ELL Student Populations: A Case Study

English language learners (ELL) are one of the fastest growing classifications of students attending schools in the United States today. They represent a diverse group of students typically coming from homes or backgrounds where English is not the primary language spoken. Additionally, ELL students experience difficulties communicating or learning academic instruction in English.

Selecting materials relevant to ELL’s experience or culture; strategically using students’ first languages to make the content delivered in a second language more comprehensible teaching word learning strategies that build on first language knowledge such as using cognates; and frequently using partner talk to give low-English-proficient students more opportunities to talk with more English-proficient

One Misconception regarding ELL students is that immersion into an English-speaking classroom is enough for students to learn English.

be English Language Learners, (ELL) for them to benefit from this lesson or to meet state

The fact that ELL student’s are given the exact same educational services provided to native English speaker, seem to be very unfair for the ELL student’s and instead of helping the ELL students to succeed academically we are preventing them from succeeding in their classes. When I was reading this section I couldn’t stop thinking about the video that we saw in class, the student was very smart but the fact that he couldn’t understand the material being taught, this was preventing him from showing how brilliant and smart he is. Just imagine how many brilliant ELL students can’t succeed in class because they don’t understand the language of the instruction.

For teachers, I believe they are lacking in having efficient data, practices, and resources. These three categories play an essential role in educating, evaluating, and caring for ELL students. Communication is a huge factor when it comes to instruction in the classroom. In the past research has shown poor communication between teachers, students and families. Schools often lack in providing differentiated methods and tools to teach ELL students. Schools in the past have failed to offer the correct assessments that were needed in order to diagnose each student's needs and measure their individualized learning standards. Educators can easily become frustrated because there is such a wide range of English learners. This means academic levels are different and the educators have not received the proper training or instructions on how to correctly educate ELL students.

Many parents believe that it is better not to speak English. When this happens the students will not receive the practice that they really need. The student must know their parents’ language it is imperative to the student’s cultural identity and has to maintain a healthy relationship with their family. Parents’ have concerns about using their native language with their children include: learning another language is too difficult it will delay their language development; the child will not be able to master either language; they will not be as proficient as the students who know one language; confusing the two languages will happen; and they will communicate in English with an accent. The school should address these concerns before the school year begins.

ELL continue to rise year after year. In EDUC 628, the class delved into the rise of ELL in America and how the best teaching methods to approach each learner with. Every ELL student is unique and has different learning process. Although the semester covered a wide variety of topics ranging from dialects to teaching methods, every module served its purpose in providing a framework for future ELL teachers. Learning about how to teach ELL was significant to me because when I first entered the school system in America, I was placed into ESL and I have gone through the process of many of these teaching methods. EDUC 628 main focus was preparing students whose goal in the future was to educate ELL. The articles and readings assigned in the class provided a funds of knowledge going into each new lesson. Coupled with the readings, hands on activities such as the mini lessons and designing lesson plans provided each student with experience that will reflect on their teaching abilities in the classroom. In my paper, I will be provided a step by step synthesis of what was learned and accomplished every week along with a brief summary of the readings. I will probe deeper into the modules and lessons that piqued my interest the most and that also challenge my mindset.

Within this paper we will take a brief look at the Language Acquisition Principles and how they work on the behalf of ELL students. We will see how these principles can be applied within our own learning environment. There is much information from Walqui article that gives a brief overview of ELL students and how things looked in the past for these students. Now that times has change we will see how educators can make the requirements for ELL students better and more effective for teacher and students. Hopefully, as we look at ways of changing learning for our ELL students we must remember that every student learns differently. Even if you follow the principles from

Strategies for Teaching ESL Student - ESL Students in the Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2016, from https://www.eslpartyland.com/teaching-esl-student

This artifact represents eleven methods helpful for developing student’s oral language skills. Components essential for developing language and literacy include practice speaking and writing formally, as well as reading and listening. Communication has five areas to oral language development including; vocabulary, syntax (grammar), morphological skills (meaning of words forms and parts), pragmatics (the social rules of communication), and phonological skills (rhymes and syllables). In this artifact I provide strategies for developing these skills emphasizing the need for students to talk more than the teacher, regardless of their skill level. Practice need not always be structured around a curriculum goal such as chemistry, it can be an activity that encourages an ELL student to tell about their favorite food, or their family, or a special tradition they have at home. Developing oral language is about having student practice. Having student’s write down their stories can help develop their literacy.

English Language Learner teachers are incredibly important in the education world. ELL teachers work with students who are learning how to read, write, and speak in English. This can be a difficult task but there are many ways that an ELL teacher can help the child. On YouTube I found one ELL teacher that has a Russian-speaking student that can only say a couple of words in English.

I believe the most challenging aspect of teaching ELL is communication and gaining the students trust. Communication involves expression of thoughts and feelings into oral or written experiences through the facilities of the senses; consequently it is the listening, speaking, reading and writing. Being an English Language Learner at the age of four, I remember crying to communicate and express my fear of not seeing any family members around, my frustration of not understanding what the people around me are saying, and my helplessness to say what I need from them. My adapting and learning occurred when I felt safe and trusting of my teacher, classmates and

The advice I will give regarding the education of English learners is for the teachers to have a lot of patience. Teachers that work with ELs must find ways to present the content using diverse methods. Even though the ELs are not proficient in English, it does not mean that they are unaware of the content. In addition, the ELs bring to the schools diverse funds of knowledge that the teachers may use to make the connections to the content begin taught. One way to have an idea of the diverse funds of knowledge is by understanding the community in which the students reside, including the various strengths from the community, as well as the challenges the community may experience.

We then transitioned into presenting our observations of each child and the strategy selected for them. Each pair began by validating the teacher’s initial concerns about their selected student, listing the ELL student’s strengths, and stating challenges and concerns that were noticed during the observations. This was also important to the meeting because we were able to express our objective observations of the ELL student from an outside perspective and explain how it matched the valuable information the teachers provided during our initial meeting. Each pair then presented a language support strategy for their ELL student that they believed could be beneficial in supporting their language development. For Ahmed, my partners and I suggested using parallel talk because he needs a great deal of rich English language input to support the development of his expressive language skills in English. His overall receptive language skills and expressive language skills in his primary language were typically developing and therefore, did not need to be supported. Parallel talk will expose him to multiple, diverse words in the English language and demonstrate their usage in context. The information about parallel talk and the other ELL student strategies were complied into a handout that was provided to the teachers. The handout also included the following strategies for all of the students in the classroom: fill in the blank,