Emilee Rodriguez

Jenny Ahn

Tch_Lrn 401

14 December 2023

Reflection #8: Competency 4E

Even when students have different English language proficiencies, it's still important to make

sure that they can access the grade-level content at all proficiency levels. Although this may take

some extra effort and planning, it's well worth it to create a learning environment where even

students with limited English language proficiency can succeed and learn complicated grade-

level content at high levels with high expectations. This can be done by separating content

expectations from English language expectations to ensure that English doesn't become a barrier

to accessing or interacting in meaningful ways with the content. An example of this could be

requiring students to read and summarize a story in English to meet a reading comprehension

standard. However, this could cause a lot of difficulties for students with limited proficiency in

English and thus make comprehension strategies inaccessible as they are too focused on making

sense of the English story. Instead, teachers should make the content more accessible and

relevant to the standards by giving students opportunities to show their understanding in their

home language(s), as that would allow them to focus on the comprehension standard and show

their skills much better. While many teachers may be hesitant to adopt this approach, as many of

us may not be able to grade assignments completed in other languages, it's much fairer and gives

you a more accurate idea of what your student can do.

I have done a few lesson plans that I have put a lot of attention and care into making them

accessible for MLLs, including a map making lesson plan, as well as a writing lesson plan that I
have created for some of my other ELL-focused courses. The map-making lesson plan focuses

on empowering students by using instructional strategies that are useful for making content

accessible for MLLs, as well as using materials that are easily understood by those with limited

English proficiency through the use of visuals and artworks. Vocabulary is explicitly taught in

the lesson, even though native speakers likely won't need explicit instruction in directional

words. The other example is the writing lesson, which is adapted from a lesson that I did with my

mentor teacher, only modified to make it more accessible to MLLs through explicit vocabulary

lessons, visuals, and modified assessments that allow students to complete the writing in their

home language to assess their ELA abilities, and then write in English to assess their proficiency.

By making these assessments separate, it gives us an idea of where the students excel in ELA,

how their knowledge transfers over, and how we can support their English language proficiency

development. In the writing lesson, there are English supports and specific language objectives

for MLLs at each proficiency level, however each level still allows them to meet the ELA

objectives.

Through this class, I have learned many strategies to help MLLs succeed in their learning, like

looking at different supports and using a PLC to collaborate with other educational professionals

to get more support in how to differentiate learning. Sometimes, I struggle to find a balance

between making content accessible and making it realistic for me to teach and grade, especially

if I have many students who speak many different languages. Of course, I would love to give

them authentic lessons where they can engage in their home language(s), but it can be nearly

impossible to do unless you have support from other teachers or community members who can

help grade or gather resources in different languages.

When students aren’t given instructional support, they aren't able to understand what is being

taught, or aren't able to show their learning because they don't yet have the proficiency to do so.

This can not only lead to inaccurate assessments of their knowledge and skills, but it can prevent

them from accessing new knowledge and growing academically. It's important to leverage a

student's strengths in order to support them in areas where they aren't so strong, and in this case,

it's important to use language that students already know well to allow them to access content

that they don't yet know, whether that's another language they use at home, or even using casual

vocabulary to explain academic content that is usually discussed with more formal academic

language. By using these methods, students are able to feel confident and learn just like other

students, despite any language barriers that they may be dealing with.

Of course, this affects my teaching in a lot of ways. Although the curriculum I have seen used in

my schools usually has intermittent support for MLLs, it isn't really much more in-depth than

reminders to pre-teach vocabulary (at least from what I've seen). So, my teaching will involve a

lot of looking at my lesson plans and thinking of barriers that my MLLs will have when I teach

it. Then, I can meet with my PLC, community members, or specialists to come up with

accommodations I can make to help MLLs succeed each day with the content I am teaching. Not

only will this engage them and allow them to build proficiency over time, but it will enable them

to meet and possibly exceed grade-level content standards while they are developing their

English language proficiency.