Connections, Reflections, Questions: Elementary English Learners and the Lived Experience of Language Learning and Teaching

• In Event: Roundtable Session 101
  In Roundtable Session: Discoveries From the Classroom: From “I Hate Math” to Stories of English Language Learners

Abstract

This paper shares the researcher’s journey of a hermeneutic phenomenological investigation that builds on the personal language learning and teaching experiences of the researcher to connect to the lived experiences of elementary English learners. Through the stories of the young English learners and the unpacking of the technical terms that are tied to them in schools, as well as the perspectives of their teachers, insights about how these students experience English learning and academic literacy at school are revealed and the implications that these discoveries hold for pedagogy, teachers, and teacher educators are discussed.

Author

• Pamela J. Hickey, SUNY - College at New Paltz