Embracing English Language Learners (Online Reflection #2)

Whilst look through the Syngergy information available for my students on my first day in my placement I noted that the icon stipulating a boy or girl as an English Language Learner popped up often.  Feeling both excited about the chance to gain a good deal of experience with diverse students and slightly concerned about not having the resources to be helpful enough, I made a mental note to ensure that learning more about educating ELL students is a priority for the coming year.  A month in, I feel as though I am starting to make significant progress in this area.

    My CT informed me recently that earning his ESL endorsement was one of the most difficult tasks that he has taken on as an educator. It was completely worthwhile for him and I would one day like to do the same but I know that achieving this goal may be quite a ways off.   The reality is that I have already begun to have pretty substantial influence over ELL students and my responsibility will only continue to grow. Thus, I have to start to develop methods of teaching ELL students effectively now and focus on cultivating these skills as time passes.

      Perhaps the most essential technique I have started to utilize in this area is the idea of using more visual tools for ELL students.  Providing models is of paramount importance. Including visual instructions is just one part of the answer however; allowing students to create visual products of their own fairly frequently is also critical. One of my ELL students struggling with writing the required amount of sentences for the class fairly routine exit slips. He is active in class discussions but does not always seem to want to write his thoughts down. It is an area where he is having noticeable trouble but improving; he has shown more interest and days of near mastery as the semester has gone on but there are stillh some hours where he is not motivated. However, when given the chance to complete a project that focused almost exclusively on drawing he excelled. This helped both my CT and I gain a better understanding of him as an individual and, I believe, helped boost his confidence.

    Upon doing further research, I found that my opinion on the use of Spanish, or any other native language, in the classroom was shared.  It should be allowed and encouraged in certain contexts, to be used alongside English. After all, if a student gains literacy skills in their native language, they can transfer the same basic concepts to English. Complete assimilation is not the end goal here. In his article Do's & Don'ts For Teaching English-Language Learners, Larry Ferlazzo states that banning the use of native languages in the classroom altogether “does not promote a positive learning environment where students feel safe to take risks and make mistakes,” (Ferlazzo, 2012). This is clearly not conducive to a quality education. In addition, asking students to teach me a few words in their native language gives them a sense of efficacy and supports the idea of a classroom environment where the teacher is growing as well and benefits greatly from student input.

   I know that I have a great amount of learning and research still to do in terms of creating a toolbox of techniques to use with ELL students. The foundation has been laid however and I feel confident throwing my basic thoughts out into the world as a way of holding myself accountable to my goals. I am going to create a classroom environment that makes ELL comfortable and ready to challenge themselves.

Works Cited

 Larry, F. (2012, March 12). Do's & Don'ts For Teaching English-Language Learners. Retrieved September 21, 2015.