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appealdemocrat.com
May 11, 2012


Teacher-turtle team helps Yuba City students learn English
By Nancy Pasternack

He's accustomed to being shrieked at and having his shell tapped upon by little human fingers.

For 30 years, E.T., a box turtle originally named when the popular Steven Spielberg movie was still in theaters, has been helping inspire immigrant school children to speak English.

On Monday, his owner, Lincoln Elementary School teacher Kathy Hanlin-McPherrin, placed him on the floor in front of her students, ages 6 to 8 years old, and allowed them to move in close.

"I want everyone to notice one new thing about the turtle today," she told them.

"The turtle was opening his mouth and closing it," said Manvir Sahota, 7, several seconds later.

McPherrin, 56, an English language development teacher, acquired the pet from her stepdaughter, who rescued him from a pet store garbage can when she was a child.

Almost immediately, the animal became a regular fixture in McPherrin's classroom.

"It's hard to get little kids excited about grammar," she said. "But they want to say things about the turtle, and I give them prompts to get them to use the appropriate tense."

"Answer in a complete sentence," she urged her students during Monday's English lesson. "I'm thinking of a verb in the past tense that tells what the turtle did on the rocks."

Eager hands shot up in the air.

"He climbed," one child shouted.

"He climbed. That's right," McPherrin said.

This week, the veteran teacher brought in something she found in her yard, in order to spark conversation, using the language of comparison.

Her students were only too happy to communicate that a snail, like a turtle, has a shell, but that only a snail has antennae.

And one child was only too happy to challenge her teacher.

"I have a question," she asked McPherrin. "Why does the snail have slime on it?"