Learner Differences
“Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.”
ELL Lesson Plan
Due to a car accident and a full time job, I was unable to teach this lesson as intended. My reflection is written based on my experiences teaching at Patrick Henry High School.
The idea for this lesson was to teach a lesson on a science topic as broadly as possible to a group of ELL students.
The video in the link is the first five minutes of the BBC's Planet Earth: Desert.
ELL Lesson Plan Reflection
In my time at Patrick Henry High School I have had only three ELL students. Two in my general biology class, and one in a pre-AP class.
One of the students is Nepalese-American, she speaks Nepalese and English. She is in my general class. Her understanding of English is very high and she writes eloquently but she struggles to speak sometimes. I have structured my room to provide written directions in two places, spoken directions, and make sure to feature physical models or pictures when describing abstract concepts. Her accomodation is only to provide an English dictionary. I didn’t know about these accommodations until I asked my case-manager contact to check their lists for students of mine, because it was not in my initial binder of information on my students. I make sure to teach my students how to break down sentences from “fancy” or scientific terms into simpler language. I circulate during class and testing to answer questions and check on her to make sure all is well, and making sense.
The other student in the general class speaks Spanish and English. She speaks well but is shy. She is quiet but regularly converses with me. I offer her the same supports as my Nepalese-American student. I worry about her performance on standardized assessments, because I think she gets impatient when reading. Having read their winter benchmark assessment(that I can’t edit) it is very much a reading test, and not explicitly a biology test.
My last ELL student is a young Nepalese-American man in my pre-AP class. He speaks, writes, and reads fluently and only rarely messes up the conjugation on an odd verb. There are not any accommodations for his level of understanding. He is also in Spanish class across the hall, and will throw American pronunciations of Spanish words into his English which is comical because it matches his Spanish teacher’s accent.
The decoding of sentences for fancy words into smaller/more common words helps all of my students because their vocabularies are limited. I am also teaching them test-taking strategies which kind of hurts my soul, but it has aided them in their performance on the standardized tests. I have also implemented test corrections with partial credit returns so that the students actually learn and to compensate for the tests I don’t get to write. For the tests I do write, I take things from worksheets that they have already done before and alter it a little so they know what kind of answer is expected.
National Geographic Lesson Plan
This lesson plan is not from Unit 9: Classification, but from Unit 10: Ecology. This activity is meant to identify community interactions from competition to symbiotic relationships.
You engage the students by starting with the seal video, because meme-loving students love their sea doggos. We explored by watching and analyzing the rest of the videos. Then we explained by writing our own definitions of the terms with examples. We elaborated by exploring other examples of symbiotic relationships, and classifying them. They documented their learning on an activity sheet. This was completed as a formative assessment rather than a summative assessment because it was discussed as a class.
This activity was based off of the activity planned by National Geographic, and the examples we classified were written by National Geographic. Link to the videos.
Reflections on Evidence
This evidence is valuable because most Americans don't have experience with working with people who are English Language Learners. There are academic studies and strategies available to appropriately address these things.
I think what I cannot ethically include here are the conversations I have had with my students about their lives. Their experiences of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, mental illness, violence, and frustration with their situations. I can tell you that my students are as varied as the organisms that inhabit this Earth. I haven't learned how to manage every nuance yet, but I try my hardest to take care of my most vulnerable students while holding them to appropriately high standards. This gauge is something that will come with experience, but my guiding principle is to do what is best for the student.
Jennifer gave me good advice that when you take care of your students you must give them what they need, but not always what they want. The way to handle more privileged students wanting things that other students need is to ask them simply, "Do you honestly need it?"
The most critical thing I learned about teaching students from varied backgrounds and writing lessons is that you cannot have a narrow view point. You will miss your narrowness if you don't get a second set of eyes on your plans, no matter how much you reflect and analyze. If and when your students decide to share their experiences, you must listen. And when you screw up, do not hesitate to apologize sincerely.