This week, I've been focused on the numbers. The first article I read was about the school district in Scranton, PA. Here are the numbers:
9.3% of the students in the school district receive EL Services.
25% of the students speak two or more languages - English is not the primary language at home.
52 different languages are spoken in the school district.
62 different countries are represented.
10.6% of residents are from countries outside of the United States.
Click HERE for the article. The numbers in this article are from Scranton, PA - but I imagine that many other school districts have similar data.
The second article featured online learning through the eyes of Nada Awa (an article from Kalamazoo,Michigan - Nada is from Palestine) . Her experiences on online learning as an EL are featured HERE in this article....
Nada Awa says "At school, I can speak to other people, to students. that helps you to practice your English. But at home, I don't speak too much to the teacher online. At home, I just speak sometimes with my sister or my cousins, but I don't speak English like everyday - maybe just some words. so that makes it hard for me to practice English at home." Her words resonated with me. As much as we try to use different strategies to meet the needs of all of our students, we fall short with our English language learners because of the method of instruction when we are teaching from home.
I teach over 800 students between two elementary schools. When I can see the students during my face-to-face instruction I can see who is understanding what we are doing and who needs directions differently in order to understand. I have many more challenges when I teach my remote students (and even more when the two modes of instruction are blended with face-to-face and remote - we call that "flex").
The National Center for Education Strategies reports that over 5 million public school students are ELs. And even when they are good students in their home countries, speaking their native language, they fall behind in subjects like math simply because of the language barrier.
We are experiencing extreme circumstances with this pandemic. It has forced many students to become remote learners either in a dedicated remote class or as part of a flex class. Can we meet the needs of our L2 students? Nada said it best "... I don't speak too much to the teacher online..." These words struck me hard - how do we, as educators, ensure that our L2 students are participating and practicing their English? From my own experience, I have 30 minutes to work with students. When I can't see them face-to-face I can't read who is understanding and who needs alternative instruction.
I am left with the following questions:
1. How can I (we) ensure that all students are participating with the instruction?
2. Is there a different system that can be used to ensure that L2 students are able to talk with their teachers and peers when online?
3. Can we switch up our instruction methods to meet the needs of our L2 students?
I'm not sure what the answers are, but I think these questions need to be addressed as we move forward with online instruction.
Thank you for your thoughts. As I was reading, I was inspired about the thought of us filling the gap between the language students speak in the home verses the language students speak in school. This pandemic has provided the opportunity for us to provide the reinforcement to break the stigma that those are 2 different environments that are not connected. The technological resources we have can help students thrive in their home environment, which should assist in thriving in more than just school. Thank you, again, for the post!
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