In my teaching social studies for elementary class, we learn that ew should use literacy skills in social studies, and to use social studies in reading and writing. I think this is important for all content areas to see how the skills are all interconnected and to really make sure students are understanding the content.

Making sure that students feel comfortable to share their own ideas is very important to me. No student wants to learn in a place that they don’t feel welcome.

In special education, we look at assessments similar to this for students in special education. I think that it is very interesting to see the similarities in some of the teaching instructions and learning supports for ELL and SPED.

While AI can be a helpful tool in some cases, I don’t think that students should rely on it to get their work done. By doing the work themselves, they are increasing their own language and critical thinking skills that are imperative to enhance your learning. Even just generating your own ideas can increase your problem solving, creativity, and promotes divergent thinking.

I feel like this would be very easy to spark conversation in kids. They are very set in their ways and typically not scared to voice their opinions of what they think is right. The struggle would be to teach them that everyone’s opinions matter and how to disagree politely.

One thing in my old elementary school that we used to do was genius hour. We had one hour a week to research a topic that was completely of our choosing. I really liked it because we got to learn about things that was interesting to us and present it to everyone.

You could do this in many different ways. My first thought comes to think-pair-share or small group discussions before talking to the whole class. Randomized calling after a discussion has a better chance for participation in a non threatening way. You could also have students do sentence starters.

I feel like this goes for every student, not just ELL learners. This could go for general ed students or even special education. Science in the classroom should revolve around student curiosity and discoveries.

I feel like most of the strategies for this are just going to be very similar to the other content areas. Such as teaching content vocabulary before teaching the lesson, connecting it to their real lives and using visual supports.

This table really highlights how many more words that you need to know for social studies. I would have never been able to guess that. I think based on this alone, it’s probably much harder to teach social studies to ELL students than other classes like math or science.

I wonder if you could use lower level textbooks or even kids books to help teach concepts to ELL students. That’s if they don’t need to memoize any names or dates but just for the concept or story that they need to know.

Because it is not on most standardized tests, some teachers actually don’t teach it as much as they should or really at all. They use that time to focus on tested subjects like math or science, which is kinds awful.

This is a great way to se what students know and also to be able to help them start being able to formulate their ideas.

Most of these are very similar to teaching ELL students language arts. I think a lot of these strategies can be cross-curricular.

Having an anchor chart or poster somewhere with this chart would help students who are ELLs to be able to refer to them. If they find one of these words in a problem, they would be able to figure out which kind of problem it is.

When presenting math problems to students you would have to make suer you explicitly teach all of the vocabulary. Or in some cases you could use different vocabulary all together to help comprehension.

There are so many ways to engage with math language. These are things that I take for granted as someone who grew up speaking only English. I don’t have to think about the different types of ways, however it is very important to keep in mind for ELL students.

These are also confusing for some students with ASD as well. So trying to explain them may be difficult, because honestly, trying to explain them when someone doesn’t understand a whole bunch of English sounds difficult.

I think that the high school that I went to was pretty average on terms of cultural sustainability, however the school I went and observed at was kinda really bad about it. They would put kids in a remedial ready class and give them all flashcards for almost the entire time. There was one kid however that when he was learning English, it was his 5th language which was really cool.

I saw a study where multilingual students more often had broader vocabulary. They also had more phonological awareness and were able too pick up on sounds more quickly than their peers.

I think that a lot of times, people just want students to be proficient in English, but knowing their first language is just as important. Learning a different language is hard and a lot of adults can’t even do it, so it’s very impressive that a kid is learning two languages at once.

I feel like all of these sound like normal objectives that we are taught to write in all of our education classes. I am failing to see how these are special or different. The first ones just seem like terrible objectives to begin with and the second ones just go into more detail.

This should be required by law. As teachers we are required to provide free and appropriate education to all students, regardless of background.

I think that while these idiomatic expressions may be more difficult for ELL students that they should be taught them because they are often used in everyday language. Although they might not be on a standardized test, they could help students understand more conversationally and be able to communicate better with their peers.

I think that it is important to be aware of terms that are offensive, even if unintentionally and definitely avoid using them. Also though, if a student is using them, shut that behavior down and tell them that it is inappropriate school talk and let them know that it can be hurtful to others.

This should go for every student, not just ELL because it opens the door for communication between families which helps both parties be able to do what is best for their child. It also allows for the teacher to get to know each family and be able to differentiate per the students background knowledge.

I think this approach is lowkey a white supramacist and racist view. Students native languages are just as important as English. If they are not speaking well in either, than they are not being taught well in either side and that is up to the teachers to help teach. It is not a teachers job to be deciding what language they are going to be learning or talking outside of school.

This would be interesting to see how this would play out in an actual classroom. In Missouri, students are banned from using their phones in school and they are even having to lock them up to ensure students are using them. I wonder if ELL students would still be able to for communication or use their chromebooks (if they have them) instead.

I have noticed that the English language has a lot of different ways to say the same exact thing, jut slightly different wording. This definitely can come across as confusing, although it does make books and stories less boring and more unique.

I never would have thought of idiosms and how they may be confusing to ELL students. When lesson planning, I will have to make sure and read my content thoroughly to spot any phrases that may be confusing and make sure to explain them beforehand.

In my Exceptional Child class, we recognized that often times ELL students who also have a disability often get delayed or inadequate accommodations because they don’t speak English very well. In terms of gifted students who are also ELL, I wonder how much their learning would be slowed or held back because they are also learning a completely new language.