When Cindy H. Lee emigrated from Taiwan to the United States at the age of 12, she experienced a lot of anxiety when called on in school.
“I moved here with my family, and I didn’t speak any English at that time,” she recalls. “I started school in the 7 grade and it was extremely difficult, especially in science courses and history,” recalls Lee, a student in the division of Human Development & Psychology at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. “I had to translate what I learned into Chinese and then sort of understand it by reading it in Chinese and translating it back again into English so that I could do well on quizzes and tests. It took me about two to three years to be fluent – not 100 percent fluent, but able to communicate with my classmates and make friends. But academically, I still struggled a lot back in middle school and high school.”
Lee’s experiences inspired her entry in the UCLA Grad Slam 2017, a competition based on three-minute presentations by students on their research. Her talk on “English Learners and Oral Language Anxiety: An Approach Using LEGO Story Starter,” which placed Lee as a finalist, demonstrates a learning intervention provides English learner students with a medium to illustrate their thoughts and gain confidence in their acquisition of a new language.
For her Grad Slam presentation, Lee conducted a study at UCLA Community School, interviewing English learner students from 2-5 grades, and having them tell stories both with and without the visual aid of LEGO StoryStarter. Lee, who previously worked as a behavioral interventionist for California Psychcare , used manipulatives and educational props while working with non-verbal children with autism to help them connect ideas and integrate abstract concepts to concrete examples. She says that the use of manipulatives also encourages children’s communication and distracts English learners from their language anxiety.
“I thought this is a great method for kids with autism and it should work with kids in general,” she says. “Instead of focusing on their anxiety in English, they could focus on the toy and their language learning. Kids using LEGOs had longer narratives and used exaggerated tones and animated gestures. But without the LEGOs, they reported that they were kind of nervous when telling a story – some of them were even shaking.”
Lee notes that one in five students in California is an English learner. She says that her personal experiences guided her research.
“I wanted to understand the difficulties and challenges for kids like me, who were in elementary school and might experience some language anxiety when speaking, especially with native speakers,” says Lee. “A lot of them reported that they felt shy and uncomfortable speaking in class,” reports Lee. “When they said the wrong answer, the classmates laughed at them and that discouraged them from speaking up more.
“One girl said that when she said the wrong answer in class, the class laughed at her and she felt like crying, but remembered she had to be brave and stay strong. This resonated with how I felt 15 years ago. When I was already in middle school, I would go to the library to check out children’s books because I was only at children’s reading level.”
Lee, who earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at UC Riverside, looks forward to teaching at a community college or working in research and development for companies like Disney, Mattel, or even LEGO. She says that her experiences in clinical practice, learning how to use qualitative and quantitative research methodology at UCLA, and her personal familiarity with the possible challenges that reticent English learners may encounter, have well prepared her for the latter.
“I want to understand and support kids like me,” says Lee. “I hope my research will raise awareness of oral language development for kids who are not only English learners but who are also reticent and shy.”
When Lee did her presentation at the Grad Slam finals, she also used LEGO StoryStarter as a visual aid, complete with tiny figures that depicted the event.
“I said, ‘This could be a scene from my story. here are the judges, and that’s me, nailing my GradSlam presentation,’” she laughs.
Photo courtesy of UCLA