Students Learning English

Students Learning English

Synthesis:

Garcia and Godina

ESL/ELL students face lots of difficulties in today’s schools. Oftentimes, they must move around or work and thus they miss many days of school and do not have a consistent education. Students may be first or second generation immigrants. Their parents may not speak English at home. Also, they may be refugees or come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. ESL students come to American schools from many different backgrounds. This can make it difficult for teachers to help them; not many teachers are bilingual. Students are expected to learn English even as they must use English to learn academic content. Teachers should not give up on students just because they are ESL. Instead, teachers must get to know the various aspects of their students’ background in order to plan and support efficient learning in their classrooms. Students do better when the can activate strategies for higher-level reading skills. Students may have difficulties if they were not particularly literate in their first language. Explicit vocabulary and comprehension is crucial for students’ academic development. Students who enter American schools at the middle school or high school level may have a particularly difficult time; event students who are coming from elementary schools might struggle as the content and language become increasingly harder as they reach secondary schools.

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas

This text talks about how students should be called students who are learning English as an additional language or EALs. This phrasing emphasizes that students are not just learning English, but that they have some form of other language already known to them that influences their learning in English. This term seems to be structured around stating that educators understand that the other language has value as well. Students come from many different cultural, socioeconomic, educational and linguistic backgrounds. Some strategies that can help students to learn both language and content include jigsaws, fill in the blank academic notes with partial information, juicy sentences, consensus boards, content-area conversations and close reading. Students need to be given the opportunity to use oral language in the class room in addition to writing and listening. When it comes to academic content, students should be given access to models and appropriate scaffolding.

Response:

Text to Self: These ideas are relevant to me as a secondary English Language Arts teacher. Students come into my classroom with varying degrees of English skills and I need to be able to help them. These skills will be extremely helpful as I continue my educational career both in a regular classroom and hopefully one day as a reading specialist. I need to find tactful ways to find out about my students. Question: How do I determine if they need more help or if they are just flying under the radar? Each school year brings a new group of students that I must help with their own unique educational needs. 

Text to Text: These texts are very similar to the materials that I have read and watched for my other class this semester: Culture, Language, and Literacy. These texts focus on building academic vocabulary, knowing your students, being open to other cultures, and working towards learning both language and content. These same themes have been covered in readings for this class as well.

Text to World: The American population has always been a melting top, but in today’s society it is becoming more and more diverse every day. Despite often negative political climates, teachers need to work to help students reach their highest potential while they are in school. The nature of bilingual education must become more student friendly, and the issues discussed in these texts will become increasingly relevant. Above all, teachers must be aware of their students’ backgrounds and abilities.

Questions:

1. What is ELL/ESL education like in different schools that you have noticed?

2.  Have you had any relevant experiences with ELL/ESL students? Specific strategy ideas to help them?

3. Have you used any texts that you felt were particularly relevant to them?