Before this year I had
no previous experience working with ESL students, or students who have English
as a Second Language. I now work in a local grade six classroom and I have had
my first encounters with teaching a student of this exceptionality. Richard R.
Day does a good job of explaining this experience in his article Silence and the ESL Child. Day writes: “Most
teachers are familiar with children who say little or nothing in the classroom.
Efforts to elicit verbal responses are often met with monosyllabic replies at best.
This problem is exacerbated in those classrooms with children either who speak
a nonstandard dialect of English, or whose first language is not English” (35).
This quote resonated with me because as a teacher candidate I have worked with
and volunteered with many introverted or simply uninterested students who do
not like to speak up in class or offer their thoughts during activities. This
process to involve these students is definitely multiplied when the layer of a
language barrier is added.
The student I work with
can be quiet at times, but he also demonstrates outspokenness in certain areas.
In class I have found myself explaining concepts that I as an English speaking
person take for granted, such as acronyms. Acronyms are difficult for this
student because not only is he decoding what words mean but also contexts of
these words and the short-hands they are written in. He is particularly
interested in popular culture, which is something that I had never thought
about a student having to “learn” in the academic sense of the word. He
checked-out and re-checked out a book of World Records from the library. The
example that stands out the most in my mind is when he asked me what American
Idol was. He understood that an American is someone who lives in the United
States, and that an idol is someone special. But strategies an English reader
uses, such as using pictorial clues, was useless to him because he did not have
the prior knowledge to connect to the images on the page.
The textbook Special
Education in Ontario Schools discusses the English language and the way it
is formed as being a barrier to children with learning disabilities. However, I think
this can also be applied to ESL students. Bennett writes: “The subtleties of
English may pose a barrier for students . . . Because [ESL students] . . . not
only have difficulty with language, but even further difficulty in reading
between the lines of communication situations and social contexts, they may
respond incorrectly . . .” (95). This comparison is not meant to be offensive
to anyone. I simply see the resemblance between these statements and the student
that I work with, insofar as the language acquisition and social implications of
this exceptionality. He is just as intelligent as any English speaking student
in the class; he simply struggles with conveying or understanding meaning in
certain contexts. I believe that diversity in a classroom is something to be valued, and something we should teach our students to value as well. By validating the needs of ESL students and assisting them in the classroom, we are able educate our students more fully and emphasize understanding and application just as we would with English speaking students.
I have included two
videos in this post. One outlines the struggles faced by ESL learners of both a
young age and older learners. The other video is a demonstration of ESL
teaching to kindergarten students. I found this video particularly interesting
because of the musical aspect of the teaching. This again reminded me of the
ESL learner in my grade six class, who is an excellent singer and quickly
retains song lyrics and rhythm. This talent was discovered during a lesson that
involved a sing-along. This student was able to make a connection to the music
and demonstrated good understanding of the topics in the lesson, as do the kindergarten girls in the video. He told me
after that because the tune was stuck in his head he was able to remember the
important concepts the song outlined. An English speaking student in the same
class gave me a similar response. That is just an example of how different
teaching strategies can be beneficial to those who are both English speaking
students and ESL students.
“ESL struggles and
strategies”
Works Cited
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