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Running Header: WEEK 6 ASSIGNMENT: FINAL ESSAY

Week 6 Assignment: Final Essay

Alexa Hale

UCLA Extension Course: 357855: Assignment of English Learners EDUC-X 426.2

March 11, 2018

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Week 6 Assignment: Final Essay

I like to think of teachers more like designers. A designer must consider the audience, a

purpose, and how to get people to buy-in to their concept. Teachers must do the same with their

instruction. Teachers must consider the audience of whom is being taught, how that audience is

going to understand a concept, and the “why” behind its importance. When teaching an English

Language Learner, it is essential to consider the types of strategies that should be implemented to

teach concepts, the accessibility of those strategies, and the purpose of assessments.

Moving to Another Country

Empathizing with another person is incredibly powerful. Think, ​how would it feel if I

were in their shoes?​ ​I were to move to another country, what problems would I have

understanding academic content​? Just because someone is able to understand interpersonal

communications, does not mean that they will comprehend academic language. For example, my

sister studied Spanish throughout high school and her first couple years of college. Her junior

year of college, she decided to live in Madrid, Spain for one year. She was studying to become a

communications major at the time, so she figured this would be a great experience for her. After

moving to Madrid, she quickly realized it was much different than what she’d expected.

Although she has been studying Spanish for years, she realized that their dialect was harder to

understand. Their accent was different than what she had practiced, so she had to learn and adapt

her language so she could understand and be understood. Also, she couldn’t rely on using much

English to help her understanding because many people do not speak English fluently in Madrid.

In the beginning, even with the difference in dialect, she was able to use her peers to assist her in

a social sense. Although she had some success with her interpersonal conversations, it was a
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much different reality in her classes. All of her college courses were in Spanish: her books were

in Spanish and her professor gave lectures in solely Spanish. One of her classes was on the

history of Spain and this class seemed almost impossible for her. She had no background

knowledge of that concept, so when her professor was lecturing, she didn’t understand the

vocabulary he was using or the context in which the words were being used. She couldn’t

distinguish what words were names of famous figures, names of famous places, or events. Most

of the information was lost and she was failing her exams. Luckily for her, she figured out her

own strategies to cope and pass her classes. She decided to take another class once a week called

Intercambio. This was a class outside of her normal college class schedule. In that class, she

received a Spanish mentor and she became his English mentor. Together, they learned sentence

structure, correct pronunciation, and more about each others’ culture. Her mentor’s name was

Sergio. While she was learning more Spanish, Sergio was learning how to speak better English.

She used her personal connections with her classmate to help her understand new terminology

and culture. She also figured out that she needed to look through her books first (prior to

receiving a lecture) so she could study the terminology and concepts beforehand. That way,

when her professor began lecturing, she could focus on the lesson instead of getting frustrated

because she couldn’t understand the vocabulary.

My sister’s experience has given me great insight on how I want to teach English

Language Learners. If I were a student in a different country that didn’t speak the native

language, I would want a teacher to give me some vocabulary development. I would want

background knowledge and a study group that I could rely on for support, without judgement. I

would want a friend who could act as a mentor within my second language. I would need
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resources provided so I knew what tools to use to help me feel successful. There are so many

aspects to consider when teaching English Language Learners, and it is so important to

empathize with students and imagine what you would need if it were you in their shoes.

Teaching English Language Learners

Currently, in my class, I have 6 ELLs. All of my ELLs do very well with speaking and

listening in English; although one of my ELLs has difficulty with reading and writing within 6th

grade. This was his first year at my school and he had been struggling to work on reading and

writing assignments all year until a couple months ago. Since taking my UCLA courses, I have

been able to adapt my practice to fit his needs much better. Although this student and I had a

great relationship, I had realized that perhaps the reason he wasn’t turning in many reading and

writing assignments was because he didn’t have buy-in to the assignments and needed different

support systems. So I decided to approach a unit a little differently using strategies that I have

recently learned. For this unit, we studied Ancient Egypt. Before diving in, I made sure to give

all of my students background knowledge first. To start off our unit, we watched a documentary

on Ancient Egypt. It incorporated cartoons and was extremely engaging! We had a great

discussion about what they learned from it and it really helped them want to know more. Next,

we went into reading about the accomplishments, culture, economics, government, and

geographical features of Ancient Egypt. We did a “book walk” using books and websites on

ancient Egypt. We previewed vocabulary, we modeled thinking about good reader strategies

(such as making connections with the text), and I used a lot of informal assessments throughout

my lesson to check comprehension. During this mini-project, my struggling student was

volunteering constantly! He wanted to model his thinking strategies, answer questions about
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context clues, share his quick writes with the class, etc. This was something that was very rare

before. As the days went on, he started volunteering to read portions of articles that we

previewed, he began completing assignments fully because he knew which sentence stems to

use, and he was able to have in depth conversations about these topics because he was interested

and excited. He wanted to read other classmate’s work, give feedback and receive feedback from

his peers! When it came time for him to write about his research, he answered all of his rough

draft questions. For his feedback, I paired him up with a partner whom is a strong reader and

writer, so she gave him feedback according to our rubric. He loved working with her and sharing

his work. He also used her feedback in order to complete his final draft. For their final draft, I

asked my students to use their research on Ancient Egypt to create an infographic using

PiktoChart.com. He loved showcasing his work by using an infographic. He said it was the most

fun he has had in class all year. He turned it in on time and shared his writing voluntarily with

the class on Padlet! I couldn’t be more thrilled, so I emailed home to let his mom know how

proud I was of him and all his hard work. The next day, he came into class beaming because he

said his mom and grandma were so proud they got an email like that from his teacher. This

increased his buy-in even more!

Not only did these strategies help this one particular student, but it helped all of my

students. Many of my students had buy-in and left the unit feeling like Egyptologists! According

to Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, (2017) ”Multiple indicators are specific evidences students

complete that are related to a lesson’s content and language objectives. They provide a teacher

with several ways of looking at a student’s language proficiency and content knowledge.” (pg.

229). I wanted to be sure that I included assessments that allowed my students to demonstrate
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their knowledge on ancient Egypt through multiple factors. By scaffolding instruction using

more strategies such as building background knowledge, checking comprehension frequently,

and modeling I was able to set my students up for success. They were able to demonstrate their

knowledge through multiple indicators using discussions and process writing. This made a huge

impact on my classroom and I couldn’t be more excited!

The Purpose of Assessments for English Language Learners

Finally, deciding a purpose for assessments is also incredibly important when teaching

English Language Learners. When designing lessons, I am constantly evaluating how my

content and language objectives are being practiced and assessed. The testing that fits my

classroom and school needs are through competency assessments, Measures of Academic

Performance (MAPs) testing, and California English Language Development (CELDT) Testing.

The purpose of competency assessments is that they measure what students can do and

can directly connect to content and learning objectives. These competencies can also be

organized by showcasing work through portfolios. In my classroom, we use digital portfolios

that hold work reflecting their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. The individual

portfolios also holds all student goals they set for themselves at the beginning of the year, their

project work (showcasing the process of their work), and rubric results based on their work. The

competencies are connected to each assessment, rubric, and goal.

The purpose of MAPs testing is to measure how they have progressed academically since

the beginning of the year in reading and math. MAPs testing is a way to measure what students

know and what they are ready to learn next. MAPs testing also allows me to view data on my

students throughout the year to see their growth and performance levels. This test is taken 3
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times a year; the beginning, middle, and the end. My students upload their MAPs data to their

digital portfolios so they are able to reflect on their performance.

CELDT Testing is important because it provides data on my students’ reading, writing,

speaking, and listening proficiencies. This data helps me identify which language objectives I

should design my lessons to target and practice throughout the year so they can be reclassified as

fluent English Proficient.

Competency assessments, MAPs data, CELDT Testing, and portfolios are four

assessments that are powerful tools to help English Language Learners. They help teachers

understand the purpose for each assignment, identify which knowledge and skills should be

targeted and measured, and give a way for kids to reflect and have buy-in with their learning.

In conclusion, design-thinking is incredibly important when teaching students. By using

assessments and their purposes as the driving force behind instruction, it allows teachers to

determine what students should know, how they will demonstrate that knowledge, and how they

will practice their skill along the way. It is important to begin with the end in mind so that

teachers can reflect on which strategies can be used along the way to get students from point A to

point B. This course has helped me understand better tools to implement into my practice and it

has already made a great impact on my classroom.

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References

Echevarriá, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2017). Chapter 8: Lesson Delivery. In Making Content

Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model ​(Fifth ed., p. 229). Boston, MA:

Pearson.