You think today is just like any other day. You walk into your English class ready to take your test, only something is different. Your test is in Spanish! How well do you think you would do on that test? Well unless you are pretty fluent I'm guessing you aren't going to do very well. This analogy can describe how many ELL students feel. ELL(English Language Learners) face many road bumps when trying to learn the english language. Some of those road bumps are:
- -Many ELL students start at different levels. This makes it extremely difficult for a teacher to teach a classroom of students the same thing if they are not on the same page. This would be like trying to teach an 8th grader the same info as a 4th grader.
-- People assume that just because ELL students do not do as well as their
peers they are slower or less intelligent. This stereotype has damaged the
progress these students can make.
--The cultural difference also has a massive impact on the learning process.
Growing up and being raised here in America we acquire certain understandings & knowledges we probably don't even realize we have. As you
have probably heard the saying "the little things count". Well they defiantly do! It's hard for people new to learning the english language to be taught these
"inside" things.
--History can also play a role in an ELL students difficulties. When someone references George Washington we all know, he was the first president of the United States. Most fifth graders could tell you that. However, a student who is
not from the U.S. can not be expected to know this.
I think it may be hard for those of us to understand exactly what it is like for an ELL
student, so I have included a post from a young woman named Akemi Ota a foreign
exchange student from Japan. She gives us a little bit of insight into the world of an
ELL student. You can see her photo posted above left.
Here is what Akemi has to say:
"I studied English for almost nine years in Japan, but when I arrived America I was surprised about how poor my English speaking ability was. I had studied English for so many years, but I didn’t take any special speaking lessons. So I was always feeling nervous about hearing and speaking English, and I was almost crying when I took the first ESL writing class.
There were so many fluent speakers while I couldn’t even understand what teacher was talking about. My grammar skill is quite good, and I always got first grade in that writing class. But once teacher asked me to mention my opinion, I felt very uncomfortable and I said to myself, “Oh, gosh! I am such a dropout here… please help me!! How come they mix students like this?”
Although I still feel uneasy about my listening and speaking, I no longer think the mixing of ESL students is wrong, rather it can be helpful to English learners. Getting used to it is the only one way we can learn the language. I made a lot of friends in ESL class, and I often talked to them about my country, life, future dreams and so on; also we sometimes share the same feelings about how English frustrates us or how hard it is to get used to the U.S. Especially when we talk about homework, I can help them in grammar things, meanwhile I can practice my speaking. We can encourage each other.
That was really my biggest help. Meeting people who have different abilities and values enriched my life, and mixing of students makes English study more fun!"
Teaching ELL students is not impossible and with patience and understanding
we will make more progress each and every day :)
Neill, M. (2005). Assessment of ELL students under NCLB: Problems and solutions. 28 October 2009.<NCLB_assessing_bilingual_students_0.pdf>
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