¶ … Journal of Gottleib, Katz & Ernst-Slavit (2009) and Colorin Colorado Blog.
The Colorin Colorado Blog is unique in that it provides a bilingual web resource for teachers of all age groups, and offers basic information about ELLs and ELL teaching strategies, as well as school and family support areas. I especially appreciated the way that the website offers assistance for parents, and I have since been asking colleagues to translate the material into other languages for use in my classrooms because many of the ELLs in my classroom come from families that do not use either English or Spanish at home.
In Chapter 5, Gottleib, Katz & Ernst-Slavit (2009) discuss the ways that standard-based learning strategies and collaborative learning strategies can be especially useful for ELLs. The authors also discuss the ways the TESOL English language proficiency standards can be used to foster collaborations and strategic partnerships.
In Chapter 6, Gottleib, Katz & Ernst-Slavit (2009) take the TESOL English language proficiency standards a step further, suggesting ways to personalize pedagogy, use transformations, and performance indicators. This chapter was extremely helpful for me as an early childhood educator working in a diverse environment with many young ELLs because of the checklists provided. I have since started to employ some of these checklists into my work and intend to continue doing so in the future.
I have applied all three of these readings to my work and have yielded data, albeit qualitative in nature such as my personal observations and observations from colleagues. Learning about transformations and TESOL English language proficiency standards, as well as the issues discussed on the Colorin Colorado blog have helped advance my professional learning and envision new learning outcomes for my students. Finally, I have come up with several learning action steps based on the readings, such as by creating a welcoming classroom environment and providing additional structural supports.
References
Gottleib, M., Katz, A., & Ernst-Slavit, G. (2009). Paper to practice: Using the TESOL English language proficiency standards in PreK-12 classrooms. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. ISBN: 9781931185554
Online Reading:
Colorin Colorado Blog: Common Core and ELLs, The Changing Role of the ESL Teacher:
http://blog.colorincolorado.org/2013/05/07/tesol-report-the-changing-role-of-the-esl-teacher/
2. Reflective Journal of Herrera, Morales Cabral & Murry (2013), Edutopia, and National Association of Elementary School Principles.
In Chapter 2 of Assessment Accomodations, Herrera, Morales Cabral & Murry (2013) describe what they call "authentic assessment." This chapter covers several salient points related to assessments, including assessment rationales, reliability and validity of specific types of assessments, how to recognize and implement authentic assessments rather than arbitrary ones that may be detrimental to the classroom, and issues regarding rubrics and other scoring issues. Taking all of this information into account, I can adapt several authentic assessments and apply them to my classroom environment, which includes ELLs. For example, I have used cooperative group assessments on several occasions. In my early childhood classrooms, the play-based assessments have proven especially useful.
Elena Aguilar's blog post "Good Instruction Activates Prior Knowledge and Uses Authentic Assessment" uses a narrative format to convey a fieldwork related to authentic assessment, and I could relate fully to her experiences. I have also felt that my students were "heroes" at one point or another, just as Aguilar describes when her students enthusiastically participated and responded.
More technical but no less relevant is the blog post on rubrics, which are essential for providing guidelines that keep assessments as authentic, honest, and bias-free as possible. As someone who works in a diverse classroom environment with a large student body, I have always applied rubrics for personal organization but mainly to ensure that all assessments remain free from biases in judgment and other problems.
References
Herrera, S., Morales Cabral, R., & Murry, K.G. (2013). Assessment Accommodations for Classroom Teachers of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson. ISBN 9780132853354
Online Readings:
Edutopia: Good Instruction Activates Prior Knowledge and Uses Authentic Assessment-http://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge-authentic-assessment-lessons-elena-aguilar
National Association of Elementary School Principals: Getting Teachers to Think Like Assessor-http://www.naesp.org/resources/2/Principal/2006/M-Ap38.pdf
Edutopia: How Do Rubrics Help?
http://www.edutopia.org/assessment-guide-rubrics
3. S-3 T-Standards Chart
Easy for ELLs
Hard for ELLs
"With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed." (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.5)
"Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure." (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.1)
Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards (2013). Retrieved online: http://www.isbe.net/earlychi/pdf/early_learning_standards.pdf
4. Discussion Questions
Provide your reactions to a current view of English Second Language (ESL) teachers and their role in a modern classroom. What insights did you gain about co-teaching and what might make to both beneficial to students and difficult to implement effectively?
ELL teachers do indeed have high level language and linguistic knowledge, as Kenji puts it. However, we are often pushed to be "polymaths," when we really need to be working more collaboratively in a team with other educators with their areas of specialization.
What other stake-holders do teachers need to collaborate with in order to implement standards-based instruction? Make a list of audiences and give a few brief notes on the kind of collaboration involved.
The types of collaborations that might be involved would be working with an art, music, math, or science instructor to provide a lesson that has structural supports for ELLs.
Have you ever been a part of a co-teaching or collaborative teaching experience? You can use your current clinical assignment as an example. Provide a specific example of a lesson you implemented with another teacher and what made it succeed or fail.
I have been a part of a co-teaching experience that was extremely helpful and fun. We worked as a team on a music lesson that also involved a language lesson. My colleague was a music instructor and it was fun for the children to be able to learn the alphabet and some sentences to music. I noticed that they memorized the material very well.
References
YouTube: The Role of ESL Teachers in Collaboration
ColorinColorado, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL2SMmhBxlY
YoutTube: ESOL Collaborative Team Teaching
Burell C, 2005. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJSD5MGy4I
Define authentic assessment in your own words. Highlight 5 key words that help define authentic assessment in practice.
Authentic assessment refers to methods of determining student progress and learning in meaningful ways. Five key words that would define authentic assessment in practice include genuine, helpful, progressive, accountable, and meaningful.
Discuss how observation helps gather information about a student rather than using an assessment tool.
Especially in early childhood education, observation is much more useful than specific tools because we are taking into account the whole child -- the body language and facial expressions and socialization are as important as measurable learning.
How do you learn what is important to the student? How does observation help understand why routines and activities are important?
It can be challenging to learn what is important to any given student, but over time working with the student and meeting the family can help clarify what each student finds meaningful, interesting, challenging, or enjoyable. I especially notice when students are curious about certain objects or ideas. Of course, routines are important in early childhood education if for nothing else than classroom management but also the students seem to thrive off of the predictability that their favorite activities will be there the next day or same day next week.
Is assessment for CLD learners different from assessment for students that do not have language challenges or barriers? Why or why not?
Assessment for CLD learners is not appreciably different at the early childhood stages because the same types of behaviors can be observed regardless of culture. However, we do need to take into account differences in communication styles.
Lastly, create your own discussion on this topic and reference one website.
I would like to investigate further how to best distinguish between students with disabilities and students who are learning slowly because of a lack of linguistic support. A website to reference would be: https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/cld
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