My ELL Goal

The goal that I made, in regards to working with ELL's, was to gain experience and knowledge. I have little to no experience working with students whose primary language is not English. With the ever-growing language diversity in our country, it is likely that I will have students that are English Language Learners. Instead of figuring out what to do on the spot, it is better for me to gain experience working with those students now, so that I will have a basis for my own classroom in the future.
Walking into the Brigham kindergarten classroom, I had a lot of different thoughts and reactions. I have no doubt that I will gain experience working in that classroom. Many of the students are bilingual-with English being their second language. It was my first time being in a room where English was not the primary language of the majority of students. We didn't have much time to really sit down and work with the students, but the time we did have, I definitely learned from. In one instance a student was explaining her picture to me, but she appeared not to know the English words. She didn't actually say Spanish words either, but she used hand signals to explain what she was trying to say. I was able to discern what she was communicating, but I also realized that understanding each child may not come as easy. In this example, the child knew the word 'volcano' but didn't know any words to describe how volcanoes erupt. If she hadn't have known the word 'volcano', I probably would not have been able to figure out what she was trying to say. Experiences like this one are educational for me, because I not only am gaining experience working with ELL's, but also I am realizing the extent of my knowledge and how much I still have to learn.
The second part of my goal, gaining confidence, goes hand-in-hand with experience. In order to become more confident, I need to spend time with students who not have English as their primary language. Not only will experience with students help with confidence, but also just spending time in a bilingual classroom. I was able to see how the classroom teacher at Brigham makes the room comfortable and welcoming for students who are Spanish-speaking. She has labels all around the room in Spanish, and some anchor charts that I saw were also in Spanish. This coincides with some of the things that we have discussed in our classes. The students are able to see their language represented and not ignored, which can make them feel comfortable and accepted. It also helps them adapt to the classroom environment. Seeing these methods used in the classroom, helps me to develop my own sense of how to set up a classroom where students of any language are welcomed. Having this knowledge will make me have more confidence in my future classroom.
Overall, I feel like I will be able to make great strides with my goal this semester. I will be able to not only observe how a bilingual classroom is set up, but also work with ELL students and become more comfortable working with a language barrier. I feel like acknowledging that there is going to be a language barrier, as opposed to ignoring it, is always better. It makes be cognizant of my abilities and will hopefully aid me in educating my students.
This article by scholastic talks about diversity in the classroom, but the reason I posted the link is because it also talks about a few different strategies to use when there is a language barrier between the classroom teacher and families. Many Languages, Many Cultures
This video, although not directly related to the classroom, is one that I found incredibly interesting. This teen describes language and its importance in such a good way that I think it would be beneficial for any teacher working with non-English speakers to watch.


Exceeds: I did all of the things needed for a meets, then I found an article and video that I feel provide further information and insight into language in our classrooms.