Interview with ESL teacher

After our interview with Mrs. Pietila and her ELL students I was astonished at how
diverse the classroom was. I felt that this experience provided for me more than I expected, I
learned about each student individually as well as the teachers day to day struggles. The school
Mrs. Pietila works for consists of 78% students who receive free and reduced lunch. At the
beginning the interview Mrs. Pietila explains while she must teach her students to speak English
fluently, she also has to provide emotional support to motivate her students to succeed.
We first asked Mrs. Pietila, What programs, techniques, or strategies have worked best
for you? She explained to us that the school provides a program; Guided Language Acquisition
design (GLAD) which falls into the category of Sheltered instruction or also known as Structured
English Immersion. Gradually, this form of instruction has been included into bilingual education
programs. According to Crawford, since the early 1980s GLAD has been increasingly
incorporated into bilingual education programs (Crawford, 2004). In her job as a teacher, every
single year is a year of experimenting and trying new strategies to help her students succeed. She
is constantly trying to find different methods or better techniques to use while working with
ELL. Mrs. Pietila also explains that one of her greatest difficulties is that many of her students
have social emotional baggage students bring with them. For some, it is a matter of everyday
survival. These students work hourly wages while trying to complete school. She says, she is
disappointed that she can only do so much for her students.
As each student came up to the camera to introduce themselves, I was surprised to find
that many of these students came from completely different backgrounds and spoke as many as
two to six languages. The students spoke two or more of the following languages; French,
Portuguese, Japanese, English, Spanish and many more. Mrs. Patiela explains that she only

knows only two languages; she is fluent in English and in Spanish. According to the National
Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, LEP students now speak more than 460 native
languages (Crawford, 2004, p. 5). I can only imagine how difficult it may be to run a classroom
of students that are in different levels, learn at different rates, and speak different languages LEP
students come from different backgrounds, enter school at different ages, start out at different
levels of English (Crawford, 2004, p. 19) which somewhat explains why not all ELL
programs are effective or efficient. In order for Mrs. Patiela to meet the needs of all her students,
it is important for her to differentiate instruction.
While some students claimed that vocabulary was one of their major struggles others
claimed that reading, and writing was their greatest challenge. I assume that because all these
students do not share the same native language, it is much more difficult for them to help each
other when it comes to translating to the English language. Jessica, a Hispanic student mentioned
that her personal struggle was to ask questions when she needed help because she felt that she
might be judged by others. Another student, Beatrice, finds that often she cannot explain or word
certain things she wants to say. She also explains that she feels it is unfair that the teacher helps
the Hispanics by speaking in Spanish. She is not receiving equal help or support as the other
students in the class. Mrs. Pietila confesses that she wishes she could somehow learn all the
languages to be able to translate for all her students.
Mrs. Pietilas day to day struggles includes emotional support, constantly trying to find
new ways to help the student understand the material she is teaching, providing equal help and
support for all her students, despite only knowing Spanish as a second language. She explains
that some students lack confidence in themselves while others have other priorities such as
working. Her solution is practice, try different methods/strategies in the classroom, to reach out

to all the students, taking risks, communicate with parents weekly, and create a healthy/inviting
environment for the students. She also explains that she must be understanding, mobile and
flexible, use student- centered instruction. Her goal is to prepare all her students to graduate. She
specifically describes her experience as walking into the World due to the variety of different
cultures and backgrounds.

References
Crawford, J., & Crawford, J. (2004). Educating English learners: Language diversity in the
classroom. Los Angeles, CA: Bilingual Educational Services.