Esmeralda Roman

November 28, 2017

WSU / Teaching and Learning 333

ELL Teacher Interview

 The ELL teacher that was interviewed was Debbie Anderson from Roosevelt elementary

school in Granger Washington she has been teaching there for over 25 years. The Granger

Washington school district has far more English Secondary language students then they have

English Native student. The interview took place in her classroom after spending the day in her

class watching her teach it was interesting to get to know her and how she got involved in the

teaching system. Anderson started when she had her first daughter and became a para educator

shortly after being a parent volunteer in the classroom and helped at the school, she fell in love

with it and realize there was a big need for teachers. She decided to go to the community college

to study elementary education she became a teacher. The only language she speaks is English

and that she learned that growing up at home, school, and college but in spending the day with

her and watching her teach every now and then she would speak in Spanish to her students it

made them really happy to try and struggle some of the bilingual students would help her out and

you could see how they would have a mini connection over it which is incredible to see her and

her ELL student’s connection. She has lots of joy in teaching in a community where the

resources are scares, she says because it challenges her to be a better teacher every day.

When interviewing a teacher with a lot of experience in teaching ELL students one can

learn that the simple way is the better way sometimes, methods that are the most fundamental are

the ones helping ELLs in there learning the most. In the interview, she talks about ways in which

ELL students learn the most what she found to be the most helpful to their understanding, some

of which are simple hands-on activities, they can also be putting a visual next to what she

teaching, and small groups. As a teacher, she explains that one can always then adjust to the

knowledge of their ELL student and provided them different ways that could be more effective

for other ELLs such as small groups or interventions to help make sure all students still learning
and growing. In the textbook, there is an encouragement for these types of learning as well as the

use of technology which is also a great tool but is an issue in the school because of the scarce

there is for technology. Instead the ELL teacher goes about using visuals, Hands on, and small

groups which are also encouraged (pp. … ). A piece of advice shared with me was to simply

treat the ELL students like you would treat any other of your students, but as a teacher know

what your classroom dynamic is so when your ELL students are struggling you know where to

make adjust to their accommodations along the path of their learning.

The interview then moved on to the importance of culture in the classroom which made

me realize something special, Anderson explains how as a teacher you do not need to try and

push culture into classrooms, she then goes on to say that from her personal experience when she

was beginning her teaching years she remembers learning on different ways to make students

feel welcomed and have different celebrations with culture relative activates she expresses how

this sometimes was a success but a lot of times the students are already culturally aware you just

need to give the students opportunities to share what they already know, whether this being in

there writing, reading or maybe in giving them time to share a little about their culture. This is a

lot more successful than you trying to bring in culture to the classroom when its already there

within your students all you need to do is give them opportunities to talk about their culture and

what they believe as well as celebrate. As a class student can learn from one another and teach

you something about your students along the way.

To interview a person that is already teaching ELL students can give new teachers a

better idea on how it will be to teach not only ELLs but all other students as well. Something a

new teacher can learn from this is that culture is not something you need to teach to students but

instead learn yourself from students, with this a teacher can then accommodate to their students
in what they are interested in and believe within the cultures to help provide books and materials

around the classroom available for the students. The idea of being a good teacher is to change or

guide students to want to be better or want to do better with the knowledge they gain along the

way what can one do to be a part of that is to be more involved and connected to other Ell

teachers they are a great restore to learn from know that one is better when working together

along with other teachers. They might have already experience something in there years of work

and can maybe provide you with help in something you are struggling with in your classroom.