I am going to share bits and pieces of the life of an ESOL teacher. This is my seventh year as an ESOL teacher and every year, there is always something new to learn. Depending on your district and school size, an ESOL teacher might be spread across many buildings and grade levels. Also, there is no definite “cap” number of ELs on a caseload.

I am at an elementary school and I work with ELs in grades 3-5. I have roughly 33 ELs on my caseload who are primarily in grades 4-5. I am a believer in co-serving and pushing-in into the classrooms to better support our ELs. On occasion, I may need to pull out a small group or specific students for 1:1 lessons. I am going to share with you a mix of both how I do that.

This year, I have a 4th-grade newcomer student with minimal schooling background but has the determination to learn. For many newcomers, a full day of learning and hearing English all day long can get exhausting.

Since my student comes in at an upper grade with minimal schooling, I do a 30-minute pull-out for both math and literacy. This is to help build a ground base for the English language. I am fortunate to have a paraprofessional who also is able to assist him in specific activities in his classroom as well.

I push-in into multiple math and literacy blocks daily. I rotate between a few different classes every other day since I have ELs in more than 4 classrooms. During a math block, I work with groups or individual students when there are math workplaces. Since there is more note-taking in these grades, I might create fill-in-the-blanks or word banks for students to have beforehand. I create and share these resources with classroom teachers to keep in their classrooms for days when I’m not there.

During a literacy block, I meet with groups or confer with individual students. I plan with a few teachers weekly on the use of graphic organizers and adding pictures to their slides or anchor charts. I have also begun working with one teacher on writing target goals to help guide lessons. Depending on the lesson, sometimes the classroom teacher would be leading the lesson while I create an anchor chart or a list of the main ideas of the lesson

For my mid to higher language level students, we work on vocabulary and structural language. For my lower language level students, I provide more modifying support and activities. Another thing I do during “turn and talks” for my lower language level students is to have them listen to their partner and repeat what they said or vice versa. This helps them build that language.

Aside from academics, there are also school-to-home communication needs in between all of this. In my district, we are fortunate enough to have interpreters for most of our language needs but they are also paraprofessionals in their own buildings. So sometimes, simplifying certain newsletters or messages is easier and quicker if I do them myself. Or when families know simple enough English, I may make a phone call home when it’s something urgent. Families want to be involved in their child’s education, so keeping this communication line open is so important.

This is just a glimpse into what I do as an ESOL teacher but there are many little things that can’t just be shown or written down. Every learner has different supports and needs in and out of the classroom. That is why co-serving with classroom teachers is a big part of my job. It is a team effort to best meet the needs of students.

More articles by Houa Yang-Xiong about ESOL teaching

5 essential strategies to truly engage English Language Learners

6 myths about English Language Learners debunked to make supporting them easier

The post A day in the life of an ESOL teacher appeared first on Truth For Teachers.

So, it might not be surprising when you suddenly get a new student in your classroom. When you have a newly arrived newcomer student, the impact you have on welcoming them on day one is so important.

Who is considered a newcomer student?

A newcomer student is someone who is new to the country and possibly has had little to no English language.

Newcomers might have an immigrant or refugee background. An immigrant is someone who leaves their country to move to another, whereas a refugee is someone who is forced out of their country due to a danger in their life. There is a lot to unpack when working with newcomers. These are a few things I have learned over the years to welcome newcomers into our schools and classrooms.

1. Go beyond the classroom.

If possible, allow the family and student to come visit the classroom and school beforehand. Have a team or a point person (i.e. ESL teacher, guidance counselor, etc.) as a school-to-home communication liaison. Here is a starter checklist of things to ask or do with the student and families:

Video links: Welcome to School; Arabic: Burmese: Dari: English: Karen: Rohingya: Pashto: Somali: Spanish: Swahili

When I have a newcomer student and family, I would create a welcome packet or folder for families with this information for parents to take home. Another thing I’ve done, if possible, is do a home visit. This really bridged the connection with families. When families feel a sense of ease about school, the transition and trust will come. 

2. Take time to learn about their language and culture.

It is so important to know the background of your student and their families. Don’t assume that because the family doesn’t speak English, they are incompetent to support their child’s education journey. Some ways to learn about your student family:

• Taking the time to meet the family to have this background knowledge. Taking the time to understand their story will help you. This will help families feel connected and involved in their child’s learning.
• Like any other student, be open to their experiences, cultural practices, and interests. Take time one-on-one or small group with the student so you can get a better insight on what they are bringing to your classroom. If a student is in their “silent period”, can the student draw or possibly write about their interests outside of school or their experiences? One of my newcomers, with no English or schooling background at all, and I did a lot of gestures with one another! Through this, I figured out he liked basketball and soccer during recess.
• One way to be culturally responsive to a student’s culture is through books. You really have to put in the time and effort for your own learning. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has this great book search tool that can help narrow down specific age levels and diversity subjects. Not only is this for your learning but can also be for your class’s learning, as well. We want peers to also be understanding and open to learning about their classmate’s culture.

3. Have accessibility to classroom content at all levels.

In general, students should be able to show what they know through a variety of outlets. Do not exclude students because “they might not understand”. To help gauge where newcomers are at, ask yourself: Are they able to write in their native language? Is there another student who speaks the same language? What technology tools can help translate content? Here are a few ideas that can help you get started.

Links: Rewordify; Text Compactor, Academic Language Function ToolKit

4. Provide adjustment time.

Remember when you first started teaching? How long did it take for you to get into the groove of things?

That is how it feels for many newcomers.

School can be overwhelming, especially when you do not understand the language, yet. It gets exhausting physically and mentally for many newcomers to adjust to school routines, rules, then on top of that, the academics. There are times when behavior might come out because sitting for a long period of time or they get frustrated about certain tasks. Recognize these stressors and how you help students self-regulate what they’re feeling.

Take the time to get to know them one on one time through games, books, or videos. There will be highs and lows for students but if you create that welcoming, safe environment for them, it will go a long way.

As educators, we play a huge role in shaping our student’s educational journey. In my experience, most of our newcomers and their families are grateful for your support. They are so resilient, even with all they have endured. Many of them continue to be positive and push forward to be successful in their life. When we have newcomers, we will have a better understanding on how to meet their needs and encourage others to welcome them.

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You can help better keep ELLs engaged in classroom conversations when you prepare them with these simple scaffolds.

This doesn’t take a lot of planning but it takes the initial step to analyze your teaching and where you can incorporate these ideas!

You might surprise yourself and realize that you are already doing some of these things. Often, the tried-and-true strategies are the best, and by focusing on doing just a few core things consistently and well, you can see great results.

1. Communicate with your ESL/ESOL teacher

Who to help support you other than your ESL teacher? When classroom teachers and I are communicating with one another, it helps us both understand how we can support ELLs in and out of the classroom.

Collaborating can be at varied levels and comfort between one another. It can be as simple as sharing lesson plans or units to scaffold and share resources with one another. Or, try weekly discussions about ELLs progress and needs.

Some collaborations reach levels of co-teaching lessons together. As long as there is an open communication and inclusion of the ESL teacher, this benefits our ELLs.

2. Make it visual

Pictures are remembered better than words. When you are giving instructions without any form of visual or modeling, ELLs are trying to process the spoken language. But when you include a visual to go with directions or with specific content vocabulary, they are more likely to make a word connection in their own language vocabulary.

This will also help you figure out what your students know or don’t know already. With technology nowadays, you can find appropriate pictures or videos to incorporate within your lessons or put pictures up around your classroom.

3. Use wait time

As ELLs are processing all the information, questions, or directions you have just given, provide wait time. We think that if students know something, they should respond right away. So we typically only give 3-5 seconds and expect students to have the correct response immediately.

ELLs are not only processing what was said, they are trying to internalize the new information and produce new language to show what they know. Not having the extra wait time sometimes discourages ELLs to think about the answer or feel the need not to answer at all.

So next time, wait 10-15 seconds longer; it might feel awkward at first but see if you notice a difference in participation.

4. Sentence frames

Sentence frames are meant to encourage academic, content, and technical language use. This is not part of our everyday spoken English vocabulary.

When providing a sentence frame or starter, it is NOT giving them the “answers” or the “easy way out” to respond to a task. ELLs are filling in the key content with the support of the language.

See some examples I have created and used for whole classrooms.

5. Model expectations

ELLs need to see you MODEL your expectations with an example. When you do this, it saves time and reduces confusion for ELs.

Again, it is not, “giving away the answer” but providing a cushion to help them better understand the important ideas.

By demonstrating and sharing your thought process, it can build student confidence in their learning. Then students are not wasting their mental energy guessing what you are expecting them to do.

These are just a few of the basic strategies that I continue to use every year with my ELLs. What is great about all these scaffolds is that they are not specific to ELLs only. These scaffolds benefit ALL students in your classroom. You can differentiate your expectations depending on the language level of your ELLs.

What else would you add to our list?

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