Celebrate Diversity

Like any student, the English Language Learner wants to feel connected to their school. Challenges such as language comprehension, social norms, religious differences, and different background experiences can sometimes be so great that it blocks a student from feeling that connection. When a child becomes too overwhelmed with all these differences they really wont be thinking 'how can I improve my reading level?'

One simple way to ease that is to show interest in them and their culture. Find out where they are from. Show them you want to know more. Also, make sure your classroom teachers are aware of their background. Take a classroom/school census. Acknowledge and celebrate the many cultures.

If you do not have a space dedicated to cultural awareness you might want to consider finding a wall in your building! Take a look at Excel's great representation of their school's cultural make up!

Don't worry if you have a small population of ELLs! We live in a nation of immigrants, many of us came from elsewhere. Open it up to include your staff, or maybe the entire school! What a fun opportunity to teach about a census?!

Welcome!

If you have never read or written a blog I hope you learn to love them as much as I do! What better way to share our knowledge, strategies, challenges and success! All without overwhelming your Inbox. As I said in my email, this is by no means a mandatory read for you. It is here for you as a resource. And if you know a classroom teacher who might like it, please pass it along!

Many of you participated in my survey last week, thank you! The more I know about you the better I can serve your needs.

And the survey shows* -

56% of you say your ELL parents

are infrequently involved at your school

52% of you have

never received an ELL PD

62% of you want

on-site training

95% of your schools

offer tutoring for your ELLs

And the top 3 challenges you face as a teacher of ELL students are

Time

Lack of Resources

Space

I don't think anyone is surprised by those common challenges. Many of us spend a lot of time creating or finding our own materials. Let's ease some of that by creating a list of helpful links which you can access from here. If you have another great link please comment and share it with us!

Take a moment to look under the tab 'Student Interactives' on the right hand side of your page. I will add to the current list of Starfall, ReadWriteThink, Dave's ESL Cafe and the ESL Lab. I've used these effectively with one-on-one and with partners.

I'm currently travelling to West Michigan schools and gleaning some of their best activities to share with you. 

The activity that I most loved comes from one of our new NHA schools, River City Scholars. Take a blank BINGO board, fill in with vocabulary (the sky's the limit here!), illustrate them, make copies. The students then color in the illustrations as they review the words, cut out the squares and paste them in different spots on colored paper. Voila! Content and vocabulary specific BINGO. Awesome job River City!

-Laura

Special Population Consultant

*percentages are calculated based on number of survey respondents