Let’s suppose that I’m teaching middle school social
studies. Here’s a relevant unit:
The aim of this activity is to
allow children to understand the recurring common theme of migration through
human history. Children then, by focusing on reasons for migration, can come to
understand the particular circumstances of refugees.
In this class, I have four English Language Learner (ELL)
students:
Ivana is starting her first year in a US school. A native Russian
speaker, she is in stage 2, early production. She speaks only in short phrases.
Eogenia is the child of a recent immigrant family from
Guatemala. She is in stage 3, speech emergence. While her capacities to do
class assignments is limited, she luckily has more language-advance classmates
who share her background and are able to converse with her in Spanish and help
her along.
Henry is the child of Nigerian parents, and has been in the
US for several years. He is in stage 4, intermediate fluency. He is able to be
very actively involved in class discussions; his more obvious errors tend to
come in his written work.
Rand is an adopted Ethiopian. He began learning English at
age 5 and has been at it long enough that he is now at the stage of advanced
fluency (stage 5). He seems like a native speaker to me.
The good news is that I have a unit that will be really
meaningful to each of these students. No question, they will have thoughts
about it, and their thoughts will be valuable to their classmates to hear, if
they get the help they need to convey them. It’s also helpful that those who
are at the earlier stages can observe the later-stage students modelling the
achievements they’re headed for.
In fact, it’s all good news. These students are on a journey,
and I and the others in the room are here to help them get where they’re going.
Some of them are not going to understand what’s being said, written, presented;
but their time is not being wasted. Every minute of this at times befuddling
effort is moving them forward.
My task is to give them supports that meet them where they
are. I’ve got a lot to draw on, and this week, here’s what we’re pulling out of
the arsenal…
We’ve got pictures: we’ve got all sorts of news coverage out
of eastern Europe, of Syrian refugees seeking to find their paths into a new
home. These pictures stimulate discussion, and a lot of relevant words come tumbling
out.
I’m going to avoid correcting all the time them when they
say something … “wrong.” I’ve learned to say things like, “Oh, yeah, like the
immigration officer” instead of, “Not the police
– the immigration officer.”
Some of these students have stories to tell. I’m not going
to put them on the spot, but Henry and Rand can tell the stories of their
journey to the US, and in fact they want to tell these tales to their
classmates. All these other students who grew up right here in town are
learning for the first time what it’s really like to be uprooted and
re-planted. And Ivana and Eogenia are definitely grasping the idea of what Henry
and Rand are talking about. They don’t understand it in depth, but they’re straining
to pick up all they can.
And they’re getting a reinforcement of acceptance through
this experience. Today, we’re not talking about the immigration of Italians and
Germans in the 19th century; or ancient Israelites. But we’ll get to
that – and hopefully that’ll start to seem a little relevant to everyone in the
class too!
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