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Putting My Students First
Many teachers I know approach the co-teaching process by thinking about the relationship they’ll be building with their co-teachers.
This past year, however, I decided to try something different. As an ENL teacher co-teaching for the first time in a sixth grade classroom, I was not just intent on making a strong teacher-to-teacher connection, but also to get all students in classroom on board with what I had to offer them. What focused this goal for me was one very social male ELL student in the room who was at an Expanding proficiency level and who desperately wanted to fit in. In order to achieve this I needed to find a way to involve his native English-speaking classmates. My presence in the classroom also gave me the opportunity to raise their English language skills. I decided that my role in that classroom was to draw attention to what language is at its best and ultimately to get all students to become curious about the study of language itself. In order to do this, my task then became determining how I was going to begin to make it happen.
Though I have worked hard not to become one of those mysterious teachers showing up sporadically in school hallways, most students still thought I taught Spanish to the Latino students. I realized that how I approached the class right from the start would influence how receptive they’d be to my lessons for the rest of the year. I decided to open with answering these two questions: 1. Why do we need better language skills? 2. What can they do for us? In my reply, I chose three key points and tailored them to meet the interests of students their age.
First, in a few years (this happens in eighth grade in our district) the class will have the opportunity to learn a new language, and the number-one indicator of how quickly they are picking up that language is how well they know their first language, the parts of speech and the syntactic elements they should be able to recognize in the language. For example, if students can identify an adjective and know where it is placed in an English sentence, they will be mindful of its diverse placement in other languages.
Second, by utilizing precise words to express themselves, students would have a leg up on their classmates, because those who can tell a great story are the ones everyone wants to listen to. My example was an uncle of mine and the way we would all gather around to hear his stories about the many adventures of his younger days. All his friends had nicknames like Johnny-Behind-the-Stove, who didn’t have a bed and slept behind the stove in the basement of an apartment building while his father, the custodian there, worked nights earning their keep. Just by making up those unique names, he kept us intrigued.
Third, how students speak when they get out into the real world will increase their chances of landing a job over the other applicants. The pupils in this sixth-grade class had fun coming up with what not to say in an interview—e.g., “Hey, how’s it goin’?,” and “Yeah, I can do whatever.”
I then placed their first of my Daily Language Objectives (Lukens and New Levine, 2015) on the board in front of the room, written on poster paper.
DAILY LANGUAGE OBJECTIVES:
This week I will:
UNDERSTAND WHY I NEED TO IMPROVE MY LANGUAGE SKILLS
So that I can:
2. COMMUNICATE MY IDEAS AND UNDERSTAND MY SCHOOL WORK BETTER
I’ll know I’ve got it when:
3. I CAN SPEAK, READ AND WRITE USING HIGHER LEVEL WORDS AND PHRASES
Another Example of My Language Objectives
Judging from how engaged the students were in this discussion, it couldn’t have been received any better. Throughout the year we practiced verbally first, then in writing. I explained the concept behind tiered vocabulary, and found that my co-teacher was quite enthusiastic about the “Connectors” including tier words and two phrase charts that I accessed regarding words to connect cause and effect or comparing and contrasting, from (Rojas, 2014), pgs. 14 & 15.
The classmates slowly began to actively rate and choose between their own vocabulary versus academic vocabulary for use in certain literary situations. We talked about cultural differences in languages; the example I like to use is showing them the upside-down question mark that begins and ends sentences in Spanish. We discussed whether we thought it was a smart way to write and read a question compared with the English way of writing them, with a question mark only at the end of the question. This lifted my Spanish-speaking multilingual learner up in the eyes of his classmates as I called upon him frequently to give us examples of how his first language differed from theirs.
By the end of the year I was able to include all three sixth-grade classes in a cultural poem writing activity called “Where I’m From,”(Christensen, 1998) Because our sixth graders were leaving our building to join students from four other elementary schools at our middle school next fall, a lesson in identifying and exploring their own cultures that would give them the message that their lives were meaningful seemed necessary and timely. On the last day of school, I stole into the classroom to post my parting message to the students:
"Raise your words
Not your voice
It is the rain that grows flowers
Not thunder."
—Rumi
After all was said and done, I realized that this may have started as my way of demonstrating to the content teacher the value and competency of my profession that many of my ENL colleagues believe is not acknowledged, but it soon developed into a way to have an impact on my students. Gaining their confidence and trust led to cultivating a positive relationship with my co-teacher. Just as gratifying was seeing my sixth-grade ELL grow confident and become a collaborative and integral part of his class. So, for all of the ENL teachers out there who are now using the seven co-teaching models, this article is for you.
I hope it helps to encourage you and to give you confidence that you can continue your co-teaching adventure with positive results for students and co-teachers alike!
References
Lukens, Laura and New Levine, Linda (2015) . Language Objectives for Elementary ELLs: Rigor in Reading and Writing. Accessed from
http://www.slideshare.net/LauraLukens/language-objectives-for-elementary-el-ls-tesol-2015
Rojas, V. (2014). "Key Principles for ELL instruction (What We All Need to know and Do) This 137 page PDF is available online
Where Are You From? https://www.twolittlebirdsteaching.com/where-are-you-from-activities/
Using Content and Language Objectives to Help All Students https://achievethecore.org/peersandpedagogy/using-content-and-language-objectives-to-help-all-students-in-their-learning/'
Finding the Time and the Strategies to Collaborate for ELLs https://sites.google.com/site/northernenlplc/finding-the-time-and-strategies-to-collaborate-for-ells
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Laura Stevens, an ENL teacher for the Oswego City School District, has been educating ELLs/MLLs for more than 20 years. She co-founded the Northern Region ENL PLC in 2012, a group of over 120 ESOL professionals in upstate New York. Laura has written articles and spoken in both college classrooms and at the 2009 NYS Migrant Education Conference about PLCs and advocating for ELL success. In the summer of 2015, Laura participated in an ENL panel discussion as part of a regional ENL conference at Indian River High School. Laura received a B.A. in both K-12 TESOL and English from SUNY Oswego and holds an M.A. in TESOL from Le Moyne College. <lstevens@oswego.org>
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