Common Plcs

By providing different learning experiences in the curriculum teachers will be able to meet the needs of each student’s learning style. For ELL students, New Caney Elementary offers Bilingual programs dedicated to teach both languages, Spanish and English, that will essentially allow ELL students to learn the language. Programs like these were created to help students to thrive academically no matter their circumstance. To assess students at all times, one as a future educator must ensure that we are assessing the students in each lesson plan. The teacher must ensure that each student is grasping the content presented to them by monitoring their gained knowledge. In order implement the units from the curriculum, I will strive to provide various learning experiences to each student. I will provide visual activities for my visual learners, have hands on activities for my hands-on learning students, and provide discussions for the ones that learn through hearing and repeating things out loud. Each learning experience is crucial to the student’s academic success. By providing different types of learning experiences I will be able to make the lessons more effective and

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.

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).

School board members across the country want to better serve the students who are English language learners. Because countless English language learner students spend part of their academic day in a regular classroom, the general education teachers need to be trained to understand instructional strategies and techniques to aid in advancing this population of students (Stover, 2015). Consequently, it would also be beneficial for school board members to support the bilingual and English Language Learner Specialist in training all teachers in the district on ways to better serve this population.

The class is a mainstreamed first grade co-teach class of 34 students and two teachers. There are 16 females and 18 males that included 12 active English Language Learners (ELLs) (5 females, 7 males) and five Level 5 (proficient) students. The 12 ELL students represent five languages—Spanish (7), Chinese (1), Chin Burmese (1), and Arabic (2), Brazilian Portuguese (1). Eight of the twelve students tested at Level 1 on the WIDA language proficiency scale.

Successful PLCs involve having student data. The data does not need to come from tests, but it can come from student work or from observations. Through PLCs, the teachers should grow as an educator, and the students should benefit from it.

English language learners and partnerships with families, communities, teacher preparation, and schools is an article within the Handbook of Urban Education written by Ana Christina Dasilva Iddings, Mary Carol Combs and Luis C. Moll which focus on creating partnerships with families, communities, teacher preparation and schools to help English Language Learners become more successful in school.

Each year, schools across the nation are seeing an increase in the amount of English language learners they are receiving. Teachers of all grade levels are finding it harder and harder to teach these ELLs because of lack of or little to no proper training. So the article, Setting the Foundation for Working with English Language Learners in the Secondary Classroom aims to show you the ideas and strategies that current and future teachers can incorporate into their daily class lessons to make them more effective in meeting the academic needs of ELLs and in helping them learn the target language.

This model supports the use of both the native language and the new language within the daily teaching curriculum (Ray, 2008). The No Child Left Behind Act threatens the Dual Language method and negatively impacts bilingual education because of the high degree of emphasis that is placed on standardized testing. The weight of standardized testing that is felt from the state all the way down to the classroom level has forced curriculum to focus on the passing of these tests. Because bilingual students must take the standardized test in English, this has caused a shift in the landscape of bilingual education. Teachers of bilingual students are abandoning the DL method in favor of a more English only environment as a means to help students pass standardized tests (Ray, 2008). This negates the purpose of bilingual education and decreases the benefits that these students receive while learning in a dual language

The Joplin School District located in Joplin, Missouri has eleven elementary schools, three middle schools, and one very large high school. There are around 7,000 student enrolled in the fifteen schools the district has to offer. As one can imagine this could bring the possibility of a very diverse student population. In Joplin’s schools there are many diverse studnets, but the numbers within this demographic limits the need for many English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers within the district. Moreover, with little ESL staff available, the schools have their work cut out for them because they have to assess, file, and evaluate all of the students. Currently, the Joplin ESL teachers and department officials are starting their school year.

What type of ELL professional development would be most helpful for you? My blunt answer is ANYTHING. My school district has done zero ELL professional development, I feel like the school motto is “ignorance is bliss.” Therefore, having ELL professional development can educate the entire district on how to teach English learners content and literacy skills. If the district can learn and understand the first step, “accepting students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds as capable learners” (McLaughlin, p.154), that would be a huge improve improvement in the right direction.

In my project, the professional development will include offering training to both instructors and bilingual adult students. I can talk with property about the sessions since I have been helping as instructional curriculum designer; participating of the evaluation and selection of the instructors, and offering courses online and in traditional setting to level staff, teachers, and students. For instance, some of the offered courses to the instructors are introduction to Blackboard 9.1; searching, evaluation, and selecting internet resources; collaboration online with Microsoft Office live workspace; instructional design, and Web 2.0 tools.

For this investigative assignment, I interviewed three of my closest friends about their perspectives on bilingual education in the United States. One of my friends, who I will call “A,” said that bilingual education is important for students because it helps them broaden their perspectives on the world. Students are exposed to learn different cultures and respect them, promoting multiculturalism in our country. “A” said that if students were only exposed to English-only classroom setting, they would most likely be ignorant of other cultures. She also told me about her experience when she was in an ESL program during her middle school year. She described the program as useless because she and her classmates learned broken English from each other. She somehow managed to get out of the program and put herself into the mainstream English class. My other friend, who I will call “B,” stated that bilingual education is helpful in developing a wider cultural perspective and cultivating a person suitable for the globalized world. As a foreign-born American and working as an international student coordinator, she emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and respecting different cultures. She believes that bilingual education can help students to achieve better knowledge on growing multiculturalism in our country. My last interviewee, who I will call “C,” also believes that bilingual education is important to cultivate young minds by helping them to respect not only their own but

The number of language-minority children in the public schools have increased tremendously over the last ten years. Bilingual Education has continued to grow relentlessly. The number of children who have enrolled in dual language (DL) programs only continues to increase. Truly though, are DL teachers ready to teach children in bilingual classrooms? Have these teachers received the appropriate training so that their instruction would work effectively for the bilingual children? According to Baker, the outcome of the staff professional development program should benefit the teachers by increasing “their understanding of second language acquisition” and developing “effective curriculum approaches in teaching language minority students as well being aware of the students’ language and cultural background (Baker, 2011).

Staff development is critical to improving second language learners through the improvement of teachers’. Administrators of bilingual programs are encouraged to link an active staff development policy to their school improvement plan. Therefore, all employees, teachers, and ancillary staff must be included in the staff development plan. “Thus, professional development designs must be carefully planned, monitored, and evaluated.” (Calderon & Minaya-Rowe, 2003, p. 186).