Field Notes

Samantha:

 I have mentioned this student before in passing but I thought it would be worthwhile (mostly for myself) to devote an entire field post to her.

 Samantha is the most adorable Chinese 4 year old. Her parents moved here right before she was born. From the beginning of my placement, in January, she has been kind of a pet=project of mine, a student who I always try to work with because she is more quiet and doesn’t seem to socially click with the other students. She slowly started to open up to me and we would have small conversations while working on lessons together.

 A few weeks ago during a full class circle, the teacher made the announcement that Samantha would be moving back to China at the end of the school year. I spoke to the teachers privately afterward and found out that Samantha’s parents were getting worried that Samantha was beginning to like the United States too much – or at least they were worried she wouldn’t want to live in China and would never visit family in China so they were going to move back as a family.

 After that, Samantha has started to talk with me a lot less. It is also very interesting because on Monday her English is very choppy and almost impossible to understand, comparatively, on Wednesday it gets bit better and she can understand sentences. I think it has to do with her family speaking Chinese at home over the weekend – so she gets more accustomed to it over the weekend – maybe she has fallen back into a pattern by Wednesday?

 I mentioned this in our group discussion earlier, but I think she is the reason I am most worried about leaving my placement this semester. She looks for me on Mondays and Wednesdays and I don’t think she has understood the teachers when they talk about me leaving. I just want to figure out a way to communicate with her and thank her before I leave.