When I met Lily for the first time, it was for our first mentor-mentee meeting. She was the new ESL teacher at our school, and I had the opportunity to spend her first school year with her, meeting weekly, and seeing the world of education and our school climate through her eyes. As anyone who has been a part of a mentor-mentee relationship with another teacher or a student knows, the mentor ends up learning just as much, if not more, from the mentee. Lily is a sponge. She can read anything, understand it, and explain it. She is efficient, giving of her time and talents, and has a heart for kids. I’m beyond honored to have Lily be the first guest blogger in my “Teacher Experts” blog series, highlighting the amazing educators I get the privilege of working with. I asked Lily three questions about her teaching role, and I think you will be blown away by the level of knowledge and passion she has in her education area of working with ELL students.
1. What are the most important things teachers can do to make learning accessible for ELL students?
One of the buzz words in education right now is differentiation, which entails modifying classroom instruction to meet the needs of all students. Most teachers have a pretty good idea of how to implement content differentiation: modifying presentation of information, the learning environment, processes and products, etc. to allow all students to be challenged and successful in the classroom. When it comes to English language learners (ELLs), we must also be intentional about providing language differentiation in our instruction. In order to make grade-level content accessible to these students, we must do three things: make our language comprehensible, scaffold our instruction, and include linguistic supports to meet the diverse needs of our students.
I’ve had teachers approach me in a state of panic because they don’t speak a student’s native language and they are at a loss as to how to communicate with that student. My recommendation is to use a set of simple strategies collectively known as “Making Input Comprehensible” in order to help ELL students comprehend written and spoken language in English. Here are some of the most important ways you can make language more comprehensible for ELLs on a daily basis:
· Use a slower rate of speech
· Use familiar or simple vocabulary and grammatical structures and build on them over time
· Repeat important words with high frequency (choose 3-7 per day to target and focus on)
· Use your voice as a tool to signal transitions, indicate tone, incorporate sound effects, etc.
· Use gestures and actions to clarify language
· Use visuals and props or manipulatives to support students learning
· Model, model, model!
· Engage students in responding to input in some way. When asking questions, use well-written questions (“What questions do you have?” is better than “Do you have any questions?”) and sequence questions from yes/no and either/or to short open-ended questions to build confidence
· Use paraphrasing and repetition to explain new words, phrases, and concepts. (Try out the rule of three: define or rephrase a new word or idea three different ways.)
· Utilize frequent comprehension checks to make sure students are comprehending the meaning of what you are saying. (Again, be strategic – don’t just ask point blank if there are any questions.)
· Practice circumlocution: talking around an unknown word or idea
· Focus student attention on input by making sure students know the topic and objective of the lesson in advance
· Provide a meaningful and purposeful context that is relevant to students, including background knowledge. Remember that ELLs may not have the same background knowledge as most students in your classroom!
· Provide students with useful phrases to help them negotiate meaning, such as how to ask for repetition or clarification (“Can you say more?”), checking their own comprehension (“Do you mean…?”), and confirming their understanding (“I think you are saying… Am I right?”)
We also must scaffold and provide appropriate linguistic supports to our students during instruction. Part of determining the right ways to do this is familiarizing yourself with each ELL’s language levels and skills, which should be provided to you by the ESL teacher. WIDA has published a set of model performance indicators which highlight the skills that students at each level of language proficiency should be able to perform successfully in the areas of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. We use this information to build on students’ strengths during instruction and assessments. For example, a student with strong speaking skills and lower writing skills can be offered the opportunity to answer reading comprehension questions orally rather than on a written exit ticket. Supports offered may include intentional grouping of students, graphic organizers/visual supports, sensory supports, word walls/word banks, and writing supports such as sentence stems or frames. Focusing on one or two language functions (what students need to do with the language) is especially helpful to choose needed supports and scaffolds, including any pre-reading or pre-writing activities. Instruction should incorporate a combination of reading, writing, listening, and speaking to help students develop in all four areas.
2. What does culturally responsive teaching mean in “user-friendly” language?
If you ask this question to three different people, you will probably get three different answers! I’ve read several books on this topic to develop my own personal understanding of culturally responsive teaching, which essentially boils down to this:
· Holding high expectations for ALL students – provide appropriate supports to help them meet those expectations
· Making learning relevant for students
· Developing cultural competence – be willing to learn about the cultures represented in your classroom and embrace cultural differences with an open mind and a positive attitude
· Building on the assets students bring to the classroom – first language literacy skills, prior knowledge, life experiences, hobbies and interests, and more
I think what makes CRT so confusing is that it’s not a strategy or set of strategies you can print out and implement in your classroom. Rather, it is a mindset; a willingness to meet all students (ELL or not) where they’re at and build on the skills and resources they have to offer.
Some experts go a step further (such as Gloria Ladson-Billings) and claim that culturally responsive pedagogy involves a social justice aspect as well: that we should be teaching students to think critically about the inequities of our society and to critically identify solutions to problems relevant to their own situations. Personally, I think critical thinking is an instrumental learning tool and this is a phenomenal idea to incorporate in the classroom as much as possible, but it’s not actually necessary to be a culturally relevant teacher or to validate and affirm the cultures of your students.
3. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned through your role as an ESL teacher?
The most important lesson I have learned in my position is, as cliché as it sounds, not to judge a book by its cover. More specifically, I have learned not to make quick judgments or assumptions about a student’s intelligence or language abilities. This goes both ways. I have had newcomers who arrived speaking no English who have blown me away with their learning ability and high level thinking skills. Language is not a disability, but frequently ELLs get lumped together with SPED students because they need extra support to learn grade-level material, and this can be unintentionally harmful to the way we think about those students and the way they see themselves as learners. On the other hand, I have had students who can hold a beautiful conversation with me in English, so I assumed they were nearing native-like proficiency, only to discover their struggles with English in the classroom. If you are unfamiliar with Jim Cummins’ ideas about BICS and CALP, I would highly recommend doing a quick search on Google. Basically, BICS refers to basic interpersonal communication skills and CALP is cognitive academic language proficiency. ELLs are able to pick up BICS rather quickly, typically within a few years, while academic language takes around seven years to develop. For this reason, teachers often overestimate the English abilities of students based on their conversational abilities, not realizing that they still need support in developing their academic language. Both of these scenarios are reasons why it is so important to familiarize oneself with the WIDA English proficiency levels and review students’ performance levels in each domain. The more you get to know your students, the better you will be able to meet them where they are at and both support and challenge them appropriately.
So there you have it! Lily gave tangible ways to communicate better with students who have a native language other than English, discussed ways to scaffold instruction, explained that culturally relevant teaching is not a set of strategies, but rather a mindset, and reminded us of the importance of using assessment tools and time to truly get to know your students without making assumptions. Thank you Lily for your insight that will help middle school ELA teachers (and any teachers for that matter) have a better perspective when working with not only ELL students, but all students.
