Culminating Project 2

Students who are in the Emerging category or are new to the school, country, and/or English language will have both enrichment periods in an ELL class. One class will be a small homogenous group working with a teacher directly on basic language acquisition. Their other ELL class will have them paired with a teacher-selected student from the Progressing group as a peer helper. The school’s ELL teacher this year said that peer helpers can be incredibly beneficial for ELL students, which is supported in the research. Klingner and Vaughn (2000) found that bilingual (Spanish/English) students provided significant assistance to their ELL peers. The ELL students' scores on English vocabulary tests improved significantly with bilingual peer assistance, and it was most effective when they were given specific instructions on how and when to help their peers. The teacher noted that the inclusion teacher should be monitoring the situation to make sure the bilingual student who is helping them is continuing to progress. The teacher has seen great growth in confidence for most students who are peer helpers.

In reviewing the data in Table 1, the students scoring Progressing are a larger group, so the other progressing students will be in a class paired with proficient students who are selected to be peer helpers. Classes may also be held for students whom the teacher has determined need individual instruction and do not learn well with peers.

Proposed Plan for Community Involvement

It is being proposed that Denham Springs Junior High host a special Back-to-School orientation event for all Spanish speaking families in the community. The principal speaks a fair amount of Spanish himself, and because has a humorous and self-deprecating charisma when speaking about his own bilingual abilities, I believe him addressing the Spanish speaking families in the community would really encourage them to take an active role in their children’s education without fear of judgment or exclusion. Right now these families tend to not come to orientation because they know it will all be in English.

In my professional experience, many of my ELL and bilingual students act as a translator for their families, which leads to their family only getting the information the student wants to pass along. By having an event for these parents, the school could have the families sign up for a special Spanish/English remind group so that the school can stay in contact with them throughout the year. They could also assist the parents with signing in to their child’s online education portals in order to keep track of their grades on PowerSchool and assignments on Google Classroom.

The interpreter for IEPs in Livingston Parish has always been very helpful when I need to conduct an IEP with a Spanish-speaking family. She often sends YouTube videos via text to help English language learning families. A list of the most helpful ones she uses could be compiled on the school’s website for easy access.

Proposed Plan for Professionals

As previously stated, The ELL teacher believes the best plan for Denham Springs Junior High is to maintain the current program of immersion for the majority of the day. She wants to encourage teachers to include their ELL students as best as they can in the regular classroom, and to not focus too much on the academic concepts being taught, but rather to focus on encouraging them to participate in the class in order to learn the language.

I communicated to this teacher that even I, a teacher who has taken many Spanish classes and is familiar with the language, feel incompetent in attempting to communicate with ELL students. The teacher helped me change my perspective in order to understand that that is how the ELL students feel themselves. If you as a teacher feel like you might make a mistake when trying to say a Spanish phrase, imagine how a student must feel in an English-language dominated environment.

This is supported by the literature, with students saying that they wish for their teachers to respect and understand their cultures and treat them in a socially just way. When teachers just ignore their ELL students, they feel undervalued and marginalized, which can be detrimental to their learning (Ryan & Hellmundt, 2003). Most teachers recognize the growing diversity in the school system, but they feel unequipped to teach these students.

In order for ELL students to feel included and motivated to undertake the overwhelming task of learning a new language, they must be included in the classroom. There isn’t a quick fix to help students acquire language, because it is a dynamic, social activity that is acquired in physical and social contexts. Johnson (2009) describes language acquisition as being “distributed across persons, tools, and activities.”

The ELL teacher emphasized that for any student making a connection with them is the best way for them to feel engaged in the class and motivated to strive to be better. This teacher emphasized that this is the same with ELL students, but it is harder to accomplish due to the language barrier. However, if teachers are going to be able to motivate ELL students in their incredibly challenging environment, they must find a way to make that connection. Hawkins (2004) views classrooms as “complex social systems,” and ELL students’ language and literacy development, as well as their learning in other areas, as products of social interaction within and outside of those classrooms. This is why it is so important to keep ELL students in the regular classroom for most of the day instead of segregating them and treating English acquisition as an academic subject. Johnson (2009) says language “gains its meaning from concrete communicative activity in specific sociocultural contexts,” or put differently, “meaning resides not in the grammar of the language, or in its vocabulary, or in the head of an individual, but in the everyday activities that individuals engage in.” Having these students participate in the same daily activities as their English-speaking peers creates not only the opportunity but also the motivation to acquire English.

References

Hawkins, M. R. (2004). Researching English language and literacy development in schools . Educational Researcher, 33(3), 14–25.

Johnson, K. E. (2009). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York, NY: Routledge.

Ryan, J., & Hellmundt, S. (2003). Excellence through diversity: Internationalisation of curriculum and pedagogy, paper presented at the 17th IDP international education conference, Oct.

Klingner, J. K., & Vaughn, S. (2000). The helping behaviors of fifth graders while using collaborative strategic reading during ESL content classes. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 69-98.