Herndon Esol Reflection

This paper will discuss the ESL students and the programming that must be implemented in order to have an effective contributing outcome. ESL students are defined as people whose first born language is not English. However, not all ESL students are immigrants, according to Alberta Education (2007) there are two main groups of ESL learners; Canadian – born and the second is termed as Foreign –born.

The fact that ELL student’s are given the exact same educational services provided to native English speaker, seem to be very unfair for the ELL student’s and instead of helping the ELL students to succeed academically we are preventing them from succeeding in their classes. When I was reading this section I couldn’t stop thinking about the video that we saw in class, the student was very smart but the fact that he couldn’t understand the material being taught, this was preventing him from showing how brilliant and smart he is. Just imagine how many brilliant ELL students can’t succeed in class because they don’t understand the language of the instruction.

For teachers, I believe they are lacking in having efficient data, practices, and resources. These three categories play an essential role in educating, evaluating, and caring for ELL students. Communication is a huge factor when it comes to instruction in the classroom. In the past research has shown poor communication between teachers, students and families. Schools often lack in providing differentiated methods and tools to teach ELL students. Schools in the past have failed to offer the correct assessments that were needed in order to diagnose each student's needs and measure their individualized learning standards. Educators can easily become frustrated because there is such a wide range of English learners. This means academic levels are different and the educators have not received the proper training or instructions on how to correctly educate ELL students.

Educators care more about if the student is learning English than academic training as a whole. This prevents ELL students from getting access to challenging academic materials or/and to academic preparation necessary for higher education. Ell students are enrolled into other

Furthermore, Vonderlack-Navarro suggest another beneficial way to support English language learners is to involve parents in the students’ education. Because of the language barriers, education levels, and culture, this goal will not be a stress-free assignment; however, once the parents have “buy-in” and trust the school systems, the goal would be accomplished (Stover,

It is essential to understand English language learners’ needs because ELL students face the combined challenge of learning all the academic content as other students, while also learning the language of instruction. With the rapid growth in the size of the ELL student population in the U.S., teachers who are effective recognizes ELL students unique academic needs, unique background experience, culture, language, personality, interests and attitudes toward learning for the purpose to adjust, or differentiate, their instruction to meet students’ needs.

There can be several different reasons why an English Language Learner can have troubles comprehending the English language. Poverty can play a huge role when in explaining why many English language learners have the troubles in mastering the English language. The State testing has varied throughout the years, along with the degrees of assessments and progress. Teachers also need constructive feedback to properly assess their own progress. The increase prescription of ADHD medication can also be a factor. Programs like SLADI in effect that pulls ELL’s from mainstream classrooms to focus on advanced grammatical structures of the English language; all in which, have been unsuccessful in aiding the student to acquire mastery within the English language domains of reading and writing. Comparing a personal experience I had dealt with wasted school year time, regarding an ELL student, involves a teacher being out of touch with her student and giving inappropriate leveled work. All of these issues work hand in hand. The ultimate goal is to teach literacy and to reach proficiency within the English language.

It has been estimated that by the year 2025, approximately one out of every public school student will be identified as an ESL/ELL student in the United States. ESL stands for English as a Second Language and ELL stands for English Language Learner. An ESL/ELL student can be defined as a student whose predominant language or languages at home, is other than English, and would require additional English language support to develop reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The difference between an ESL student and ELL student is minor; An ESL student participates in programs that are customarily specialized while an ELL student partakes in a traditional educational classroom. English Language Learners have surpassed other subgroups in becoming the fastest growing of the public school population. Despite the common misjudgement of some people towards the ESL/ELL population, 76% of the ESL/ELL students in elementary schools and 56% of the ESL/ELL students in secondary schools are native-born. The highest percentages of ELL/ESL students in public schools are found in the west of the United States. Taking the average of both bigger and smaller cities, ELL students make an average of 14% of the total public school enrollment and in suburban areas, ELL students make up an average of 8.5% of public school enrollment. The ESL/ELL population has more than doubled over the past 15 years and more than half of those students struggle with their academic performance. An ESL/ELL

Those immigrants left their culture and family behind and searched for better opportunities and life. When those international students first arrived, however, they are not able to fit in the society due to the language and culture differences. All of them must take ESL, English as Second Language, class that they often found it tough. On the other side, the most precious advantage is it creates a diverse environment. “Going to school here makes them better prepared for the world.” (Swerdlow, 8), reflecting that United States is a melting pot, and students can not only have a better understanding of different lifestyles, values, and languages, but also willing to adapt the vary of society once they

With the immigration population increase comes a language barrier increase. Therefore, English as a Second Language (ESL) tools in the classroom is essential. ESL was established in the 1970s when children of many mother tongues, crowded classrooms due to the immigration increase (Tomkins, G., 1981, p.

Many Hispanic families are living in poverty; the children are depended upon to provide for the family as soon as they can. Unfortunately, education becomes second on the priority list. Author Goldenberg, (2004), claims that parents of ELL students do value their children’s education. The author states that parents are heavily involved in making sure their children finish their homework; they participate in parent-teacher meetings and attend school-based parent meetings. From my experience of raising four children, I’ve experienced and have interacted with many E LL parents. I can concur with the author Goldenberg that parents of ELL students do value education. The issues that lie are not based on the fact that they value or don’t value, but more on the inability to support the children in their educational journey. Language exhibits a major barrier to ELL parent-school collaboration. Many ELL parents often feel alienation, misunderstood, or intimidated by their lack of native English skills. Since most school staff are limited by their inability to speak effectively and regularly with ELL parents, this two-way language barrier often prevents and hinders all forms of oral and written communications between school and home (Waterman & Harry, 2008). As one source concurs, author Xiang, (2015), briefly highlights “the three Rs in building a positive and effective ESL learning environment: relationships, resources, and routines” (Xiang, L., 2010,

As a certified English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, the English Language Learner (ELL) population is very near and dear to my heart. According to Barr, Eslami, & Joshi (2012), the ELL population is the fastest growing demographic in the U.S with most incoming students arriving from Asia/Pacific Islands and Hispanic regions. Both of these populations are expected to continue to increase in the future. Over two-thirds of this population over the age of 5 speak a second language at home. According to the 2013-2014 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) there were 67 ELL enrolled on our campus, which is 3.6 percent of the total population of 1,851 students. Although this year our ELL population is lower than usual in future years are numbers are expected to grow exponential due to the rapid growth currently happening in our community. According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), ELL students continue to have low achievement levels when compared to their native speaking peers. Data shows that as students get older, their success rates are lower and lower with over half not reaching mastery at the high school levels. Our campus is not different. The TAPR report shows that only 57% of our ELL population scored satisfactory on the end of year STAAR exam, which is almost 10% lower than the state average of 76% passing and 35% lower than the campus average of 92% passing. Due to these deficits, it is imperative to develop and plan of action that will help to bridge

What surprise me was that in 2013 there was a total of 5.3 million ELL students throughout the country. This number is shocking, there are many ELL students in our classrooms settings and yet there are not enough resources and not enough prepared teachers that can work with ELL students in an effective way. It makes you think as a future teacher what should I be doing to better perpare myself for those studetnss? What kind of strategies should I used that would be effective to them. Not only that but as teachers we should also think about on how can we explain to ELL students that they need to maintain their home language while learning English? We, as teachers, see the importance of maintain both languages, of not only speaking it fluently

Remember high school: homework, unpleasant teachers, deadlines, social interactions and standardized testing. Now imagine dealing with all of that, and other struggles, in a language you barely know; this is what the English Language Learning/English as a Second Language demographic faces daily. ELL/ESL students are twice as likely to drop out of high school as native speakers (Maxwell). Why then, one may wonder, aren’t more resources available to help ELL scholars learn not only English, but all of the subjects a well-rounded education includes?

Bilingual” (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). The objective of the ESL students is to learn how to speak, read, and write in English and know about the system of the school too. That learning will help them with other courses in school. ESL students have come from all over the world in America to study. Statistically, the number of immigrants in the USA is growing quickly. This quote shows us that