School Case Studies Teaching English Language Learners is a skill that all teachers in the United States must master. We are a country made up of immigrants from other countries, and it is necessary that we, teachers, know how to instruct our newest members of our society. School Reform and Student Diversity Case Studies of Exemplary Practices for LEP Students illustrated how various schools successfully taught English Language Learners. There were several strategies that were described that could be implemented in my classroom. In my fifth grade classroom, I have five centers every week that students must complete in their groups. One center is a computer center where students take turns playing an educational computer game. The next center is a Spelling center where students take turns testing each other on their spelling words for the week. The next two centers vary each week depending on the Language Arts objectives. In the last center I take a group into the auditorium and students have a guided reading session with me. When reading about the Hollinbrook Elementary School, I learned about Readers’ Workshop. In this strategy, students work in pairs and take turns reading. After one person reads a paragraph, the other student uses a reading strategy. The reader must then identify the reading strategy his/her partner used. The students then switch roles, and continue. This is a strategy that I can use in my classroom during centers. After Easter vacation, my students will begin reading My Brother Sam is Dead as a class. Students can use this book to carry out Readers’ Workshop in their centers group. Pairing up my students would be easy because students are in groups of six. The next strategy for teaching English Language Learners is to use more of my assignments to validate my students’ ethnicities. This strateg stood out when reading about the Linda Vista Elementary School. Teachers at this school have tailored lessons so that they connect with students’ experiences. As a result, students are invested, motivated and eager to complete the assigned tasks. I do have some assignments that connect with students’ ethnic backgrounds, but I need to implement more. This strategy can be immediately implemented in writing because students can write an essay about their family’s personal history, students can also interview someone from their community, or students can make a presentation about an aspect of their culture. The next strategy that I plan to implement in my classroom is the Writers’ Workshop. This strategy was discussed in several schools, but it stood out for me when I read about the Inter American School. The goal of this strategy is to teach students that writing is a process. Currently, I have students write a draft and then we have a writing conference, where I read it out loud and help the student edit their essay. However, with the Writers’ Workshop process, students must first go to one of their peers and get them to edit their essay. Afterwards, the writer meets with their peer to discuss the essay. The writer must then develop a second draft based on the feedback he/she received from their peer. This is a great strategy to get students write a second draft without meeting with me first. Students can very easily carry out this process during centers. By the end of the week, I can expect each student to have a second draft of their essays. Additionally, students can still have a writing conference with me after their second draft is complete. Reading about these schools was very valuable because I learned new strategies to improve my teaching. Additionally, it was nice to read about strategies that have been proven effective that I already carry out in my classroom. This exercise illustrates how important it is for teachers to be life long learners. Only then, will we fully reach our potential to teach English Language Learners. |