Entry #4 Making Meaning of Foreign Text

I attempted to read  an article given to me by my assistant pricipal that was written in Spanish. I have a little exposure to Spanish but cannot read it proficiently. In order to make the text comprehensible, I attempted to use knowledge of cognates to determine what words meant. The nouns were easier to understand than the verbs. I tried to use my knowledge of latin roots to access the general text meaning. Even when I translated a sentence, I had to decipher the syntax as Spanish syntax is different than English syntax. There were no picture cues in the article and my AP deleted the title so I wouldn't get any hints as to the meaning. I re-read and parused the article for any English words and I noticed the word UNICEF and Columbia so I gathered that the article was about UNICEF and Columbia. I activated my background knowledge and knew that UNICEF stands for United Nations Childrens Fund so I inferred that it was an article about children of Columbia in a warzone. I had to ask some Spanish speakers to help me with some of the words I didn't know which my students do in class. Translation is sometimes necessary to make text understandable to our newcomer ELL students. As a teacher I need to be cognizant of using non-linguistic representations which aren't always present with upper-grade level text. Primary-level text usually has picture cues which can help younger students understand the general meaning. The process of gleaning meaning from the text was frustrating and took me an extraordinary amount of time to get through it. This activity helped me empathize with ELL's and the frustration they experience not knowing a language and being expected to read academic text in a language that is foreign to them.