RickScheibner.net

Note:  These are a few reflections from the first weekend of this class.  It started out as just being notes, then I thought I would just leave in the big picture items and not bore you all with the gory details.  If you’re interested:

Things I know about ELL

1. Language is only one barrier for monolingual students and English language learners alike.
2. Kids are at many levels of understanding of the English language.
3. It’s a long ways from Room 20 to the ELL room at my school.
4. I know that I don’t know a whole lot about ELL, and particularly for being in a school with nearly 50% bilingual students.

Things I want to learn about ELL

1. Who is a good fit to run an ELL program?
2. At what point does a student exit ELL?
3. What are some effective strategies for running an ELL program?
4. How do you measure a successful ELL program?
5. How does a good newcomers center work?

ELL means “English Language Learners”

LEP means “Limited English proficiency”

Other terms of second language acquisition:

• Culture shock
• Silent period
• Comprehensible input
• Affective filter — The wall that a learner will put up depending on his or her anxiety level
• Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS):  These are the basic, almost rote-like words and phrases that ELL students will develop and utilize in order to communicate wants and needs.  Even with a good vocabulary, comprehension will be low for these students.
• Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)–The ability to use language to communicate higher thinking

SIOP:  Sheltered Instructional  Observational Protocol

The federal government says we may include ELL programs in school.  The State of Oregon says we must.

Special education testing needs to be in native language!  This almost seems like a no-brainer, but many times it doesn’t happen right away.  Unfortunately, the testing of many ELL students can be delayed due to second language concerns.

Changes in ELL are occurring almost constantly!  It’s important to stay abreast of new ELL law and implement accordingly. 

Program model should include both content and language acquisition support.  State funding is dependent on this!

A successful ELL model at one school may not work in another setting.  Needs and available resources will largely dictate how individual programs are implemented.

Here are my links for EDAD 615 at del.icio.us

Coming up:  Book review for The Inner World of the Immigrant Child, by Cristina Ioga.  And maybe–just maybe–a podcast.  More later.

Question for school administrators outside of Oregon:  What does ELL look like in your school setting?

The course work for my school administrator credentials continues this weekend.  I am creating a new category here called “EDAD 620″, which simply refers to the course number.  For the next couple of weeks, the focus of this blog will be this class.  My goal is to use this category to record reflections and journaling as required in the syllabus.  I will also use this to post any pertinent thoughts about class discussions that aren’t necessarily required in the syllabus. 

The class is entitled “Essential Readings About School Learners:  Education of Second Language Learners”.  It’s only a one-credit class.  The book we will be reading is called The Inner World of the Immigrant Child, by Cristina Ioga.  I’m about a third of the way through it so far, and I’ll post a review here when I get a chance to digest it a little more.  In addition to the book, it looks like we’ve got some handouts to read and an overview of the legal framework that pertains to ELL issues.  According to the syllabus, all course work will reflect the question “What school reform is needed to improve education for English Language Learners?”

Regular readers are invited to comment right along with class members.  Not only am I opening up my class work to my cohort and the instructor, I’m also opening it up to the rest of the blogosphere.  That’s maybe a different step for me, but it will be interesting to see how this thing we call blogging can work hand in hand with post-graduate course work.