OPTIONS for ELLs: let's talk about strategy!

Minaya-Rowe, Liliana. "OPTIONS FOR English Language Learners." School Administrator 65.10 (2008): 16-22. 

PERSONAL RESPONSE:

Although this article is written in context from USA, it resonates in many ways to my personal experience.

Teachers in our school have the same concerns as noted in the article: they desire more training, and a watered down curriculum in a foreign context. However, the problems raised in the article are not of any concern to our staff (absenteeism, mobility, and discipline problems). 

Our school runs a combination of the sheltered/content-based and the pull-in/push-out program, but it operates on a daily basis. Some concerns in the article are that there is lacking consistency in scheduling and time available, and the students in the program are from different ages, and a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Our school has two main nationalities and languages (Vietnamese and Korean), and students are grouped by grade to a maximum of 8 per withdrawal session. Distance and scheduling are not a problem as described in the article. 

Personally, I find the 2-way bilingual program to be the most interesting and best possible situation: to alternate between two languages so that students learn in BOTH. I think that this would be the best possible situation to learn a new language, as the student will still retain first language skills and will be able to shift between both language seamlessly. 

I can relate to this from my last group of students. I had a very high achieving student in my homeroom, whose mother was initially concerned that his focus and drive would isolate him socially from his peers. Near the first report card, it was brought to my attention that he had difficulty explaining what he had learned in Science and Geography to his parents in his first language. In English, he was doing very well; he was a high achiever in all subjects and expressed himself eloquently with thoughtful reflections and real-world applications. However, he could not so easily bring these concepts home to discuss with his family at the dinner table. After hearing this, I made an effort to provide all students with dual language vocabulary sheets (not only the ESL students), to encourage them to build skills in both languages. 

I think that a 2-way bilingual program would be the best possible option for education. I see that teachers who speak more than one language can be an invaluable resource to students learning a second language. 

TWO QUESTIONS:

1. In what ways can a teacher support dual language learning in the classroom if they do not speak the first language of the student? Dual language vocabulary sheets, dual language dictionaries and dual language word walls are helpful…but what else can we teachers do if we do not speak the language?

2. How can ESL teachers best support students in a sheltered or content-based ESL classroom? How can we do more than simply "using gestures, showing pictures, and leaving little time for students to interact with the new concepts and take ownership?" The article states that if "properly implemented," this model can work…but what does that look like?