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Final Reflection

Matthew Murray

School of Education: Drexel University

EDUC 565- Foundations in Instructing English Language Learners

Beth Ulcay

December 11, 2020

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Abstract

For this project, the student has been studying and teaching an EL from Albert Greenfield

Elementary School in Philadelphia, PA. I had the privilege of being able to gather some

information from the teachers in the 7th grade that are teaching the student as well as firsthand

information from teaching the student.

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I was very lucky to be able to have an EL in one of the classes that I teach and able to sit

in on the student’s other classes virtually. In all the classes one thing stuck out, in some way

shape or form, the teachers were always trying to use some form of the “I do, we do, you do”

model that we have learned about in Zainuddin et al. 2011. I was also able to see the students

doing a lot of group work. I asked the teachers about the group work and if it was better for the

student in an EL setting and they stated that it seemed to provide better results for the student and

their understanding of content. They found that by pairing the student with someone who was

stronger allowed for them to better comprehend the information and require less extra assistance

as it was being provided through the students and the teacher. This also lined up with

information that I have found through this course from WIDA which shows that some of the

most important things that can be done is being able to provide language support, grouping of

students strategically, and being able to create meaningful assignments meant to engage the

students (Collaborative Learning for English Language Learners, 2014).

I was highly impressed with every one of the educators that was able to provide such

education and support if necessary, to the student. In the current virtual setting that we find

ourselves in it has been a struggle to be able to keep students and engaged but through my

observations this was not the case. As well the instructors knew almost everything about the

student to include where they came from, and origin language. This helped show that the

teachers have been able to recognize problems that students may be facing as they enter a

classroom as an EL culturally (Irving, 1984).

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Background Information

Z is a 7th grade student at Albert Greenfield Elementary school in Philadelphia, PA. They

have another sibling in the school whom receives similar accommodations as well. Z speaks

Arabic as her first language but is quite proficient as an EL. She is at an advanced level and is

actually in the process of going to be tested very soon to see if she is ready to move out of the

ELL program itself. The last time she was tested was December 2019 with a score of 5.4. She is

quite the gifted student and finds herself receiving high marks in all of her classes. She would be

classified as a gifted and has been identified by all of her teachers as being gifted which is

normally the process regarding ELs who are gifted (Zainuddin, 2011). Student rarely needs

actual help when it comes to instruction and understandings but there is something that has

become apparent to me that I did not necessarily get from the rest of the teachers I spoke with.

This will be identified more in depth during the assessment of the writing sample as it pertains to

that.

Evaluation of Support

Since Z operates at such a high level when it comes to EL she really does not receive too

much support as it is not quite necessary at this time. She does not receive direct instruction and

the length of support normally revolves around the student asking questions for clarification like

any other student would. Zis always attentive, in class and participating in everything that was

done during my observations of her. While she does not receive much in regard to the support of

EL, we all as teachers have been trying to come up with ways to push Zin her academic abilities.

One of the biggest things is that we listen to her as a student and what she really needs and how

we can really help her (Igoa, 1995) Therefore after consultation with her in science, we offered

an extra credit project that she willingly did and excelled at that required her to be able to utilize
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the skills she has as an EL. She had to be able to discern information from readings and compile

information to present to the class about the wildlife of her native country.

Another constant of the classroom observations was that content based language learning

is constantly being used. This style allows for teachers to use instructional materials, learning

tasks, and classroom techniques from academic content areas to help develop the student’s

language (Zainuddin, 2011). This seems to be the norm for what I could see from my

observations, especially in the virtual setting.

Evaluation of the English Learner’s Writing and Speaking

In one of the classes I have taught Z in, a writing sample was required for an assignment

and assessment. The idea behind this is to mimic what the students will see on a PSEA

Assessment. Below is the sample:

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While Z excels in most areas, through this observation I have become concerned with her writing

and her ability to properly do so at the level that she currently is. I do not know if this was an

anomaly but the writing sample that I received from her was quite difficult to read as a coherent

fluid paragraph. This could be although written language is an extension of oral language, they

are not necessarily exact reflections of each other (Zainuddin, 2011). While the information is

correct in the passage the development of the sentences is lacking. Knowing the student and

seeing some of their other work I would have to say that this is an anomaly and that there has

been much better work turned in from the student, but it is something that I am currently keeping

an eye on and am currently coming up with ways to help augment her education in the areas of

concern. One of the ways I am going to do this is by process writing as it will bring down writing

into manageable chunks or stages (Zainuddin, 2011).

Conclusion

Z is a great student who works hard and is really excelling as an EL. However, I believe

that somethings are being looked past when it comes to her deficiencies because of how strong

she is in other aspects. Especially in this virtual world, these things especially her writing may be

overlooked, and I will be doing my part to make sure that they do not as her educator as well.

References
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Collaborative Learning for English Language Learners. (2014, May). Retrieved

December 11, 2020, from

https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/Brief-

CollaborativeLearningforELLs.pdf

Igoa, C. (1995). The Inner World of the Immigrant Child. New York: St. Martin’s

Press. (ISBN:0-8058-8013-5).

Irving, K. J. (1984). Cross-Cultural Awareness and the English-as-a-Second-

Language Classroom. Theory Into Practice, 23(2), 138-143.

Zainuddin, H., Morales-Jones, C., Yahya, N., & Whelan Ariza, E. (2011).

Fundamentals of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in K-12

Mainstream classrooms. (4th ed.) Dubuque: Kendall Hunt. (ISBN 978-1-4652-

6760-3).