Girl in Translation The young adult novel, Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok, takes place in Brooklyn, New York. Kimberly Chang, an eleven-year-old girl, and her mother emigrated from Hong Kong in hopes of living a new and wonderful life in the United States. Kimberly’s aunt decided to help her sister and niece live a better life in the United States, at least that is what Kimberly and her mother thought. Quickly, Kimberly began living a double life: schoolgirl by day and a factor worker by night. Kimberly hid the horrid truth of living in poverty, her family’s future on her shoulders, and her secret love for a boy at the factory. Throughout the story, Kimberly learned to translate not just language, but back and forth between the two lives …show more content…
For these students, I will try and learn as much as I can about their home lives as I can. The more I know about their home lives, the more I will be able to understand and help the student. I also want to make these students feel comfortable in my classroom, many times Kimberly felt uncomfortable or felt as though she didn’t belong because she was different. In my classroom, I will do my best to help make students feel comfortable and feel like they belong in my classroom. To help make students feel comfortable, I might have a unit on cultures. During this unit, each student will have a chance to present their culture to the class. The students will be able to bring items that represent their culture to share with the class. By doing this, the students will be able to get to know where each student comes from and what life at home may be like for these students. To help individuals like Kimberly in my classroom, I might pair the ELL student with another ELL student that shares the similar culture or language. By doing this, the student will have someone that s/he can go to because their partner may understand what that student is going through. Hopefully, the other student will also speak the same first language so if the student does not speak English, then the two students will be able to speak in their first …show more content…
This will also help the student feel like s/he is not having to learn on their own. Partner activities may include having the students read short stories together and complete worksheets based on the lesson together. For most activities, I will plan on having these activities be a partner or individual activities. This way, if the student feels confident in working individually, the student can work individually, and if not the student can continue working with a