Planning for ELL Learners

As I am not actively a classroom teacher I decided to base this future unit on a culturally responsive unit that I co-wrote but have not yet had the opportunity to utilize in my own classroom. I would like to use this high school Global Studies unit on the development levels of two different countries such as The United States and Morocco through an analysis of the Human Development Index for this task.

Sylvie speaks French and Chadian Arabic, she and her family immigrated 3 years ago from Chad and she has an intermediate-low English proficiency level.  Some modifications for her would be to allow her to do her research on Morocco exclusively, because of the fact that she can find many articles in French since it is an official language in Morocco and the language of academia there. Perhaps giving another student the same topic to research about America and having them work together to help encourage her to verbally discussing her findings. Allow her to read off of her slides for final oral presentation and do not grade on grammar and spelling, flexible time limit.   Focus for Sylvie would be to work on proper research and citation skills by using a model.  So instead of quantity of information, she will be evaluated on quality/reputability of sources and whether she cites them correctly.

Antonio's L1 is Spanish and he is an emergent learner who migrated from the Puerto Rico last year.  He likes to participate, but can get sidetracked by social scene and is often too chatty with his other Spanish speaking friends.  I choose small group interactions over whole class discussions and would pair him with one Latino-American friend who can help translate if need be and two other non-Spanish speakers to encourage him to communicate in English.

Hoang is an immigrant from Vietnam a couple weeks ago and is not yet comfortable communicating verbally in English other than basic yes/no questions. I would have another student demonstrate how to input the global Human development index data into a spreadsheet (when provided with website to find data) and create graphs. Her project will be to present statistics via graphs and have her practice saying the numbers out loud (and perhaps the labels too). I would also have her write definitions for each label in Vietnamese so she knows what each word means. I would require the rest of students to note and turn in these figures in a formative assessment so that they pay attention to the information that she gives.

Katerina is a Russian native who has lived in several countries throughout the world due to her diplomat father’s position.  She is fluent in Russian, French and German, and had studied English on and off for a total of 5 years in her previous schools. Verbally she is an advanced learner and she has an expansive English vocabulary, but she struggles with writing and maintaining accuracy in English grammar.  Unlike the previous ELL learners Katerina will complete the full argumentative essay assigned like her non-ELL peers but will be given a graphic organizer with prompting questions and a shorter minimum page requirement.

Special Education Referral Process

In general the teachers I interviewed stated that they typically make recommendations for special education only in somewhat extreme circumstances.  The interview teachers stated that when they made recommendations it was based on witnessing common symptoms of various disabilities that they recognized from their students with special needs courses.  They expressed that if they were concerned about the a student in their class their first reaction would be to try alternative methods to teach the student.  One expressed that if this did not work she would then turn to the student’s other teachers to inquire as to whether they see the same issues with that student and what might be their strategies for dealing with it. However, when concerned for a student both suggested asking the student in private and calling the child’s parents to talk with them about behavioral traits without suggesting that the child has a disability.. Because special education encompasses a plethora of different issues from gifted students to the lowest functioning students with severe intellectual disabilities it is not possible for anyone except a medically trained professional to “diagnose” a disability.

At James Hillhouse High School teachers and other staff members can refer a student for special education services by using a special form for this purpose.  It requires the referrer to sign off that they have already checked the system to ensure that the student isn’t already receiving special education services.  If the student is already receives special education services and has an IEP the referrer should get in contact with that student’s case manager and discuss any issues in the classroom and try to determine any possible interventions. Similarly if the student has a 504 plan, the referrer should discuss any issues with the student’s counselor first.

If the student does not receive any services, the referral then goes to the child’s counselor who is the one to contact the student’s other teachers to see if they notice the same behaviors or issues that are detailed on the form by the referrers.  At this point, the counselor can recommend that the student be evaluated which is done onsite by the in-house Clifford Beers Clinic with help from the school social worker. In order to complete this evaluation the school must acquire parental permission.  At Hillhouse one of the three academy principals is designated as being in charge of Special Education and she is responsible for overseeing the evaluation from Clifford Beers and ultimately deciding if the child will be given special education services based off of the recommendation of counseling staff and evaluators from Clifford Beers. At this point if a child is to be receiving special education services they will be assigned a case manager who with the help of the school’s PPT (Planning and Placement Team) chairperson will organize a PPT meeting.   

A PPT meeting must include the following parties the child’s case manager or counselor, the PPT chair (serving as an administrator), a teacher who can report on the student’s behavior and achievement, and a parent or guardian of the child (and/or the child themselves if they are 18+).  This team collaboratively creates the goals and accommodations that appear on an IEP and try to identify areas that need to be worked on or adjustments that need to be made to ensure the student is in the least restrictive environment.