Present and future teachers, you most surely have heard much about our ELL students, including ways we can accommodate their learning in our classrooms. Things like word walls and vocab lists for highly relevant terms are constantly reiterated. Basically, we are aware of the struggles of the ELL student. But are we? Can we truly relate to the idea of language as an obstacle to learning? I had an experience that opened my eyes to the fact that I did not fully grasp the difficulties some of my students would experience.
It was a lecture on "teaching in a pluralistic society," and I made myself comfortable, fully expecting to hear an hour-or-so's worth of statistics and demographics. As soon as my lecturer entered the room, however, he began speaking in...well, something decidedly NOT English, that much is certain. (He would later reveal he was speaking Creole.) Supplies were passed around, instructions barked, and seemingly-nonsense scribbled on the board. My audience mates and I looked around at one another, clearly bewildered. I was ready to give up on the task he assigned before I even started, because I could not understand what he wanted of me. As a former student of French, I think I was slightly better off than others, yet these meager bits of language were not enough to sustain me through a lesson.
Afterwards, when he felt his point had been sufficiently made, he told us his intentions: to lend a little perspective on how our ELL students experience our lessons. Yes, he had a list of "essential" vocab with the English translation on the board, but I still struggled. Bits and pieces of a language are not enough for these kids to keep up with their already-English-proficient peers. These students need their own classroom where they really delve into properly learning a new language. Unfortunately, the likelihood that our schools will receive that kind of funding doesn't look too high. I've thought instead about creative and supplemental ways I can help my kids learn English, since I am devoid of the time in class to service their needs fully and completely. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on ways to implement technology to help my ELL students outside the classroom, and even inside it as well. What are your thoughts on the "best" ways to service our ELL students? I'm excited to hear your thoughts on the matter!
This is a great topic to discuss primarily because we will have learners on this spectrum. I can see the difficulty in trying to teach English to those students while attempting to teach your specific content. That thought alone makes me anxious. Perhaps after school tutoring will be of a help? I'm interested in hearing other ways of tackling this issue. In preschool, we have a few ELL students in our class that meet with specific ELL teachers once a week. Those teachers come to our class and take the ELL students to another class to work on different activities. Perhaps, having a period for those students would be beneficial? I think it could provide more focus on learning English, where a teacher might not have as much dedicated time. This is another reason that I am strongly for high quality preschool, because being in an environment where English is often spoken, is critical to learning the language at an early age. For example, I had an ELL student that started preschool last year with little to no English. This year, he has expanded his English and will be more prepared for kindergarten.
ReplyDeleteHi Lakeesha, thanks for your perspective! I definitely see the relevance to your posting here as well, since your preschool students are at a critical age for language adaptation and development. I agree with you, utilizing after-school tutors and perhaps even aids once a week would definitely help disperse the burden of accommodating these ELL students. Not all schools are equipped with these resources, and I think it is part of our job as teachers to bring these deficiencies to light to our own faculty members and administration, so that an action plan will hopefully be constructed executed.
ReplyDeleteHello! You picked a great topic, this is something that we will all have to face at some point during our teaching careers. There are obviously many ways that we can cater to our ELLs, but I think that there are a few that are more important than others. One of the most important things that we can do is to offer them assistance, during and outside of class time. These students most likely will not answer questions in class or ask for help. By letting them know that we have set aside time only for them may make them feel more comfortable. Something else that we could do is assign a peer partner to them. This would be another student in the class who is willing to help explain things to them and answer questions when you are not available. Utilizing materials related to our ELLs' cultures is another easy way that we can make them feel more comfortable. I have seen instances similar to these that have seemed help. Twice a week during college I went to a local high school for an hour in the middle of the day and helped the Spanish speaking students with their homework. These were students who could barely understand what was going on in their classes because their English was so poor. This school decided to set aside one period during the day for them to be in a classroom and have the spanish teachers, or students such as myself come in and help them. I think that this is a great was a great way to help the ELLs out during school time. There are obviously many other tactics that we can take to help these learners, these are just a few starters.
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