Classroom Instruction with that works English Language Learners
CONCLUSION
As we noted in the Introduction, the number of ELLs in the United States has skyrocketed. For the most part, mainstream teachers are now responsible for helping these students learn English and master required academic content. Are teachers prepared, however, to meet the needs of this special population?
Available data indicate that, for the most part, few mainstream teachers are prepared to work with ELLs. The 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey by the U.S. Department of Education (n.d.) indicated that of the 41.2 percent of teachers who taught ELLs, only 12.5 per cent had had eight or more hours of training to do so in the last three years.
One of the authors, Kathleen Flynn, vividly remembers her early days as a substitute teacher in an urban school district, where she was frequently placed in a mainstream classroom that included many ELLs. As a novice teacher, she was still learning how to teach English-dominant students and had received no training in how to modify teaching strategies for ELLs. It was a lose-lose situation—a day in the classroom wasted for the ELLs, and a day of frustration for Kathleen. She did her best, but inevitably she would leave at the end of the school day knowing she had not been successful in reaching the ELLs.
We wrote these topics with Kathleen’s experience fresh in our minds, hoping that it will help you turn your lessons into win-win situations for both you and your ELL students. You and all of the students in your classroom deserve days filled with rich learning experiences where you, as the teacher, feel confident that you have modified and adapted your teaching strategies in ways that have allowed your students to experience success in the classroom and beyond.
