Part 4: 12 Ways to Support English Learners

That quote from Gonzalez is such a powerful reminder of how hard multilingual learners work every single day. It's important to continually stop and put ourselves in our students shoes and imagine the mental and emotional challenges that would arise if we were surrounded by a language and culture that is not what we grew up with. They’re not only processing content, but translating, interpreting tone, and navigating cultural cues all at once. I think back to the time I traveled to Portugal, and navigating on my own felt extremely overwhelming, and that was only a short trip. Of the 12 strategies, I think I already do a good job with Strategy 12: Always take them seriously. I make a conscious effort to listen closely to students and treat their ideas as valuable, regardless of how it's delivered. I talk to my students about how health is a personal subject, one that we can only effectively learn about if we can trust and share with each other. The strategy I’d like to improve on is Strategy 9: Learn about your students’ cultural backgrounds. I already try to build relationships and get to know my students personally, but I want to be more intentional about incorporating their cultures and experiences into lessons and examples, something I think is especially important as a health teacher discussing lifelong habits. I’ll know I’m making progress when students start sharing more about themselves and making personal connections to the topics we’re learning.

1. What do you Think??  REFLECT: Strategies 9-12 (14:39 - 20:30) have a common thread around respecting and honoring a student.  Gonzalez cites, “They’re doing twice the job of everybody else in the class, even though the result looks like half as much.”  What do you think?

I think it's really important to know the student's background and where they're coming from. For ELs they're not only translating language, but they're translating and navigating culture. They're doing so many things at once, while also trying to fit in with other young people. That doesn't even bring up whatever they might be going through at home. Unfortunately, they have to do all of this work to give them more opportunities for the future. While we don't have a national language, having a strong command of English makes things a lot easier.

2. Now What??  From the 12 strategies Gonzalez offers, which do you already use consciously? What are the results?  Are there any strategies that you connect with and plan to use?  How will you know if you are successful?  Please explain.

The strategies that I already use consciously are "make it visual," "build in more group work," and "learn about the cultural background of your students." I started my career as an EL teacher, and I've carried the idea of making things visual along with me. I like having a visual up because it allows me to provide additional support for a student if they need more time with the language or if they zoned out and want to know what's happening in the classroom. For the most part, I've had a reduced amount of "What are we doing?" or "Can you go over it again?" when I've had the information displayed on the board, and with technology, students are actually able to take a picture of the text (I usually have instructions typed with images) and translate it if need be. I really like building in more group work as well because being collaborative is an important soft skill for students to have as they move toward adulthood. One thing that I've noticed about group work is that it isn't common or even preferable in every culture. That ties into "learn about the cultural background of your students." In order for me to know what grouping is most effective and how to support my students to the best of my ability, I need to find out how they interact in group settings. In some cases, a student's culture may not encourage collaboration, and I need to accommodate for that.

1. What do you Think??  REFLECT: Strategies 9-12 (14:39 - 20:30) have a common thread around respecting and honoring a student.  Gonzalez cites, “They’re doing twice the job of everybody else in the class, even though the result looks like half as much.”  What do you think?

I think this quote is very insightful to those learning about ENL students. I think a lot of people (myself included) didn't really understand how much effort these students put into their school day! They do so much amazing work behind the scenes!

1. Now What??  From the 12 strategies Gonzalez offers, which do you already use consciously? What are the results?  Are there any strategies that you connect with and plan to use?  How will you know if you are successful?  Please explain.

I think that this course was very interesting. One of the things I use already is visuals. I have materials with visuals that make it easier for me to communicate with different types of students if there is ever a language barrier. I do keep in contact with ENL teachers as well, as we try to carryover what we are working on with the student to maximize student success! In my therapy sessions, I try to make things as fun as possible while working on our targets. I emphasize though that even though we are having fun, the work we are doing is important!

I do many of these strategies in my class already. I try to make activities visual as much as possible. This helps in science with labs and activities. I have been trying and continue to try to add more small group activities. I communicate with the ESL teachers, especially last year. I had many ESL students in my environmental science class, and they gave me some great tools to help. I will continue to use these strategies to make it easier for my students to understand the material. 

I have worked with ENL students in my Kindergarten class for the past 5-6 years. I agree with Gonzalez' quote that "They’re doing twice the job of everybody else in the class, even though the result looks like half as much." It is a remarkable process to witness a child learning English over the course of a school year. They are not only mastering Kindergarten skills, such as interacting appropriately with peers, counting one-to-one, and writing letters - but they are doing all of this while learning how to communicate in another language. When a child's family visits the classroom, and I hear the child speak fluently in their native language telling their parents all that we are learning,  then the child switches back to English to speak to me - I am always amazed and humbled by the amount of work they do. 
Many of the strategies that Gonzalez describes are ones that I have learned from my ENL co-teachers over the past few years. Two of the strategies I use most often is "make it visual" and "utilize group work." Visual aids benefit everyone in the class, and students learn more language from their peers than from me! I also use sentence frames when we do our Morning Circle discussion. It helps give all students an opportunity to join in. One strategy that I am consciously working on is learning more about the cultural background of my students.

Part 1 – These students are definitely doing double duty in every classroom. Often they need to learn how to read, write and speak English while attempting to master content in Social studies and science. They are asked in ELA to join book groups, read different genres and compare non-fiction and fiction text. This is before they have mastered the language. I cannot begin to imagine how overwhelming this must be for them.   Part 2 – Item 1 – Make it visual. - In the library, I am a huge believer in signage. There are visual clues all other the library but I now realize if you cannot read the clues they are useless. I need to add picture clues. This will be something I work on ASAP. Item 3 – Communicate with ENL teacher.  ENL teachers visit the library regularly with their students. This has provided me with multiple opportunities to confer and learn more about each student. This has helped me better understand and work with these kids. It can be difficult to find reading material that is accessible and meets the child’s interests. I struggle with providing material that will allow them to participate in class while not insulting their intelligence. Many of these kids speak 3 or 4 languages, they are very intelligent. I work with both their ENL and ELA teachers to provide meaningful reading material. I love google translate. It has gotten me through many a sticky conversation.

Gonzalez said, "They may appear to produce half as much as others, but they're actually doing twice the work."  I completely agree with her.  I also agree with the underlying theme of respecting and honoring students.  

Of the 12 ways to support ELL's, I always utilize visuals, small group learning/engaged in learning, scaffolding and pre teaching when possible.  You will know success when students 'get it'.  

So many of these 12 strategies are what I do everyday. I am a reading specialist and the strategies work for struggling learners too; they work for all learners. Making things visual; group work; communicating with the classroom teacher; scaffolding; providing sentence frames and wait time and pre-teaching are especially important for strugglers and the rest are great strategies to build community and respect. Our reading dept. works closely with our ELL teachers, so we are aware of the importance of understanding different cultures and customs. However, I am always tryngto learn more from my students in order to honor their experiences.