Safe learning environments for English Language Learners: Tips from an ELL Teacher

Everyone has heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”.  This common term has come to fruition in an intermediate class I support regularly. The other day a colleague and I discussed some incredible gains made by a student who entered the school in late October with minimal English language proficiency skills. More specifically, the self-confidence demonstrated by the student sharing thoughts and opinions during literacy and math lessons. This conversation fostered self-reflection. In this post I will share strategies used to encourage a safe learning environment for students.

1)    Be Visible and Available

The nature of my role requires me to support students in the mainstream classroom. Generally I support students in alternate spaces (a corner of the classroom, a shared space such as a pod located near the classroom, a quiet hallway or nearby office) though occasionally I provide students with intensive support alongside other students in the classroom. This year I made the decision to move my working area closer to the classrooms I support. It was helpful to have been generously shared space by colleagues nearby.  I now make it a priority to be physically visible to my students, as well as the teachers I work with.  If ever a student requires a quick response or the classroom teachers require additional support during a period I am not necessarily supporting, I am able to respond promptly.  Being available also develops strong communication and collaboration with teachers. Although we rely heavily on sharing resources via Google Docs, being in close proximity fosters a culture of co-planning and co-teaching.  Students new to the country with little language skills react favorably to such a positive environment.  

2)    Be a Cheerleader

Teachers hear the term “advocate” regularly, but what does it really mean? For teachers working with English Language Learners, it means providing daily reassurance that things will become clearer with time, proper support and empowerment. It means including them in all learning tasks. It means letting them know we want them to be heard and included. Many students at my school share the same first language as the newly arrived students at school so this is achievable by placing ELL students in groups with students they are able to converse with. This environmental accommodation has been pivotal in developing students’ confidence, and willingness to share their thoughts and ideas. They feel welcome and supported, and are given the opportunity to share their learning. Upon the arrival of one of my students in the fall, I encouraged his participation by sitting right beside him. Now I provide nods of reassurance from across the classroom when he decides to raise his hand. It is helpful to students for to be surrounded by welcoming classroom teachers.

3)    Establish a Collaborative Environment

As mentioned previously, sharing physical space with other teachers in a common area helps with co-planning and co-teaching. It also helps to create a nurturing environment for students who need to be supported at all times of the day (recess, before and after school). Teachers who do not necessarily support all of my students are able to engage in conversation with them, promoting a safe learning environment.  I prioritize introducing my newly arrived students to all teachers that share the common space. A new student who joined us in late January has daily conversations about various topics with teachers he does not necessarily work with in the classroom. These educators are all on the same page in working together to make students feel included.

How do you build positive learning environments for ELL students? How do you encourage newcomer students to be risk takers? What else can we do as teachers to nurture student growth?

Google Read and Write for ELL Learners

Google’s Chrome Extension Read and Write for Google Docs is an incredibly useful tool for English Language Learners. It is effective and practical for ELL students to use when involved in reading and writing activities in all subject areas. This post will focus strictly on supports used while reading.

First and foremost, the ToolBar is visible and user friendly.

     

     Once the Google Read & Write toolbar has been added to Google Docs students are able to access it very easily. The pictures are user friendly and when the mouse is hovered over the icon, a reminder definition is provided.

Great tools for reading

This icon represents dictionary. Students are able to be provided with a definition of an unfamiliar term in seconds after highlighting a word. Example:

This icon represents picture dictionary. Students are given a pictorial representation of a word after being highlighted. Example:

These icons represent play, stop and pause. Students are able to have the text read to them. The translator icon provides English to Spanish translations of words. This has not been extremely useful with my current students. Nonetheless, it can be for those whose first language is Spanish. Example:

These icons represent highlighting tools in various colours. Students could use these tools to highlight key words in a text. My ELL students have used the highlighting tools when creating vocabulary lists they refer to while reading which is explained below. Example: *Taken from News In Levels

The vocabulary icon creates a list students are able to refer to with word and picture definitions. There is also room for students to include notes or direct translations of words. After highlighting words, click on the icon and you will see notification in the right hand corner of your screen indicating a list is in progress. Example:

Most Stage 1 and 2 ELL learners frequently seek definitions of words or clarification of terms while reading. For the most part, students use the picture dictionary tool rather than the word definition as the visuals are easier to understand. Other student favourites include the play, stop and pause tools. These icons are effective in delivering audio reinforcement of text words critical in building comprehension of text. Most recently, students have been creating vocabulary lists using the highlighting and vocabulary icons. Creating such detailed vocabulary lists will further develop their growing academic language.

All in all I would highly recommend the Google Read & Write Chrome extension to ELL learners in your classroom. It provides an array of benefits and proves to be practical for students.

The Power of Talk

One of my professional goals this year is to establish valuable oral language tasks for my ELL learners.  In the past I have used specific guidelines to generate and maintain conversations such as using well know prompts like: “Can you repeat what he/she said? Do you agree/disagree? etc”. Although these prompts are still useful, I have begun to further increase the level of language during oral language tasks by focusing on scaffolding questions. The framework I have followed this past week was Bloom’s taxonomy.

I decided to search for a video clip to activate their background knowledge, a key first step in generating conversation.  Since it was the week of the Terry Fox Run, I found a great video clip at EnglishCentral.com.  The first view of the video provided students with some key vocabulary within the clip and simple entry points for discussion.

My planning involved a week or so discussing the following critical questions:

1. Remembering/Understanding : Who is Terry Fox?
2. Applying and Analyzing: How would you describe Terry Fox?
3. Evaluating: What were the benefits of the Terry Fox Run? What were the disadvantages?
4. Creating: If you were to meet Terry Fox today, what questions would you ask him?

My vast experience working with ELL learners has encouraged me to incorporate words and phrases repeatedly over time in order for students to begin using these words in their expressive vocabulary.  Depending on where they fall in their Stage, Stage 1 and Stage 2  ELL learners usually have some Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) but require time to develop their Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).  My recognition of this development highlights the one necessary component, time.

What I planned for 4 days of discussion actually took 7 days. The oral tasks were planned to be 5-10 minutes but they actually lasted 15-20. Each task increased their level of thinking but also encouraged them to use new vocabulary, and demonstrate CALP.  Repeated exposure to these words during oral sharing sessions and focused guided questions during each oral task guided students to use better word choice in subsequent shared reading and writing tasks.

My reflection on the oral language tasks has helped to further recognize the power of structured oral language tasks in increasing student’s oral language development. I will continue to use these structured approaches to push language development and thinking skills.