Mayralilia Vaca

Diversity Practices

My philosophy for teaching and helping Ell learners is to use as many

resources that are available to me as possible to reduce the stress and anxiety the
student may experience consequence of the language barrier. When teaching Ells
its important to know our students and how much they are able to do and how
much they will be needing to be modified in order to be able to communicate and
understand. ELLs need more support in gaining CALP than they might BICS. As I
modify my lessons to provide a more equitable education for my Ells I will also be
helping them develop their BICS. ELLs are learning a new language and sometimes
what they know cannot be really reflected because of the language barrier and the
lack of academic vocabulary to properly express opinion on a matter.
One of the modifications I would implement in developing BICS is that if its
possible I would pair the L2 student with another student of the same L1 language.
This modification would be of importance because the L1 student can help the L2
student with translations, communication or instructions if I am not available to do
so. I also will try to have as many things around the classroom labeled with
pictures with the L2 primary language. Visual representations of things will be very
important in helping my Ell learner understand what we will be doing or what
needs to be done. Another important thing to keep in mind in helping my Ell
students will be my pacing in presenting lessons and instructions.

One of the biggest problems for Ell learners is not being able to orally tell
how much they do know on any subject matter. They also may get confused and lost
if they do not know what is being taught. In this case I will try to develop their CALP
by always telling the class what the objective for the lesson will be and how they will
be accomplishing it. I will also need to emphasize critical information throughout
the lesson and making sure to go over our learning goals towards the end to asses if
they were accomplished. One of the most important things in developing CALP is to
pick critical vocabulary words from what we are learning about and pre- teach
before starting the lesson. This is especially important in science, social studies, and
even math lessons. Most importantly in all of this is to make sure to use positive
reinforcement whenever my Ell learner accomplishes a learning goal. They could be
long-term goals or even simple ones such as asking to drink water or even use the
restroom.
These would be some of the few accommodations I would provide in my
classroom. There are many more I could do but each accommodation has to be fitted
to the student and what they need to be in a zone of proximal development. Things
need to be somewhere they can be challenged but never somewhere where they
may be too easy and no learning will happen either. I would need to get to know my
student well in order to see what they will be needing to progress from where they
may be found at.