English Language Learners (ELLs) deserve every opportunity for success. Through careful planning, intentional structure, and beneficial collaboration, students I serve have a better chance of becoming engaged in the language acquisition process and invested in maximizing their full learning potential.
In my classroom, I incorporate student-centered instruction and activities where students make connections to prior learning or background experiences. Making connects for the students in their schematic map through building background and scaffolding from previously learned information to new knowledge is imperative. We review key concepts and hold each other accountable to measurable content and language objectives. Graphic organizers, adapted content, and supplementary materials are used to make the content comprehensible to my ELLs. Tapping into the SIOP method equips me with teaching strategies that make a difference.
There are several valuable teaching and assessment strategies that must be incorporated into my lessons. Unifying listening, speaking, reading, and writing in every lesson is key. Having the students take part in meaningful, real world activities is also essential. Helping them see the long-term value in the practice we are doing helps motivate them. Taking part in memorable lessons is also a great way to engage my students in a way that will have a lasting impact.
As I plan a lesson, I must keep in mind that reflection and modifications to the plan are almost always necessary. By using data through progress monitoring my students, I am more likely to plan meaningful and relevant lessons. Providing authentic assessments like active participation, rubrics, and portfolios for checking student comprehension will help the students truly gauge where they are in the language acquisition process, and it helps me better reflect on how far we have yet to go.
Providing solid literacy instruction to enhance the language development process matters a great deal. Whether a language learner is in first grade or ninth, a solid literacy foundation goes hand in hand with oral development. Using elements of the National Reading Panel’s findings is great, but teachers of language learners must keep oral development in mind as well. Incorporating whole language and balanced literacy approaches in my literacy activities benefit students still learning English.
As an ESL teacher, I partner with classroom teachers, equipping them with the necessary skills to meet ELLs’ needs throughout the day. By training them on how to make accommodations to class content and assessments, they are able to meet our students’ needs. In addition to showing them the SIOP method, training them on how to model thinking, reading, writing, and oral activities is necessary.
Encouraging classroom teachers as well as myself to provide heterogeneous groupings with students having specific jobs and partner activities offers language learners more opportunities to construct meaning from their peers. In alignment with social constructivist theories, when students feel able to learn from one another and teach one another, there is even more room for language and content development. To make this theory possible, students’ affective filters must be at a level conducive for this model. Providing students with a learning environment where they feel comfortable taking academic and language risks will allow them to accelerate their learning even more.
Providing students with regular feedback on their progress in language and literacy is key. Helping them to develop goals for themselves and learn how to look at their own classroom data will aide them in realistic self-efficacy and greater metacognition. Then the goal can turn into them becoming confident, autonomous learners.
Partnering with the students and their regular classroom teachers is vital, but equipping parents with the skills they need to increase student growth is also important. In order to lessen the achievement gap among ELLs and native English speaking students, parents must be engaged in the learning process and be given resources to provide support at home and in the community. By bridging the gap between school, home, and a child’s future, we have a greater chance of that student reaching full academic English proficiency, graduating high school, and making a difference in the world for the better.
I try my best to engage in a student’s culture whenever possible. By doing research, taking part in cultural events and activities in the community, and informally interviewing families, I have a better chance of demonstrating to my students that I appreciate and respect their background. When students see that I care about their ancestry, I am better able to model that same acceptance for them to reflect out to their classmates as well. Partnered with full academic English skills, engaging in cultural awareness within the classroom and in the community will equip my students to be global citizens ready to make a positive impact on the world.
Coli Escher 