As a teacher, how would you support ELLs in your classroom? In what ways would you provide differentiation within your classroom? What are some of the resources with which you are familiar that you can suggest to teachers who have ELL students in their classes?
Friday, September 20, 2019
Maria and ELL students
In the class in which I am observing this semester, there is a total of 21 students. Seventeen of those students are classified as ELL students. Are there any ELL students in the class in which you are observing this semester? Have you worked with ELL students in the past? Have you observed the strategies that teachers use with their ELL students? Can you share some of the teaching strategies that you feel/felt were successful?
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This semester my class does not have any ELL students. However, I have worked with ELL students before at different schools. I unfortunately have not seen an effective method in teaching ELL students. I have mostly seen a teacher just excluding the child to a separate table from the rest of the class and having the student complete a packet or math problems. I think it is important to keep the student engaged in the lesson and in their learning. The teacher handing the student a packet and having them complete it is not an effective method of teaching an ELL student. However, when the teacher did separate the student the teacher had always asked for me to stay with them and just watch to make sure that they stayed on track. This was good for me because I do know Spanish so I was able to help them to better understand the content and give them the attention that they need to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI remember working with a 5th grade ELL student last year. It was his very first day of school in America having just yesterday come from Spain. He was telling me about how school was in Spain and how different it is in America. His school in Spain never had really any formal teaching and the students did not sit in desks but sat wherever around the room. They also were able to pick what they wanted to do and learn every day. The teacher merely served as an adult in the room to make sure that the students were behaving. He was so used to getting up and walking around so sitting in a desk all day was very hard for him and he was three grades levels behind in language arts and two grade level behind in math. The first time that I worked with him I asked him what some of his interests are so that I could get to know him more and find an effective way of teaching him. He was really interested in video games but specifically the game Minecraft. I then was able to incorporate Minecraft into my teaching to help him to better understand math and counting. He would make a picture of something in Minecraft using base ten blocks and would then have to count how many blocks made up the whole picture. He loved activities that were very hands on and the visual aid of the blocks really helped him in counting. It made learning fun for him and reminded him of Spain as he had more freedom in what he could create.
I think making learning accessible to various types of students is very important within the classroom. Every student that walks into the room is different than the student who entered the classroom before them. For me, it would depend on the student as different students learn differently. I think I would find out their interests and use that to help them to learn and create a want for them to learn. Some ELL students can be so discouraged from learning because it is so hard for them. They have to learn a new language and everything that is typically given to them within the classroom is of that new language that they are trying to learn. I would want to provide resources that are in their native language for them as well. For example, I would give an ELL student an article that we will read in class later in the week so that they can read it and get a feel for it before we work together as a class on it. I would provide the particle in both English and their native language so that they can compare the two. This allows the student to have ample time to complete the reading and grasp an understanding for it. I also believe that visual aids really help ELL students as a picture can clearly express to the students what is needed.
There are no ELL students in the class where I am observing this semester. But, I have worked with ELL students in the past while observing in the Dover Public Schools. In Dover, ELL students are very common an dpredominantly only speak Spanish. Because of this, most of the ELL students who speak little to no Spanish are all placed in the same classrooom with a general education teacher (who is often bilingual) and an ELL teacher. One strategy that I observed was that the teachers spoke to students in both Spanish and English: teachers would speak in English first and then translate into Spanish only if students needed it. Teachers also have objects around their classrooms labeled in both English and Spanish. Because in Dover ELL students are grouped together in classes, during specials, the class goes to specials with the English-speaking students from the other general eduacation classes in that grade. By doing this, the ELL students are around their peers whose first language is English, or who are fluent English speakers. By doing this, ELL students must interact with their English-speaking peers and try and communicate to form friendships and accomplish tasks in their specials.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, I would try my best to support ELLs in my classroom. First, depending on the native language of the ELL student(s) in my room, I would familiarize myself with a few common phrases in their language. If the ELL student(s) native language was Spanish, I would speak in English to them and then translate what they needed into Spanish. If their language was not Spanish, I would utilize a translation website or app to translate verbal directions and class and homework. I would also try and incorporate their culture into our classroom to make them feel more at home and comfortable in our classroom. I would also try to incorporate literature from the student(s)' culture into our readings to make students feel more at home and welcome in our classroom.
In terms of differentiation for ELL students in my classroom, I would allow them to use a translation app or website to help with some of their work, but as their English proficiency increased, I would gradually take this tool away. I would also provide them directions in both English and their native language. Also, it is more likely that ELL students will be able to speak English before they can accurately write and read it, so I will allow students to use speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology to help them understand and complete work. I would also try to see if certain pieces of literature that we are reading are available in the student(s)' native language so they can better understand the story.
Some resources that ELL students can use include the Speech-to-Text and the Text-to-Speech configurations available in Google. The website Reading A-Z offers readings for ELL students. There comic resources that target different reading skills as well as depicts social interactions for ELL students who may not know how to interact socially with their peers.
Comment Made by Molly Heller:
ReplyDeleteDenville, and all of the districts I've observed in over the past few years, is a predominately white -English-speaking school district. I have personally never worked with any ELL students in any of the classes to which I have been assigned. I have, however, been given information about ELL students within each of these schools and have discussed the topic in some of my classes. Unfortunately, as a result of not having the opportunity to work with ELL students, I presently do not have a large number of strategies that I can rely on if I were to have ELL students in my classes.
I have not had experience with ELL students during observing. Although this is the case, I think I have learned a lot about how to effectively teach ELL's. I understand that visual cues are extremely helpful for students to understand, participate and actually get something out of a lesson. I would use visualization for differentiating the students' work. For worksheets I would make sure that they have enough visualizations to be able to participate. As the year moves on and I see improvement with their language, I could dial back on all the pictures and visualization. However, visualizations can also benefit general education students as well. I hope to learn more about ELLs before graduating.
ReplyDeleteThere are no ELL students in the class that I am student teaching in, nor have ii ever experienced an ELL student in a classroom. I am in an elementary school in Wayne where there is no students in the school who are English Language Learners. There is one school in the town who have a program for these students. They are sent to this school to learn. Through my years at Caldwell I have learned many ways to benefit these students and make them feel welcome in the class.
ReplyDeleteA strategy that I have learned is to label things in the classroom in the student native language and in English. This is a way for the rest of the students in the class to learn about the ELL student.
Another strategy I have learned is to get books that we are reading in the classroom in the students native language and have it next to a book in English to help with learning.
In terms of making the ELL student feel welcome, I think that it would be a good idea for the rest of the students to learn how to say hello and goodbye in their language. This will make the student feel a little more at home knowing that other students want to connect with them and help them learn.
I had a similar situation this semester, the first grade class was mostly all ELL students, which caused for the teacher to use different teaching strategies, to make it easier for all the students in the class to understand the lessons being taught. The different strategies the teacher used, was to put the students in groups, depending on their comprehension level, and then she would do small group lessons, with 5 to 7 students in each group. This allowed the teacher to differentiate lessons and classwork for the students, which in my opinion did not make any child feel left out. As well within the entire 1st grade there were 4 classes, but one of the classes was a bilingual classroom, which had 1 teacher, 1 aide, and 32 students, who primarily spoke spanish. Although this class was huge, the teacher spent more time in whole group lessons, by speaking in both spanish and english. In this type of situation, the teacher would be unable to work in small groups with the students and see how they are academically.
ReplyDeleteMegan Barreto
ReplyDeleteI have not had much experience in my classroom with ELL students thus far. I do expect in the future to have to assist these students. One way I can do this is to give picture directions along with written directions. This way, students can use the pictures to match some of the meanings with the english words. Having pictures and written labels throughout the whole classroom can be very helpful as well. This type of strategy is just one of the many things you can do in order to assist these students. Something as subtle as labeling the room with pictures and words can help ELL students learn and recognize English words.