Friday Reflections - ELs

I valued Francisco and Lucy’s presentation earlier this week on our ELs. District 100 is fortunate to have both of them who dedicate so much to helping all of us meet the needs of our ELLs. A special shout out to Francisco – he has the same back story as do many of our students - Francisco’s story is a great story of the American immigrant.  He grew up in Nicaragua speaking mainly Spanish and had to learn English while being immersed into the American culture. And now, Francisco is teaching us how to best support our EL students. Bravo, Francisco – you have some “creds” on the subject of ELs. 

Francisco and Lucy’s presentation included a wealth of information – much of the information I have heard before, but I have to admit that I need more exposure to how ELLs learn the language of school. Studies suggest that it take five to seven years for students to become proficient in learning academic English.

Lucy and Francisco ended their presentation with two questions “What is one Aha” and “What do you want to know more about?” 

An “Aha” is that so many of our ELLs have picked up English fairly quickly – I hear them in the lunchroom, hallways, playground – so many have learned sufficient English to interact socially and that’s wonderful – but these same students struggle with the complex academic language.  And, “What do I want to know more about?” – I can see how such strategies as the many language supports Francisco and Lucy spelled out would help ELs, but I think we would all benefit from a deeper dive into how students struggle with translating more academic terms – like specific content area science word – a class of animals is not connected to school; think about how long it may take an ELs to figure the meaning of class as it relates to classification of animals.   In short, we need to consider the challenges our ELs students face in order to achieve academically; we need to unlock ways to help them learn the many facets of English. 

This quick video explains exactly and explicitly how an EL student might struggle with the concept of “drawing conclusions” and what this teacher did to help students understand the concept.   

Go to the bottom of the page and locate the big heading “Feature Video”; underneath that  click on the third picture that’s entitled “Assessment for ELs in the classroom”.   It’s worth watching.  Overall, the website is a good resource on meeting the needs of our ELs.



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