when we were interviewing the people, it felt like we were the bigger person now. And they were the smaller person.

Zaidee:

This is 10 year old Camila. She says it was very different to be the one in charge for a change.

Camila:

Cuase sometimes I’ll get put down cause I can’t really talk to people. I get nervous a lot.

Zaidee:

Camila and all the other students in this summer journalism class speak Spanish at home, and they’re in the process of becoming bilingual, learning English. They’re all in third through fifth grade. Most of them have been in school in California since kindergarten, but they still haven’t quite mastered the language enough to pass the state’s English proficiency test. So they still need extra classes for English language development.

Kendra:

We really don’t want them to leave elementary school and go to middle school still needing that much support from that department.

Zaidee:

That’s Kendra Hatchett. She’s one of two teachers in the journalism program for English learners this summer in Compton. The district started the program several years ago as an afterschool journalism club, and it’s based on curriculum developed by Loyola Marymount University and designed specifically for English learners. But after Covid, it’s morphed into a six week summer program. I chatted with some of Ms. Hatchett’s students who are going into fifth grade, and they told me that the class helped them with English.

Journalism Students:

Yes. Definitely. Yes. Totally.

Zaidee:

How can you tell?

Journalism student:

Because I’ve stuttered a lot and now that I’m interviewing, I am feeling very confident that… better with my words. First, my English was kind of horrible. But now since we type a lot of stuff and talk about a lot of stuff and interviewing people, I learned how to put more vocabulary inside of my English.

Zaidee:

This is Education Beat. Getting to the Heart of California schools. I’m Zaidee Stavely. This week, how journalism class can help English learners.

Zaidee:

I’m the Immigration and Education reporter for EdSource. And I’ve been covering English learners for years. I found out about Compton Unified’s Journalism program because it was highlighted in a report by the LA County Office of Education about districts doing promising things for English learners. And it grabbed my attention right away. Here’s why. Students who have been in US schools for at least six years, but have not yet become fluent in English and have not advanced in two years on the English language proficiency test are considered long-term English learners in California. Often these are kids who grew up here. They might feel fluent in English. They might even prefer to speak English with their friends rather than their home language. But they still need extra support in English. And when they get to middle school, the language delays can really hurt their success in school. They can end up behind in academic classes and locked out of electives because they still have to take English language classes.

Zaidee:

Experts have been urging school districts to do more in the years prior to middle school to help students become proficient in English earlier so they don’t become long-term English learners. At the same time, experts say districts need to make sure they’re giving English learners access to rigorous content and electives in addition to English language. They need to make school exciting for them. Journalism class hits all of these marks. It’s a particularly useful subject for English learners because to be a journalist, you have to hone skills like listening, speaking publicly, communicating clearly, reading, summarizing, and writing. And all of those skills are also the skills you need to learn language.

Kendra:

And then also it’s a fun way for students to learn. So it feels fun. They don’t feel like, oh man, we’re doing work.

Zaidee:

During the school year Kendra Hatchett teaches fifth grade. She sees how many of her students who are English learners struggle with speaking in class. Partly it digs away at a student’s confidence to be told year after year that you haven’t learned English.

Kendra:

They just, not all but often, kind of shut down and just not really wanna try it even though they have the ability.

Zaidee:

This summer journalism classes are small, with groups of eight kids each. Mrs. Hatchett says the small classes help the students feel comfortable and confident.

Kendra:

That’s the first thing. You don’t have as many students you’re taking a risk in front of. Number two, I’m really pushing you more than probably the average teacher that’s got 34 students and has seven subjects to teach. And they’re getting going. If the quiet ones don’t speak, then they just don’t speak. In my case, everybody has to interview at least one person. And I am making speaking a big component of instruction, which I don’t think happens with fidelity at least all the time for a variety of reasons.

Zaidee:

First, Ms. Hatchett gets them familiar with some local newspapers, both in Spanish and in English.

Kendra:

They just like, oh wow, this is a newspaper. Cause I bought newspapers. A La Opinon, LA Times, some kiddie newspapers so they can just see different forms of newspapers because that’s the first thing. Have they ever even seen a newspaper? So I think just doing something out of the box that maybe they’ve seen at home with their grandma or their grandpa or whatever, that familiarity, it felt fun and it felt like they had some kind of connection, versus me saying, get out your textbook.

Zaidee:

Mrs. Hatchett focuses on practicing the language. Speaking, listening, reading and writing. And she does that by teaching the students the fundamental journalism skill of interviewing.

Kendra:

I was teaching them listening comprehension skills. That’s number one. And if I’m telling you, you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do that and you have to take notes. That was a big thing to get them to take notes and to listen to what I’m saying. So you gotta you gotta keep up with me cuz I go fast. And I did a lot of modeling. You know, these are the type of questions I might ask, you know, a ballerina and then they collaborated with their friends. Okay, now you and your peer, you make some questions similar to mine or use a different sentence starter or whatever.

Zaidee:

She does a lot of one-on-one work with the students too.

Kendra:

I’m working with people and really going through the questions. Okay, this question is not clear. Read it out loud. And I’m making them read it out loud. Now how did that sound? That question sound clear to you. Do you think you conveyed what you were trying to ask? No. Okay, well, let’s fix it together. We did a lot of practicing of the speaking. A lot of, what I call rehearsal, where we would, I would pretend to be the person that we were gonna interview and they had to interview me. And that was really hard. Even if they only have one or two questions. I say that was one of the hardest things for everybody actually articulating your question, whether they were a strong reader or not, because of the confidence. It’s just the idea of, I’m asking you. But we would do the rehearsals over and over and over until they got more comfortable. And when we went in front of the person, they did much better.

Zaidee:

Then comes the real challenge, the actual interviews. Kendra, lets the students decide who they want to interview. One group was really into sports, for example. So they interviewed a coach. Another group interviewed a teacher, a principal, and other people from their community. Here’s 10 year old Allison.

Alison:

We interviewed this group, this inspirational group called Team Kids. It’s a group that comes to our school that helps us explain how to like help the environment and how to help people that need help. For me, it was new cuz I haven’t interviewed somebody ever. So I was nervous because I was interviewing people and this is my first time interviewing people.

Zaidee:

And Adrian.

Adrian:

It was kind of nervous for me cause it was so quiet in the room. And having, uh, all that silence kind of got me nervous cause I’m usual to loud noises.

Zaidee:

Once the students have the interviews done, they write articles about the people they interviewed. And they’re publishing a school newspaper to show all the work they did. This week, Ms. Hatchett is helping them edit their final stories.

Kendra:

I noticed here that on this sentence here, your second quote, you have an opening quotation mark. Now take a look. Look at the ending punctuation there.

Journalism student:

Oh, I didn’t put one here!

Kendra:

Okay. That’s okay. That’s what, that’s just what editing is for, right? Okay, so now read that whole paragraph again out loud.

Journalism student:

To sum it up, Jefferson has an amazing teacher that loves her job. And I love being in Mrs. Rosales’ summer school class.

Kendra:

That’s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Remind the reader in this last paragraph of one of the things that you learned from her. We know you love her and we know she’s amazing, so that’s cool. I love that. Keep that. Don’t delete it. But remind us of one of the facts. Whenever you, to your conclusion, you always wanna kind of sum up the facts, like remind the reader of what you said or you learned.

Journalism student:

Maybe I really enjoy knowing why she decided to be a teacher?

Kendra:

That’s perfect. So go ahead and add that. Great. I love it, love it, love it.

Zaidee:

Ms. Hatchett’s students are really excited about what they learned this summer.

Journalism students:

Awesome class. It’s an awesome class. I love it. I love it. Same. Have it again. I wish I would never leave it. I wanna sleep here the next day.

Journalism student:

I’ve been learning how to type fast and how to think of new ideas every day.

Journalism student:

I have learned how to come over my fear of talking to someone on camera. I’ve learned more about how to speak correctly on my writing, and I have learned a lot about the people that we have been interviewing.

Journalism student:

I learned how to put more vocabulary into my words too. And I learned how to make my writing better and more exciting.

Zaidee:

What kind of new words did you learn?

Journalism student:

We learned the vocabulary…

Journalism student:

Interview.

Journalism student:

Interview, interviewer, interviewee, newspaper, journalism, quote, article, section, and broadcast.

Journalism student:

It helps us understand a lot more about like, talking to people and it can help you if you have fear of talking in front of people. You can overcome that fear in this class.

Zaidee:

That was Alene, Alison, and Camila. Do you think that you can take any of the skills that you learned in this class to your school this year when you start school in the fall?

Journalism students:

Yes. Yeah, definitely. Yes. Because it would bring us confidence.

Zaidee:

This last bit, overcoming your fear of speaking in front of other people, having more confidence. This is huge for students learning English. One reason researchers believe students can sometimes take longer to learn to be proficient in English is because they’re not confident in their language skills and they’ve learned how to be quiet and stay under the radar. Sometimes in big classes, these students are overlooked and they don’t get the attention they need.

Kendra:

When they said confidence, I thought, wow, they get it. They really get it. That’s the number one concern I have with students is getting their confidence up. Because some of my students aren’t as enthusiastic as some of these students, but they feel a little bit braver to take risks. I didn’t know that they felt that they had learned so much. So hearing them say that, I was like, wow, you’ve really internalized this. I can’t believe it. So that was shocking. They really gained such a wealth of knowledge. I mean, I knew they did, but they were able to internalize it. That is just a rewarding feeling. I just feel like I was gonna start crying of joy. It was, it’s rewarding. It’s really rewarding. I wish I could teach like this during the school year and not have to do test prep and other stuff. This is so fun.

Zaidee:

And Ms. Hatchett’s students say they’re thinking about becoming journalists in the future. Maybe.

Journalism students:

Probably 60 percent. I might. Twenty percent. I said like a 60 percent. The other 40 percent I would not become a journalism. I know. I’m thinking to become a manager for a big company. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a lawyer. So that’s just a regular teacher. Either I just want a teacher or a doctor…

Zaidee:

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Education Beat. Getting to the Heart of California schools, a production of EdSource. You can find my story soon at edsource.org. Our producer is Coby McDonald. Special thanks to our guests, Kendra Hatchett and her students, Alene, Alison, Adrian, and Camila, and the rest of their journalism class. Also to Jennifer Graziano, director of English Learner Services at Compton Unified. And to our director Anne Vasquez. Our theme music is from Blue Dot Sessions. This episode was brought to you by the Sobrato Family Foundation. I’m Zaidee Stavely. Join me next week and subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.