For VBlog Entry 3, I decided to interview Mrs. Reynolds, a kindergarten teacher at Foster Elementary who has been teaching ELLs in her class for 6 years now. She has had lots of experience reflecting on what works best for the ELLs in her class, especially with them at such a young age, so I felt that she would be a great teacher to answer some questions and give some advice from the work she's done over the years. Mrs. Reynolds first told me that she currently has 3 hispanic ELLs and 1 Taiwan ELL. She told me that the biggest challenge they face is trying to follow multi-step directions and that they also struggle with understanding when and how to let her know what they want to say or do. However, Mrs. Reynolds said she's always enjoyed working with ELLs in her class because she loves the challenge and helping them grow closer to where they should be for first grade. Mrs. Reynolds also discussed with me certain approaches and methods she uses to make her teaching more effective for these ELLs and why these work the best for her students. As I suspected at such a young age, visual cues and pictorials, gestures, and manipulatives are very helpful for these ELLs in kindergarten because they are still understanding how words and writing work in general at this early of an age, especially when their English speaking peers still have challenges with words and written material. Mrs Reynolds also told me that she always wants her students to feel comfortable in the class and never scared of what is going on, because especially for these ELLs, kindergarten can be an extremely intimidating time where most of them are just starting school which makes it even scarier that they aren't familiar with the main language being used, so learning is constantly occurring. Mrs. Reynolds philosophy reminds me of when Wright discussed the Natural Approach of second language teaching where "the teacher's job is to provide comprehensible input in a safe and enjoyable classroom environment" and "the teacher uses a wide variety of techniques, such as total physical response (TPR), ample visuals and realia, small group work, and any other activities involving meaningful communication that can facilitate the provision of comprehensible input" (2015, p. 61).
I was also curious of some of the struggles Mrs. Reynolds faces with the ELLs. I wondered how she may understand some of the students when they resort to continuously speaking in their native language or absolutely can't get their point across and communicate effectively. She said sometimes there are challenges related to understanding what they want to do or are trying to say, but she just stays persistent and they work through it together. Another instance, however, there may be rare times when additional support is in the room that happens to know how to translate, which Mrs. Reynolds pointed out is usually her last resort when I asked her more about that after the interview. I was interested in this as it is a concern of mine for my future ELLs so I found where the text discusses that "when students know a translation is coming they have no need to attend to the English, and thus they acquire little English (Wright, 2015, p. 299). I was also interested in hearing some ways Mrs. Reynolds assesses these students' learning in the classroom to which she answered that she uses more visuals, lots of one-on-one time, hands on work and manipulatives, and basically whatever they can show her they know if they can't tell her. Mrs. Reynolds is a great example of when Wright explains the "teacher as evaluator" where teachers "must become skilled in the use of authentic assessment tools and procedures to accurately evaluate ELLs language and literacy abilities in English and in their home languages and know how to use these results to track students progress and plan effective instruction" (2015, p. 29). Hope you like the video!
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
