I was an ELL and I’m constantly reminded of what my elementary school teachers did or did not do to make sure I learned the academics and to learn to be a social citizen. I remember hearing my teachers tell my Chinese mother that I’m not at grade level because I do not have the English language ability. However, I can’t remember what my teachers did to make English language ability better. I remember not being engaged in activities because it was boring and wondering “why are we doing so much review?” I remember being a third grader, sitting in the ESL classroom and being asked to use brown in a sentence. How is using the word brown going to help me?

My focal students will be my ELL’s, and those who are being reclassified. I’m seeing a need to give them experiences and telling them the reason behind it, for example giving all my students time to learn to type and explicitly explaining why they need to learn to type. Or this week, I’m moving the informative writing assignment on to Google Slides.

Last year, I was part of the school’s Innovation Grant and part of our gathering information process was to survey the students in what gadgets they have at home, how much screen time they get, and what programs they go on. What was eye opening was that it was the ELL’s that had the most screen time, many being daily screen time, and they went on gaming sites or YouTube. So I want my students to think about how gadgets can be used for academics also. Yes, they can go onto YouTube to learn a skill but how are they going to use that skill? I want to open their eyes into the vast opportunities that are at their fingertips.