Part 4: 12 Ways to Support English Learners

What a great thought provoking badge!   Seeing in black and white that ELL's are doing twice the work even though they may produce half the product was eye opening.   I must self-admit that I've often felt that about sped kids, and not applied these lessons to ELL's.   I feel to achieve a smaller pedagogy gap, it really does all come down to community building.  A child who feels accepted, will take risk.  A teacher who takes supported risks will earn trust.  
My grandfather used to say things like "in my language we say" and I don't think as a teacher I've given enough value to culturally unique vocabulary.  I will be opening my teaching to this concept.
Some parallels to sped teaching were in the use of sentence frames and pre-teaching strategies.  Although these are in my arsenal, I can further roll them out with ELL.
I feel it is important to share my own culture while learning those of my students.  Like my students, it may be invisible that my father was an ELL and my mom was bilingual.   
2.  I think this all boils down to the not taking yourself so seriously .   Building mutual respect by modeling making and repairing mistakes, seeking alternatives to how I approached something, and laughing at my little foibles.   All go far in expanding trust and making an environment that is safe and inclusive .

It is so true that ELLs are doing twice the work even though what they produce might not show that.  It's so easy to demand the same level of work from ELLs as their native speaker counterparts but it takes such mental and linguistic load in order to do that.  I like to remind myself of their current language level and reference what these students "can do" in writing, speaking, etc so that I make sure I am pushing them to grow in their language without burdening them.  

I think these 12 tips are succinct and easy to use.  Make it visual, communicate with the ELL teachers, learn about the students and where they come from make the classroom an inviting classroom to learn in.  I especially love the "take them seriously."  Our ELL students,  especially newcomers, really do try to take risks and practice and sometimes we think that their attempts are cute and not focus on the meaning/message.   

I recently started my 4th language learning journey and I love sharing with my students all of my fails.  I have a high effective filter so when I am nervous or stressed or the learning environment is not inviting to language learning, I cannot speak and flubber my way through any conversation.  I share that with my students and it helps them know that they are not alone in this journey.  That it's ok to tense up when speaking in a new language.  I love the idea of encouraging risk taking that our podcaster shared here. 

I strongly agree with Gonzalez’s statement that ELL students “do twice the job of everybody else in the class.. even though the result looks like half as much”. Especially for students that are emerging, I imagine they are experiencing so many different emotions while in the classroom. As an educator, I want each of my students to know that I value effort over any result. I try to tell my class as frequently as possible that “I just want to see you try” when they come across something that may be difficult for them. 

The two strategies I feel I use the most are:
#1 Make it visual. Show instead of tell. This is helpful for all of my students, it’s a great scaffold especially at the Kindergarten level when many students are entering school for the first time and the expectations are brand new. Many entering Kindergarten students struggle w/ language and concepts so visuals are a tool that I rely on heavily.
#2 Building in group work. I feel as though this is also one of my strengths. I try to let my students do the teaching whenever possible. My reading/writing groups & center groups are mixed ability so that students can rely on each other and use one another as models rather than coming directly to me. This has been very effective in helping my students’ develop their ability to problem solve & synergize. I love the idea of ELL students getting opportunities to take ownership of their learning & teach their peers.

I got a lot out of this particular podcast. Strategy #8 is something that I try to do but I definitely could do more! Giving students a chance to preview material before its presented is so helpful for many of Kindergarteners so that they can participate and even take over the teaching during whole group lessons. I think this can benefit all students, especially ELLs. I have tried to do this with defining new vocabulary in reading groups. However, this motivates me to preview more than just the vocabulary in books with my students for even more support. Since I don’t have ELL students in my classroom this year, I'm imagining what I'll do in the future if I do! I think trying strategy #3 and utilize my resources by connecting with our ENL teachers would be a great way to plan & support our ELLs. 

I can honestly say that I always follow strategies 9,10 and 12.  I agree that ELL kids put in twice the effort.  They not only have to translate the reading, but also understand it.  Whereas reading the text may be "easy" for the general population.  They can quickly summarize the article incorporating many grammatically correct sentences.  While the ELL may have put in three times more time to formulate one well written sentence as his/her answer.  

I taught four years in Buffalo Public Schools.  They did a training for all staff and said, "If you know one person that is black, you know one person that is black."  I use that when I think of other cultures or students with disabilities; no two people are exactly alike.  I do feel I need to get better at strategy 11 because I am one who can get embarrassed easily and need to show my students (whether planned or not) that it is okay to make mistake and find the humor in it.  I will know I am making a breakthrough with this strategy if I see my students understanding the humor, but not picking on each other.

1.) In order to make all kids feel comfortable and part of the class I always ask everyone to participate. For my English Language Learners I give them materials in advance, lists of vocabulary, altered assignments, and more lead time. 
If they are going to read to the class or perform they have their materials with them and they know exactly what to read ahead of time so that they may practice. I have no problem with kids using the translation devices. I also try to break down words and use synonyms when teaching. I also tell them repeatedly that being bilingual is a huge undertaking and they should be proud of how far they have come already. Positive affirmation is used constantly. We also try to show them that we make mistakes and that English is always changing the rules for no reason. 
2.) I love the rule, "do not ask them to speak for their entire culture." I am so glad she said this because I see it all of the time. This is a micro-agression and absolutely makes kids feel singled out. I cannot stand when teachers do this and feel like they are progressive. It is the worst. That being said, by giving kids extra time, easier notes, and things that only require fill in the blanks vs entire sentences, it has made it easier for the English language learners to pay attention to the lesson and find where I am. Since they know that they can do some word recognition with what is already on their papers. Listening, finding what I am talking about on the paper and filling it in, is too much at once. 
Fill in the blank style has really helped the kids stay with me and I can easily see based on the blanks when to slow down or revisit soemthing.

Reflection: Gonzalez's quote of EL "students doing twice the job of everybody else in the class, even though the result looks like half as much" hit home for me.  I had the opportunity to teach an EL section of Global History last school year and saw first hand the amount of effort it took for my EL students to complete an assignment. With my ENL co-teacher present, we eliminated extra vocabulary/parts of tasks, provided visuals,  even had a "study buddy" sit near them to collaborate.  Even with these modifications & strategies, getting a few sentences for a multi-body paragraph essay was a huge success.  I loved the idea of using Sentence Frames for practice for all of my students (especially with the Regents Tasks of answering CRQ questions & Enduring Issues Essays).  Not only would this benefit the EL students, but these strategies would aid all students within the classroom.  

As a Global History teacher, we discuss cultures and customs from various parts of the world.  I could see myself in the future continue to implement cultural backgrounds of the students in our class & make it a point to know their religious and cultural practices. I also liked the idea of continuing to communicate with our ESL staff and teachers in the building- even a simple act of adding them to our Schoology courses and pre-teach or push out materials ahead of time for students to preview prior to class would be a huge help.  

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?

Value the student and the students effort. There are 2 things we can control, our attitude and our effort. So if a student is trying, respect that and value you. They are working incredibly hard and you want to praise effort and mistakes happen.

"Showing them how to laugh at themselves without ridicule is encouraging them to take more risks" Risks are necessary when you are practicing a new language.


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.

One of the biggest things for me was "Make it visual". Notability is a great tool for us. It isn't just tech for the use of tech, it is a tool to help relate material. When I write out the steps to a problem (another great strategy), I color code them and then color the work for the students in that same color.

Also, in class, we speak in sentence frames, and I also have them on a bulletin board near the front of class. "This is correct because _______" We defend everything in class, so that helps some words become a bit more familiar. 

Pre-teaching is important too. I make a YouTube video of the lesson once a week when we are learning a big topic and I push it out the night before the lesson.