Teach Learn 333 Final

Interview with Rebecca Hughes

Brianna Bell
Teach Learn 333 Final
Nalee Moua
 Brianna Bell

TL333

Nalee Moua

ELL Teacher Interview

Rebecca Hughes

Over Thanksgiving break, I met with Rebecca Hughes from the Olympia School District.

This is her first year working in the school district. Prior to this school district, she worked in

Sacramento, California for sixteen years. She was a fourth-grade ELL teacher for fifteen years,

and a second-grade ELL teacher for one year before moving north. In Olympia, Rebecca works

at many of the schools across town. She does not like her current job situation having to be

bounced around all day. But she is one of the best ELL teachers in the area. In our interview, we

addressed different methods for teaching ELL students, such as the pull-out method or

immersion and so on. We also addressed standardized testing for ELLs and assessing ELLs in

the classroom.

While Ms. Hughes was teaching in California, 82% of her fourth-grade class consisted of

ELLs. Since she has been in Olympia, her class numbers are considerably different. Compared

to the 82% ELLs in California, there are only 8-14 students total, out of the entire student body at

each of the Olympia schools. Rebecca is unhappy with the school district because of the situation

she is in; bouncing around from school to school does not fully benefit the students and it is not

fully utilizing Rebecca as a teacher. For Rebecca to fully provide for her students, she would

want and would need an ELL classroom of her own. In her own classroom, she would be able to
hone in on what the student really needs help with and she would also be able to do small group

lessons in a conducive setting.

We also talked about the important topic of standardized testing and how ELLs must face

it and how to prepare them. Rebecca says she helps prepare her students by teaching them the

appropriate academic and content grammar for each individual test. She does not like to teach to

only prepare her students for the test. She is most concerned about her students truly learning

and developing their English language skills. In California, more teachers taught their students

for the test instead of teaching to learn. The level of each ELL student is what Rebecca believes

should determine whether they are held to the standards of native English speakers. She believed

that if an ELL is a level one, there is no way he or she should be held to the same standards. But

if the ELL is at a level 4 then they absolutely should be held to the same standards. “If students

can communicate like the other students who are native speakers, in my eyes they should be heal

to the same standards as their native speaking peers.”

Rebecca is a versatile teacher when it comes to the methods she uses. This is because she

believes a student learns best when they are able to connect with and even interact with their

work. One of her favorite teaching methods is sentence building with tiles. Sentence building is

when she has words or phrases on a piece of paper or note card, then her students replace each

spot in the sentence with a new tile when needed (Wright, 2015). This method is beneficial to

the students because they connect to their work with their hands; a teacher could even have their

students act out the phrases for the parts of the sentence to help solidify their knowledge of the

words. Rebecca also loves close reading, especially in the middle schools. Close reading is

where each student receives a copy of a reading and then they can write all over and either circle

or underline important words and phrases and paraphrase the writing (Wright, 2015). This
method is interactive for the students like building with sentence tiles. Close reading is also good

because the students can work individually, and then turn to a partner and talk about what the

work they did, and then have them turn to another pair until the whole class comes back together

and reviews what was important about the writing that was assigned.

In the classroom, Rebecca helps accommodate her students by modifying the work she

hands out and simplifying the words into words they will understand. She believes this method to

be the most effective and helpful. She also believes it is imperative not to overload the students

with too many problems or too much homework. Simplicity is the easiest and most effective

way to help ELL students the most. However, when students receive a smaller amount of work

to finish, Ms. Hughes makes sure they really understand the concepts they are honing in on. In

the classroom, the amount of time Rebecca spends with a student depends on the level the

student is at. When working with level one ELL’s, Rebecca uses the pullout method and only

works one on one (Wright, 2015). With levels two, three, and four, Rebecca pushes-in a

classroom only help guide and work with the ELL students. Having normal in-class time for an

ELL student is crucial to their success in learning the English language (Wright, 2015). In the

Olympia school district, Rebecca uses the small group method and the push-in and pull-out

methods in the elementary and middle schools in the Olympia school district. Ms. Hughes does

not like pushing into another teacher’s class room. It is easier to do if there are a few ELL

students because the teacher could co-teach, but when there is only one ELL, she does not want

it to feel like she is stepping on the toes of the other teacher.

Within Rebecca’s students, the middle school ELL’s all struggle with social studies the

most. Social studies is the hardest for students connect with especially because not many

teachers are that great at teaching it even to the native speakers. Rebecca said over the years, she
has found that girl ELL students are often more motivated than boys. In Rebecca’s classroom,

she never created a lesson about her ELL’s background. The best way to talk and learn about it

is when the students bring it up in conversation. Rebecca said that ELL students would always

talk of their experiences and the countries they were from. She said “this is how I, along with the

rest of the students would learn about the ELL students in the class.”

After talking about what goes on in the class we talked about testing and assessing the

students to see their progress with the English language. Rebecca assesses her students using

both tests and portfolios. Using a combination is the best way to go because principles want

numbers, but as a teacher portfolios show the progress the students have been making (Wright,

2015). Rebecca also uses the ELPA scores, the MAP scores and S-back scores to also assess her

students. Even though the three test are standardized tests, they are helpful to Rebecca because

the MAP testing happens three times a year, and the S-back only once. The MAP scores can

show a student’s progress, and the S-back scores help plan for the next school where the student

will need the most help.

After meeting with Rebecca, what stood out to me the most was learning about her

personal feeling about being a teacher. Sometimes it is hard to not self-doubt while learning

about ELLs and hearing from her regained confidence in me. When Rebecca graduated from

Western, she felt like she was not close to being prepared. She said that she really did not start

learning until she was in a classroom of her own. She has learned the most from on the job

experience and working with children even though she had a lot of great training. Rebecca

believed that being an ELL teacher makes it hard to fulfil every student’s need, especially in

Olympia because she is not with the ELLs as much as she would like to be. Rebecca often only

feels like she is crutch for the students, instead of being the teacher figure she actually is.
Rebecca is not fluent in any other language other than English. Rebecca has started to pick on

Spanish phrases but she wishes she had learned Spanish so she could help teach her students to

an even higher potential. If there was one thing that Rebecca wishes she could have known about

before working with ELL’s, she said it would be, to be fluent in Spanish, and knowing about the

stages of language acquisition (Wright, 2015). Knowing Spanish and the different stages would

have greatly benefited MS. Hughes. Since working with ELL students for over 15 years,

Rebecca has experienced and seen many benefits, and also some difficulties as any teacher

would. One of the biggest benefits to being an ELL teacher is having the interaction between

ELLs and native speakers because the native speakers are unknowingly modeling their language

skills. Many of the ELLs are apprehensive at first and do not want to converse much their native

speaking peer, but it is good for the ELL students. Being an ELL teacher takes a lot of

compassion and patience but to see how much the students develop their language skills and gain

an understanding is really special. ELL students learn so much not only academically, but they

learn so much socially and personality wise from their classmates. When it comes to the

difficulties, dealing with behaviors can one of the hardest. It is hard to discipline and keep a

student under control when the language barrier can be so big. When a teacher does not see

progress from an Ell student for a period of time, Rebecca said as a teacher it is tricky because

the reason why is not always obvious. You have to sit back and think about what can be changed

to benefit this student more.

From the interview with Rebecca Hughes, I found most of the information helpful. I

loved meeting with her because we shared many of the same views and everything she does as a

teacher, aside from the unhappy situation she is currently in, is everything I would do as a

teacher. The methods she uses to teach are methods from the book which I thought would benefit
ELLs the most and want to use in the future. The way she assesses her students are how I ideally

want to assesses students. It was great meeting someone so similar to me and someone who held

similar views as me. From this interview, I learned what aspects it takes to be a great ELL

teacher. These aspect are using multiple methods that have the students interacting with and

connecting with the work, using multiple assessments and test throughout the entire year to

assess a student and to plan what the student needs more help with in the future. As for myself, I

learned that no matter how much training or qualifications I have, I will not feel prepared the

first time I have a classroom of my own. To be a great teacher, it takes classroom experience

and hands on work with the children. I am excited as a teacher to have many hands on lesson to

involve students and have them really get connected with the work because not only do I learn

the best this way, ELL students grasp the concepts more when they interact with their work. I am

especially grateful I had the chance to meet with Rebecca.

 References

Write, W. E. (n.d.). Foundations for Teaching Enlgihs Language Learners: Research, Theory,

Policy, and Practice (Second ed.). Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing. 2015.

 QUESTIONS ASKED AT INTERVIEW
Rebecca Hughes – Olympia School district
1) How long have you worked with ELL’s?
a. I was hired in Sacramento in 1990, I worked there for 16 years. 15 year in
4th grade, 1 year in 2nd grade. I have been working in the Olympia school
district for a year. I do not have a class of my own. I have to go from school
to school evaluating and helping and helpings kids.
b. What is the average amount you have in a classroom?
i. South Sacramento, I usually had around 82% in my fourth grade
classes and 67% my second grade. Most spoke Spanish and were
immigrants with their parents. Some spoke Vietnamese.
ii. In Olympia, mainly Spanish speaking ELL’s. The middle schools in
Oly. Have about 8-14 ELL children at each school. (the schools on
average range from 300-800)
c. How often do you work the students? (every day? Only certain days?)
i. Depending on the level the students are (Levels 1-4 with 4 being
fluent) I Pull out level 1s and help them one on one learn how to read
and do basics in English. Level two, I will come into classes (push-in
method) and help guide the students with their work. Data
magnagement
2) What term do you use when referring to ELLs? Is it ELL? Or ESL? Something else?
a. EL, ELD, ELL
3) What kind of assessments do you give to your students? (variety? Or prefer ones over
others?)
a. Both tests and portfolios. Principals want numbers so the best way is to use a
combination. Look at the ELPA scores. (listening, reading, speaking,
writing, O..). Phonics test. 1st grade passage comrhension for middle
schooler. Want to know if they can read. Classrooms assessments to figure if
a child need more help or not. Map scores (3 times a year) Sbach scores for
next year planning. ----------------------------
4) Do you think that there is a teaching method that sticks out to you that is the most
effective when teaching ELLs? or does it depend from student to student?
a. Sentence building. I use sentence tiles to practice parts of speech. Phonics
kit. Single words on tiles. At the middle school CLOSE READING. Give
them individual paper. Show them how to circle, underline and annotate
readings. You connect when you work within the text. Encompasses
comrhension, vocabulary. Structured student interaction. A topic and give
aeach student a job with a sentence. Get speaking between students.
5) How do you prepare your ELLs for standardized testing?
a. Academic vocabulary.
b. Teachers got financial bonuses for better test scores. (I hate that ) in
California.
6) What do you wish your school would provide for you in order to help ELL students?
a. My own ELD class on each site at each middle school for me to really be bale
to fill all of the childrens academic roles.
7) In what ways do you accommodate your students in the classroom?
 a. Modifying work. Number of problems keeping minimal
8) Is there an area that you think ELL students struggle the most? Or does it differ from
student to student?
a. In middle school, social studies. You have to really connect to it and not
many teachers are good at it. Writing is pretty tricky too.
9) Do you believe ELL’s should be held to the same learning standards as native English
speakers? Why or why not?
a. Depends on where the student is at. Level 1 no way. Level 4 yeah they need.
b. Common core, ELP standards.
c. Indiviuals scores are 1-5. Overall scores are 1-3.

10) What are the different types of ELL programs that are used in the Olympia school
district?
a. Elementary schools small group, push in and pull out.
b. Do you like these programs? Or would you prefer to be using different ones? If
so, which ones would you use?
i. I do not like pushing into someone class rooms. If there are engouh I
wouldn’t mind co-teaching but I don’t want to be stepping on the
other teachr’s toes because there are normally only 2-3.
ii. Sheltered insruction . I prefer small groups or one one so you can
really help hone in and help students.
Girls have more motivation.
11) Should ELL programs have been made sooner? Why? How?
a. Pretty rewarding. She advocates, nags, but she doesn’t get to teach much.
b. Does Washington do head start programs for young classes? (kindergarten,
preschool?)
c. I do not know very
12) Do you think the united states should have an official language?
a. I am surprised it doesn’t have one but I do not think there should be one
declared. A common language is needed.

13) How prepared were you to teach ELLs when you first started teaching?
a. Coming out of Western. I really didn’t start learning until I had a classroom
of my own. I was not preprared. No. Because when I move to California
with my husband. I learned a lot on the job and paying attention to the kids.
I had a lot of great training.
Project Glad. Amazing traing for teaching ELL kiddos. Orange Country
14) Did you have any preconceived thoughts about ELLs before working with them?
a. No. I have always been big on Paracommunication. It would be hard to
communicate with the parents. We had translator that spoke Spanish and
one who spoke Vietnamese. But not in Olympia.
15) How do you meet every student’s need? Is it possible?
a. AS an ELL it is really hard. Because I am not with them much and I can’t
fully help them get to their full potential. I often feel like a crutch.
 16) How easy or difficult is it to work with parents of ELLs? In what ways?
a.
17) Are you fluent in any other language? If yes, how has it helped you as a teacher?
a. I do not. I have been starting to pick up on spandish. I really wish I was
fluent though
18) What are some of the benefits and the struggles you have experienced while teaching
both native English speaking students and ELL students?
a. Benefit: native English speakers with ELL because the Natives model their
language skills. ELL were apprehensive but it was good for them.
Compassion and patience. They learn so much socially and personality.
b. Behavior. Is the hardest.
c. It is tricky when you don’t see kids seeing progress.

19) Is there one thing you wish you had known before you began working with ELLs?
a. Spanish.
b. Stages of language aquistion. Silent period and so on.

Prior knowledge. Discussion mainly was how we talked about their country.