We watched this video from Guadalupe Valdes, in class, today (go to "videos," then "specialist commentary"). It gives great food for thought when it comes to working with English-language learners. As we expanded upon this video, we also came up with the following.
What should we know about the backgrounds of our students, particularly immigrant students and English-language learners?
- How long have they been in school? What has their school experience been?
- Cultural meaning of schooling; social networks formed within schools.
- What is the family structure? Who is in the household? Why did they immigrate?
- English proficiency of family/household members
- What are their conceptual/content understandings?
- Can they read and write in their native language?
- Can they communicate common/daily needs/questions?
- Do they understand me?
- Where are they in the continuum of learning to speak conversation English (2-3 years) and learning to master academic English (5-7 years)?
- Is there evidence of trauma?
- What is their responsiveness to speaking English/American culture/structural assimilation, etc.?
- How can we minimize the role and impact of stereotypes?
- Integrating the home country into the curriculum.
- Use of native language to help with processing of content.
- How can we pre-teach vocabulary found in our lesson, and provide practice using English at ratios of smaller than 30:1?
