Teaching English Language Learners

This module presented a scenario of a teacher who spoke Portuguese only in a classroom with students that do not speak the language. The presentation is a great representation of a case where I just moved to a different place and attending a new elementary school. The video shows how important it is for teachers to understand Second Language Acquisition and how to further improve the learning for students who are English Learners.

For Spanish Speaker students, most of the vocabulary the teacher used was very familiar. It was easy to understand her instructions and materials.

· What about students that are just starting to learn another language?

· How can she differentiate and adjust the lesson for students who do not speak the language spoken in the classroom?

· How often does this scene happen in the classrooms across the world, across North America, across New Mexico?

An “Aha moment” for me was to be able to understand must of the video because Spanish and Portuguese have similar words. Some issues that I have is that Bilingual programs are being considered less important because they are state funded and revenues are decreasing in education. As such, opportunities are being limited in English Learner Development (ELD) programs, except for those which are better funded (Federal Funded).

· Why are we not doing more for our English Learner students?

· How are we allowing funding of programs to determine how our students are enhancing their first language as they acquire a new one?

· Why are programs forgetting about how important it is for a Second Language Learner to retain first language and acquire a second language?

Interview:

“Testing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners”

This interview is very interesting to me because I do work with Bilingual students. Many times teachers ask us to help them because they believe the Bilingual students do not understand or cannot solve word problems. As a Second Language Learner myself, I can see how a student will struggle with many simple things such as new vocabulary. In his first question, Professor Alfredo Artiles answered something that I wish teachers would understand: that English Learner Students struggle with things that are unfamiliar to them and that background knowledge becomes a big part of how well a teacher and student can form that learning environment connection. It was interesting that he broke down the answer to explain the impacts of testing in culturally and linguistically diverse learners.

· How do you approach the questioning for students that are culturally and linguistically diverse learners in your classroom?

· How do you differentiated strategies that would help students?

· Can we practice the known-questions by pairing students with classmates?

· Can students work in verbally talk about their evidences, ask each other why?

An “Aha moment” was the answer about Culturally Relevant Test to increase students reading skills and rely on text that makes sense to students. You can relate things that will motivate them by using themes and contents that are familiar to them and that will keep them engaged. Storytelling, narrative expressing, and using other strategies will keep students motivated and change how they interact in the classroom. Use Relevant Test but make sure to use other strategies that will help students.

Building Language Through Thematic Learning

Personally, I love teaching by using themes. The first teacher I worked with here in United States teaches using themes every week and students love it! They got the experience of the concept and gained vocabulary as they did different activities, such as cook food. Some of my favorite letters and themes included B: Bats, Banana bread; C: Community helpers, and Carrot cake; D: Dinosaurs, Dinner rolls; L: Lemon bars, Long ago and Today. The teacher always incorporated themes where science, social studies, language arts and math were connected. She also kept her students during the 45 minutes of Bilingual and taught them in both English and Spanish. Her classroom was mostly Monolingual/Bilingual students. The first few years I worked with her they started adding students whose parents wanted her as their children teacher and wanted them to learn another language. However, she now works at a different school, but I still consider her my mentor and great friend. We periodically get together and share ideas.

I believe that thematic learning is another great strategy in helping young students because it involves gaining vocabulary, new knowledge, and background knowledge. A student might know about the work of a firefighter (bombero) while another may know about a baker (panadero). As they talk in a group about what they want to be, they share stories of real life knowledge and have fun while learning. These students have a great advantage by learning two languages at the same time. They maintain their first language while develop a new one.