Today I'm thrilled to be hosting Lindsay Marcaccio on the blog to talk about her experience with ELs and how classroom teachers and EL teachers can work together for student success.
Just like our students, we as teachers are always learning. It was no
surprise to me when I arrived in the UAE that I was about to experience a huge
learning curve. I had never taught ESL students before, and I was excited to
see how they learned differently from native English speaking students. I quickly realized that if you have never
worked with ESL students before, the differences can be overwhelming. The
simplest communication takes time to understand, and it takes a lot of
inferring on the teacher’s part to understand just what a student is trying to
say, especially if they are trying to explain something.
“Miss, he beat me!”
“I don’t cant!”
“Shu hadda?”
Keep in mind, the he referred to above was actually a she. Someone’s being beaten? What is
going on! Boy was I confused. It was
only with the help of my experienced colleagues that I was able to get through
those first few days, weeks and months! “He beat me” really means anything on a
scale of “she grazed my arm” to “she tapped me on the arm a little harder than
expected”. Moving on from the simple
conversational English that was challenging to understand in itself, I found
myself wondering, how on Earth am I
supposed to be teaching these kids words like photosynthesis and quotient?
On a normal day in the
beginning, here’s what happened:
Introduce the activity.
Model the activity. Do the activity together. Give students an independent
task.
Me - “Do you understand
what to do?
*Children shake their
heads, yes.*
Me – “Any questions?”
Silence. *Some children
shake their heads, no.*
Walk around the room. 3
hands up, 6 students looking around the room for answers. All the same question:
“Miss, what I do?”
Teaching ESL students can be challenging but also very rewarding.
As ESL teachers, we are kept on our toes by always trying to find new ways to
help our students understand. Using the right words and speaking at the right
speed when explaining something to these students can make the difference of
whether or not the student will be able to comprehend and complete a task.
Finding the right materials can be a challenge, especially if the student’s
first language is something other than French or Spanish. Most ESL resources
available are made for the other official languages in North America, however
with the increasing number of refugees and immigrants the need for more
resources is also increasing. ESL teachers can be a great support for classroom
teachers. The ESL teacher may better be able to assess the students’ needs and
where to start, ultimately making the classroom teacher’s life a little easier.
A teacher and an ESL teacher together may find or create resources specifically
for a child.
English language learners need to focus on different skills than native
English speakers because they generally take longer to comprehend and retain
this second (or sometimes third) language.
The curriculum was made for students who speak English, and it can be
very challenging to imagine how you will teach the same content, skills and
strategies to students with varying levels of English. There are many simple
accommodations that an ESL teacher could suggest depending on the situation,
such as using extra visual cues and pictures to explain activities or a series
of events. Those who have worked with ESL students before have a better
understanding of how to interact with these students and what strategies might
work best when teaching them. The classroom teacher may also have helpful
strategies that they have used in the past with a struggling reader in English
that could be beneficial to an ESL student. By working together with the
classroom teacher, the students will have the best chance at being successful!
My name is Lindsay Marcaccio. I am a Canadian teacher and traveler living and working in the rural part of Abu Dhabi, UAE. I have been teaching the core subjects to ESL students for 3 years - grade 3 and grade 5.
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