Saturday, 25 May 2013

Welcome to Our Class


Community is very important in my classroom.  From the first day of school, the students are taught and practice mutual respect and attentive listening.  Students need a safe environment where they feel supported and comfortable learning.  It is important to create such a climate in the classroom.  For ELL learners, it takes time, practice, desire, and mistakes to learn a new language.  Theses learners need a sense of community when speaking and reading with their peers in the classroom. They need to know that they will be accepted not judged when there are errors in their speech or mispronunciations in their reading. 

As the classroom teacher, I play an important role for my ELL learners; I am their supportive and intentional coach.  I have to make sure that I am using a variety of resources, instructional strategies, and assessment accommodations that will help my ELL learners during the reading process. . 

Resources: Meaning is very important to reading. In order to comprehend a text, you have to be able to understand what is being read.  By providing a variety of resources (bilingual dictionaries, visual materials or artifacts, culturally diverse books that have nuances to their culture or home county) ELL learners are able to draw on previous knowledge and construct new understanding.  

Instructional Strategies: Various instructional strategies such as visual cues, graphic organizers, scaffolding, previewing textbooks, pre-teaching vocabulary, and peer tutoring, will help ELL learners make connections and develop meaning while reading. 

Assessment Accommodations:  ELL learners can be successful in their reading when provided accommodations such as extra time, choice, oral interviews, simplified language, bilingual support, etc.. 

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