Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Teaching the ELL

I have learned more strategies in teaching during this past course than all of my courses combined! Why? Well.... there are so many facets to the student learning English. How can you communicate with someone who does not speak the same language as you?

There are four main ways:
1. TPR (Total Physical Response)
2. Storytelling
3. Narrating
4. Contextual Clues

But there are SOOOOOOOOOOO many more! This is what I feel like when trying to write a lesson plan for these students:


Despite all of the many, many, many strategies we discussed and explored... one thing kept coming up. No matter what you do, no matter what strategy you use or theory you believe in ... it won't work without a relationship with your students!

Everything I am learning circles back to the relationship between student and teacher. Without knowing your students, understanding their culture, background, strengths, and weaknesses they will not grow to reach their full academic potential!


Heidi for Raki's Rad Resources shared this same thing during the expo that I attended in April. She had some great tips and stories about why this is so essential. It is also essential to try and build a relationship with the parents of these students. Go out of your way to invite them into class.

Raki's Rad Resources

Stop by her blog to learn more ways to connect with these students and enhance their academic success!!
 

1 comment:

  1. As a bilingual teacher I've found that the hardest thing is to make them talk. It is so difficult, they don't know expressions, phrases, idioms, they think what they want to say in their language first and then try to translate it to English. It can be really tiring, but when you build a strong relationship based on trust and confidence, you can achieve great results. I love teaching ELL :)

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