ESL Teacher Reflection (10/2)

When I saw that my TE 401 social studies reading was titled, "Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners," I was interested to see what information the article contained. Although in our class we have not been talking about a specific subject, I wanted to see how similar, or different, the instructional techniques were. Much of the content in the article, which was written by Cruz and Thornton, contained information that we have been talking about in our class. Although it was more geared toward social studies, it covered concepts that need to be taken into consideration in any type of subject matter. 

The article suggests that in order to overcome challenges that the ELLs face in the classroom, content-centered language learning or authentics text should be used. This idea, of course, relates to the Snow article we read on “Content-Based and Immersion Models.” With a content-based model, the standard school curriculum can be paired with the objectives of language instruction (Snow). Compiling language and curriculum into one entity allows the instruction to not only be more authentic, but it also has the ability to improve language skills of non-native speakers.

Cruz and Thorton’s article explains that social studies may be more difficult because of the lack of background knowledge that the ELLs have. In order to improve effective social studies instruction, the article listed several points from a report compiled by the U.S. Department of Education in 1999. I thought these were worth noting because they relate to the various strategies we have talked about in class regarding ELLs. The bulleted points indicate where the emphasis should be placed in social studies instruction.

• Making social studies content accessible to English language learners

• Adopting a flexible, thematic-based curriculum. (Snow defined a theme-based model as selected topics or themes that provide content from which teachers extract language learning activities).

• Giving students adequate amount of time to learn social studies content.

• Linking social studies concepts to prior knowledge

• Accommodating a variety of learning styles

• Using cooperative learning strategies

• Linking instruction to assessment.

Sheltered, as well as individual instruction, was also an effective approach in social studies instruction according to Cruz and Thornton. I thought this was rather interesting as the video we had watched in class on Thursday featured a sheltered social studies course. While a sheltered classroom did have its positives in that specific social studies classroom, it also had many negatives, as the students were not able to interact with any native speakers. The Cruz and Thornton article did not include any criticisms of sheltered instruction, as they only described how this strategy makes the content more accessible for the students.

Finally, I found it interesting that the Cruz and Thornton article described teacher wait-time, as we had specifically discussed that in a previous class. For me, it reinforced the fact that English language learners do need more time to answer questions. Because the wait-time can allow them to organize their thoughts, it can improve discussion, which is necessary for improved comprehension for ELLs.

Overall, I feel that I was able to get much more out of this article because of LLT 307. I was able to have an opinion on what type of approaches and strategies Cruz and Thornton described, as well as reinforce the information we have been discussing in class. As a result, I can see my knowledge regarding English language learners developing and improving.