Lauren Bowman Professor Nottis EDUC 342 7 March 2013 Paper #1 I associate the label English Language Learner

(ELL) with students from Mexico or parts of Asia, because growing up in San Diego, thats where the large majority of ELL students were from. In Central Pennsylvania, where I am currently observing a third grade classroom for my field placement, there are not many Mexican or Asian students, especially compared to my elementary experience. According to one of my professors, many of the ELL students in this area are from Eastern European countries. The ELL student in my class fits in with this trend. Kailey1 has been in the United States for a few years and is labeled an ELL. Kailey is average height compared to other girls in her class she has long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Kailey is quite smart and picks up concepts that are taught to the class quickly. For example, when I have observed her numerous times during math groups, she is usually first to have her hand in the air to share the correct answer to a question. During one math activity,

students were to work with their math buddy to practice their multiplication facts using playing cards. Kaileys partner was frustrated because she was so quick at it that she easily beat him. During full class discussions she often raises her hand to share and seems to be pretty confident in herself. It takes many years for a student to have full command over a new language. According to our textbook, there are over 11 million children in the United States whose first language isnt English (Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2010). Like many other elementary schools around the country,
1

Name has been changed to protect confidentiality

Kaileys offers her English as a Second Language (ESL) program. ESL programs illustrate an assimilationist model for ELL students by pulling them out of the classroom to try to give them the extra boost in English instruction that they need (Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2010). Kaileys weakness is English vocabulary and reading comprehension. This is typical of an ELL student. Children pick up Basic Interpersonal Communication Skill (BICS), or social skills, much before they have fully developed Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALPS) (Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2010). This makes sense because people tend to pick up languages orally before they can write and understand the written language. If I had a conversation with Kailey and was unaware that she was labeled ELL, I do not think I would realize that she struggles with parts of the English language nor does she have an accent. The ESL support is not the only help that Kailey receives. My teacher uses tracked groups for her literacy/language arts centers. The two low groups are pulled out during one of the centers to work with the reading support teacher. Kailey is in one of these lower groups and so she gets to work, on a semi-individual basis, with another teacher on her English skills. I am not entirely sure what the reading support teacher has the students do but I think that they practice reading and discussing what they read to improve comprehension. In addition, I have worked with Kailey a few times. When the class works independently on a reading comprehension piece, I work with Kailey on the same piece, helping her with any vocabulary she does not understand and her overall reading comprehension. The first time I worked with her in this way, one of the vocab questions at the end of the piece asked what the word flock meant in the context of the story she had just read. She looked at me confused and so I asked her to read the question to me. She read it fluently but still was confused so I asked her to look back at the part of the story where flock was used. Then I asked her questions to scaffold her towards the

correct answer- a group of turkeys. Another question for the same story asked what the setting of the story was. She had circled incorrect answer, so I asked her to read the question and her answer out loud to me. As she did this, she realized her mistake and changed her answer to be correct. A week or so later, I worked with Kailey again on making a Venn Diagram contrasting two brothers that she had read a story about. I know that Kailey understood the story somewhat because she was able to write general differences about the brothers on her own. When I probed her to put some more specific details about their differences, she was stumped. I am not sure if it was because she didnt fully understand the vocabulary used or if she was just having issues in general because comparing/contrasting is a high order thinking skill which would be especially difficult for an ELL student. I asked her to find a difference in a specific paragraph and then she was able to identify one. Kailey is at a disadvantage because no English is ever spoken when she is at home, only her familys native language is spoken. She, like many other ELL students, was never taught her native language in school nor can she read it. So she doesnt have a very strong grasp of her native language visually to compare to English. That could help her though in that she wont confuse written grammar rules of the different languages or some other similar issue. Kaileys teacher described her learning style as an auditory learner but she also benefits from auditory and visual stimulation combined. It makes sense that she is an auditory learner since that is how she learned her native language and how she started to learn English. The teacher said that Kailey likes to work with a partner or in a small group because she feels there is less risk if she is wrong. Kailey also likes to see examples of whatever concept they are learning so that she can model her work after the example. She doesnt do as well working independently

with limited instruction or guidance from the teacher because of her limited reading comprehension. Related to her restricted reading comprehension, she sometimes takes things to literally that English native speakers wouldnt because they understand the nuances or language flexibility that Kailey is working on, according to her teacher. As previously mentioned Kailey does not tend to stand out as particularly confused or behind except when reading passages for reading comprehension. Kailey responds well to individual attention and also seems to work well in groups. Her strengths, as mentioned above, include being quite bright and quick to pick up new concepts. Her weaknesses or needs are in vocabulary and reading comprehension. Since she has already been labeled an ELL student, my assessment does not need to be trying to diagnose where Kailey struggles. Instead, perhaps I can look at how far along her reading comprehension has progressed. I am considering having the passage related to her heritage to help with her comprehension.

Reference Gargiulo, R. M., & Metcalf, D. J. (2010).Teaching in today's inclusive classrooms: a universal design for learning approach. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Cengage.