Teaching ELL: Teaching Strategies April 15, 2010

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 in the Curtin book dealt with teaching strategies for ELL students.  An important aspect of the strategies covered is that the variety of strategies suggested are no different than those recommended in well run classrooms without ELL students.  Visual aids, demonstrations, graphic organizers, interactive and cooperative learning, are all strategies and tools that should be present in every successful classroom.  I have been trying to integrate as many of these strategies and tools into my classroom as possible.  In both science and math the students spend a majority of their time engaged in cooperative group work.  I feel like it has been successful for the most part.  With the exception of a couple of students, the levels of student discussion on topic has been good.  A recent activity had the students acting out the motions of the Earth-moon-Sun system with certain questions in mind.  It was great to hear students planning their demonstrations and to hear some “ohhhs”  when someone saw something they didn’t before.

The reading provided some useful resources that I think could help me in the future.  The planning chart on pages 74-75 (Curtin 2009) provides a good outline to think about.  Often time my plans are simply written out in a way that I think may work.  The book says I should expect to plan 2-3 times the amount of time the lesson will take. (Curtin 2009)  this is a daunting task.  In this case I am glad to be a middle school teacher with only 2 subjects to plan for.  I know I need to work on my planning.  I have learned that just understanding the content I am trying to teach doesn’t automatically allow me to make my students understand it.  I am really trying to work on guiding the students to understanding rather than simply telling them the information, which is not learning at all.

I think the concept of learning English by learning subject content is an excellent one.  For myself, and perhaps anyone who has tried to learn some of a language for a foreign trip, sitting at home and trying to memorize vocabulary and random sentences doesn’t really work.  The words and phrases that are learned without context have only so much use. ELL students learning the language in pull out classes don’t develop the scientific or mathematical vocabulary needed to be successful in normal classrooms.  So even when they reach a point where their language skills are good, they are starting for behind other students in scientific or mathematical knowledge and skills.

As for my teaching, I am luck to have an ELL co-teacher in my math class for support.  We try to use several of the strategies covered in the the Curtin book.  Lots of group work with think-pair-shares and mini jig-sawing.  We have gotten them up on several occasions to act out graphs or geometric shapes.  I try to read directions or introductions aloud as students follow along and I try to keep the word wall up to date.  Even with our efforts, some of the ELL students are having trouble keeping up.  We have to keep the pace of the class up because we have many high level students also.  This is an issue in many classes and not just with ELL students and one I have a lot more to learn about.

Curtin, Ellen M.  (2009) Practical Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners.  Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.

Reflection for Sept. 14th-18th September 25, 2009

The first full week of classes.  It was good to see the kids in the classroom setting.  The week consisted of mostly of setting  up the classroom and intro activities.  We spent a couple of days reviewing school polices and setting up class norms.  I took the opportunity to make up a simple get to know each other activity for the students.  It was a 5×5 table with interests and questions I thought appropriate for middle schoolers.  In each square there were two lines.  All the students had to get up and circulate around the room and talk to each other to find name to put in their boxes.  I thought it went well and Liese , my mentor teacher, thought it went well also.  The students seemed to be engaged the entire time and hopefully they learned some thing new about another student.  I was good to see how each class has a different personality.  Particularly our 5th and 6th periods.  Ones quiet and needs to be pulled along while 6th period is super chatty and needs to be kept in check.  Right from the start I could see one of my potentially biggest issues.  We have inclusion classes at Eckstein, which means that special needs students are included with the general students.  In my first period we have 2 students with aspergers, one fairly severe.  The IEP (individual education plan) for the severe student calls for the goal of just getting her to keep her head up off the desk and to maybe get her to shake her head yes or no to an asked question.  I am nervous  about having to interact with these students, particularly when they may be having a bad day.  We have an IA (instructional assistant) to help with our first hour students which will take some of the pressure of the primary teacher.  We will see how these issues develop over the course of the year.