Build the Foundation

In my first post I wanted to reflect and summarize on an article I read titled "Preparing ELLs to be 21st-Century Learners" by Khristina Robertson. Khristina started with an amazing quote by Linda Ellberbee (a Journalist and TV Producer). It said that in this century its not a luxury for students to use technology it's a necessity. This really set the tone of the importance for technology in not just the ESL classroom, but all classrooms in the world. 

The next section of the article shared a very upsetting story about a beginning English Learner (EL) that was in a class where the teacher overused unknown language and vocabulary to the point that not only did the learner not understand what to do, but sadly gave up on trying to understand. This was during a technology lesson that by nature is motivating and student-centered, but the teacher did too much telling and not enough showing. 

As you can tell from this story, teachers of ELs need to understand how they learn and plan accordingly. However, language is only one of the many challenge teachers face when planning lessons for ELs. Overall, English Learners tend to have less access to technology and because of this have a lot less experience with working with technology, so they need a lot more support and modeling than other students. 

Khristina then shared research that showed how to teach technology to classrooms with ELs. Some of the strategies were:
  • step by step directions
  • chunking the instructions
  • building vocabulary 
  • giving extended practice time
  • differentiating assignments for beginners
  • providing peer helpers
I can imagine if the teacher I referenced above used some of these strategies he wouldn't have "lost" the student in his instruction. 

Overall, teaching students about technology is hard whether you have English Learners or not, but when teachers take the time and not rush through teaching the basics it will really help in the long run. A good analogy of this is when you build the basics it's like building the foundation for a house. It takes a lot of time and hard word, but once the foundation is laid its supports all the other learning and makes it easier. 

Robertson, K., (n.d.) Preparing ELLs to be 21st-Century Learners. Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/preparing-ells-be-21st-century-learners

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 10, 2018 at 8:17 PM

    This sounds like a very good article to read. Teachers need to be very careful how they plan their lessons. Especially when they are dealing with EL students because the language barrier can make it very difficult for them. Like you stated EL students may not have the opportunities to use technology and will not understand the technology language we may take for granted that students would know. Students have so much technology at their finger tips, but they don't always use it in the best ways or know the best ways they could be using it.

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  2. LennyFebruary 18, 2018 at 2:43 PM

    Interesting read. Robertson's strategies to teach technology in classrooms with ELs would be great strategies to include in any lesson for any group of students at any academic level. The strategies would help support the foundation for student learning in any subject. The strategies remind me of Anita Archer's work and her "I do. We do. You do." approach.

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