Competency 3.

I Reflection
This competency is very direct and to the point but still a very essential part of the role
that teachers play in ELL students lives. As an educator and community member, it is our role to
stand up and speak for those who have a smaller voice and in this case these individuals are
ELLs and their families. Often these families do not have a say or any input on their child's
education so teachers must step up and advocate for them. This is a part of being a teacher that I
am most passionate about. I am pursuing this career to positively impact the lives that I have the
privilege to interact with. When I look at young students; I see the future, I see young brilliant
minds in the making, and most importantly I see the ability to change the world around them.
This is a belief that I hold very firmly and it is not something that I am scared to stand up for or
be an advocate for. Specifically when it comes to ELL families they may not have the fluency
comprehension to properly speak up for themselves in the face of the school or education system.
As a result, they might not be able to get their message across to stress the importance of
acceptance and representation. These requests and messages do not go against any other opinion
but yet they are still overlooked at times. At this point, it becomes the teachers duty to speak up
and relay the message of those who can't. ELLs make a large part of most communities but
because of certain limitations and financial barriers they can be left unnoticed. Another problem
that these families run into is the lack of communication between the school and ELL families.
They may send home a flyer or send an email but if they cannot read the email because of a
language barrier, the attempt serves almost no purpose. The content that is sent home must be
friendly enough that they can understand the message. This begins with open communication and
compromise between parents and the teacher. They must be on the same page in order to support
the child both in the classroom and at home. In most cases, the teacher should be the first person
to reach out because parents might not even know the right way to go about this action.
Additionally, I believe it is in the teachers job to reach out to parents and create a foundation for
communication. Both parties want what is best for the child, so why not work collaboratively
together. To me, this is a simple way to advocate for ELLs and their families.
I gained some experience with this in Teaching and Learning 419 where we were
assigned to produce a flyer that we would theoretically handout to students and their parents in
order to attend a school sponsored event. The purpose of this was to allow us to get some
practice creating flyers and invitations that are friendly to all students and parents including
ELLs. I created a movie night flyer. Going into this assignment, I thought that this would be
pretty simple and would not take me that long. But I was wrong in this assumption. This
“simple” flyer took me almost an hour and a half to complete. There were so many small aspects
that I did not even consider. Things like alignment, phrasing, spacing, and color theme. Though
my teacher for this course was very picky and paid very close attention to detail but as I reflect I
know that this was only for my benefit and ultimately made me become more conscious to be
inclusive. Another one of my major takeaways was that simple and straightforward is almost
better at times. This is honestly something that I struggle with because I tend to add too much or
overthink which ultimately can confuse my audience. Especially when it comes to
communicating with individuals whose first language is not English. I can assume that they
know more than they do and completely miss the point of what I am saying. But I believe that
this flyer displays that I am able to consider and advocate for ELLs and their families.