Differentiation as a Strategy to Reach English Language Learners

In response to the varied student learning needs, differentiation will be a key component of this classroom. It is “designed to improve access to the general education curriculum by adapting instruction to each student’s diverse learning needs” (Smith, 2007). “Differentiation instruction means changing the pace, level, or kind of instruction you provide in response to individual learners’ needs, styles, or interest” (Heacox, 2012). Because each student comes to this 6th grade classroom with unique needs, differentiation will implemented frequently to ensure that each student receives the rigor needed to master the 6th grade curriculum. It will be relevant to your student and his/her needs. It will provide an appropriate level of challenge. It will be engaging and at times, it will offer choices. Delivery of differentiated instruction will frequently involve centered based learning activities and small group instruction. A list and description of some of the centers will be distributed to parents and is attached as Appendix

Differentiating instruction is a valuable instructional management and delivery tool, which can be used to assist teachers in meeting the needs of the diverse populations of students which they now find in their classrooms. In using these strategies, a teacher may use pre-assessments to determine the learning styles, interests and readiness of the students, prior to the introduction of a lesson or unit. After developing a learner profile, the teacher may then differentiate according to the readiness of the student, by process of delivery, and by the product which the student may produce to

As our nation shifts towards a more culturally diverse population both educators and families have to find a common ground to ensure that English Language Learners are academically successful. All stakeholders must carefully consider the social cultural impact on an ELL education. The process of raising bilingual learners take more than a language a school and a language learned at home. The transition must have a purpose and a goal.

She did this based on a belief that it would help ELLs and non-ELLs alike. The students in the second class reported that classmates were “friendly and nice” and the teacher “likes other cultures.” The results of this study indicate the very important role that a teacher plays in creating and modeling an atmosphere where ELLs are accepted, encouraged and participatory in a learning community.

When an educator walks into her classroom for the first time, she needs to be prepared to encounter students that come from a variety of backgrounds. The children will be in different stages of language development, and the educator must accommodate for each of these students. Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera (2013) state, “The US Census Bureau projects that by the 2030s, children whose home language is other than English will increase from roughly 22 percent to 40 percent of the school-age population” (p. 9). This increase in second language learners will cause the educator to accommodate for those needs. Second language learners “need teachers who welcome them and recognize their unique abilities, what they know, and what they need to learn” (Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera, 2013, p. 10).

In the United States, there has been an increase in in the number of children from Spanish speaking backgrounds. The English Language Learners, commonly known as ELL’s, are being placed in Special Education without being properly tested for a learning disability. However there are a large number of ELL’s with learning disabilities in elementary grades that truly have a learning disability and are over looked. Many school districts have problems placing ELL’s. As a result these students end up in special education whether they have a learning disability or language impairment. Teachers are also indecisive when dealing with ELL’s. Most teachers recommend that ELL’s

I am new to the profession of education, but where I lack in experience I make up for it when it comes to my enthusiasm and willingness to learn more. My first field experience was at Milton Union high school, and it was also the most scared I’ve ever been in the classroom. However, when I went to Stivers School for the Arts things got even better—I felt more prepared. This year I’m back at Stivers and so far everything has been good, and I really enjoy working with my cooperating teacher. This year will be a test of my endurance and capabilities. I am up to the challenge to work with students who are linguistically diverse, even though I know it might be difficult at times. Studying Spanish for six years half in high school and college have given me an idea of how disorienting it is to not understand the language. Not only is it disorienting it is also very challenging, because languages are all unique in vocabulary and grammar structure. These experiences will become of aid to me when I’m working with ESL students in the classroom.

Education programs need more prominence to prepare teachers with the experience to work with linguistically diverse students. However, there is a lack of education among teachers on second language learning and identity. In this since, there are more white and female preservice teachers who likely grew up in a monolingual environment and thus have limited personal or academic experiences that relate to bilingual students.

Each student in Mrs. Kingston’s classroom is so different. Some students are reading way above their grade level, other students are reading way below their grade level, and still others are English Language Learners. Differentiating instruction for all of the needs of our students in the classroom is going to be challenging, especially if we need to do so unexpectedly. It is very hard to anticipate how students are going to respond to instruction, especially when teaching students you have never taught before. With that being said, Josh and I are going to need to think creatively about ways that we can differentiate instruction for every learner in Mrs. Kingston’s

Osborn thought diverse cultural understanding was particularly important in welcoming ELs: “You want to encourage your students to have questions about other cultures. You want to encourage your students to share about their own culture” (Osborn, 2016). Being able to express their own culture gives ELs a sense of belonging. They get to become active members of the class. This can be seen in Mrs. Young’s classroom in Yoon (2007): “Mrs. Young used many intentional approaches to include ELLs in learning activities, to embrace their cultural differences, and to help them sustain their culture...She believed that prompting English-speaking peers’ understanding about other cultures was a way to help ELLs be a part of the community” (p. 222). Sharing in students’ interests and culture not only helped ELs learn, but helped them build peer relationships. It gave them a sense of belonging within the classroom. Exploring school relationships further, Osborn mentioned the importance of building relationships with ESL teachers to ensure ELs’ success. “When you take a team approach instead, you’ve partnered with them and you start going through strategies…You’re more likely to find success a lot quicker than you are if you take an adversarial approach” (Osborn, 2016). ESL teachers are a great resource to ELs. They know things about ELs that classroom teachers may not, and vice versa. Working together allows the ESL and classroom teachers to better provide for ELs. Osborn’s opinion would also be valued on these questions: Is there any particular classroom setup that you find benefits your EL students (decorations, seating arrangements, etc.)? Do you have any strategies for working with an ESL teacher that may not be easy to get along

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,

As an English Language Learner that I still am, I have encounter through my path many barriers that could have prevented me from over achieving and gotten this far in my career. Now I reflect back as I see young English Language Learners in schools that struggle but don’t give up thanks to such an amazing effective teachers that have dedicated their time and effort in helping ELLs achieve academically. I believe in providing now a classroom fulfilled with hope, care, over comers, respected with equality for all cultures and different backgrounds. My fluent Spanish to English translation could possibly be a challenge when not knowing to translate a specific word but will learn and do anything that is at my reach to get my message across. I hope to establish a classroom that provides the support for all students specially the ELLs that are my main focus to be working with. By providing appropriate visual prompts around the room, allowing ELLs to sit with English speakers, providing activities that are structured to support student-to-student or group interaction, and establishing an environment that has certain rules and routines to follow, I will be supporting ELLs as well as the other students. I will at no time discriminate against other cultures or different background beliefs.

Linguistic diversity has become a divisive issue in the American political landscape. As Wolfram points out, the politics of linguistics necessitates a knowledgeable response rooted in research and pedagogical practice. When addressing the needs of a linguistically diverse population, it becomes crucial to examine the ways that education is failing to help students acquire language mastery and also failing to train teachers properly in English language instruction. A prevailing research question is as follows: what are the best ways to foster English mastery within a linguistically diverse cultural landscape?

“A key premise of differentiation is that virtually all students’ should have access to a curriculum rich with the ideas and skills valued by experts in a field” (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006, p. 39). There is so much a teacher can do with differentiation in the classroom that will ultimately help all students because it is based on making sure that the student is successful and challenged at their particular level. This class has enabled me to see various ways that you can differentiate in the classroom once you get to know the students and what they are interested in learning within the confines of the curriculum. All of these different instructional strategies enable me as a teacher to be more flexible in the classroom.

My research methodology began with researching who English Language Learners are in general and how they have begun to impact American classrooms and teachers. I also conducted general research on the scaffolding and differentiated instruction teaching methods. After conducting my general research, I decided which three criteria I would focus on as I performed more specific research on my topic. I also interviewed Mrs. Jamie McLarty, a veteran Spanish teacher at Calvin High School in Calvin, Louisiana, who has taught English Language Learners for sixteen years. Once I gathered all of my information, I examined and analyzed it so that I could choose the teaching method that would be the most effective for teaching English Language Learners.