The Importance Of ELL Classes

3). Some ELL students may start school without any English language skills, while others may have “limited language proficiency or dual language deficiency in both their native language and English” (p. 3). Just as native English speakers, ELL students also have different levels of intellectual abilities; however, their struggle with school in English may be related to background knowledge and not solely on intellectual abilities (Short & Echevarria, 2004). Samson and Collins (2012), purposes if school districts, administrations, and teachers want to see improvements in achievement for ELLs, “greater continuity in how general education teachers are prepared by teacher-education programs, certified by states and evaluated by local education agencies, or LEAs, is essential. By making sure that the special needs of ELLs are addressed at multiple stages of the teacher preparation process, schools may gain higher quality

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.

All these strategies gives all students an equal opportunity to practice English, participation and involvement. ELLs students when it’s time to read or participate in class they may be reluctant to speak because of their lack of proficiency in English or feel uncomfortable in an environment where they have to share their ideas. ESL teachers must provide a positive and supportive environment that offers significant influence on student comfort level, success and participation that requiring ELLs to use the language in front of class without force them

In many cases there is an assumption that by placing an ELL student into a mainstream English-speaking classroom they will quickly acclimate themselves to English because that is what they are surrounded by during the school-day. Students will hear English being spoken and will quickly pick up on what is being asked of them.

Strategies for teaching ELL students in the general education classrooms are also very important. The ELL teachers gave some great

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

Sociocultural influences on ELL students are very strong; some families feel that their social life is a major part of their culture. The use of bilingualism is someone that is fluent in two different languages. An ELL students home language can be quite different than English. The students’ family may have no desire to speak English. This cause many learning delays because of the lack of practice. The parental and community resources for English acquisition in my area are scarce, but they did locate an amazing website for ELL families. The school district around me can improve their home and school relationship by getting the families more involved in their child’s education.

Teachers have begun to question the practices of ELL students in receiving services and the regular education they will receive in some content areas. Though there is often a negative perception towards these students it seems it is on the side of the teacher and the additional work and accommodations they will need to provide and alter to meet a student’s needs. I was happy to speak with the ELL teacher and gain some insight on the current efforts to provide high expectations for ELL students through the use of additional tutors and opportunities. However, if we are not careful and if we stop questioning our practices on responses to ELL students, we will ultimately allow these practices to become stable and controlling.

Within this paper we will take a brief look at the Language Acquisition Principles and how they work on the behalf of ELL students. We will see how these principles can be applied within our own learning environment. There is much information from Walqui article that gives a brief overview of ELL students and how things looked in the past for these students. Now that times has change we will see how educators can make the requirements for ELL students better and more effective for teacher and students. Hopefully, as we look at ways of changing learning for our ELL students we must remember that every student learns differently. Even if you follow the principles from

Through my bibliographic search, I was able to learn the specifics of what scholars were discoursing on in regards to this topic. Current debates began with the teachers themselves. One article found that ELL teachers were generally “unwelcoming” (Reeves 2006). Reasons for this were the concern that there’s not enough time to address all the students’ needs, too much work for teachers when students are also enrolled in non-ELL classes, and feelings of unqualification to teacher ELL students (Reeves 2006). Another area of discussion is whether ELL programs should take an inclusion approach vs exclusion (from normal school curriculum) approach. Inclusion is when students are mainstreamed for most of the day, with some specific ELL classes. If only in ELL classes, students may not have access to the mainstream education needed to succeed (Reeves 2006). One article stressed the importance of education at home as well. If English is not also spoken at home, acquisition is slowed (Allen 2011). Pride also affects the rate of learning, students will often claim to understand, even though they d not, to avoid the perception of being ignorant (2011).

The ELL team within District 427 is a small but effective group of 5 individuals. The teachers and administrators that are involved with the ELs are extremely passionate and constantly working with the numbers that they have to better service their students. The team meets frequently and is in constant contact within one another to help each other overcome obstacles that are occurring within their classrooms with their EL students. Although the team is small, they are only servicing a small population, and always open to change. If the EL enrollment were to increase, the team would increase as well. Their goal is to ensure that all of the students are being serviced for all of their needs for success.

My experience with English has changed drastically from middle school to college. Being in middle school I have really had to do much of a big paper, but as I progressed through college I’ve realized there much more that has to be added. I had always wondered why middle school was so easy but as years went on, I realized that advancing to college there’s a lot more requirements and importance to writing. In middle school, I was young and just starting to really realize what an essay was and after high school I really understood what an essay consists of. No matter how

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and