This year, at the MS,  my assignment is a little different than in years past.  On 'B' days (every other day) I go into a teacher's class and observe so that I can then assist with creating classroom modifications to help students better acquire the content being taught.  This helps the teacher help my students but the teacher can also use these techniques with other students who might need help.

In the past I've given advice on what can be done....give fewer words as vocabulary, minimize work, allow extended time, etc.  They are all sound strategies but given each teacher has a different method of teaching, it's hard for me to help more than handing them a list.  Now I am able to give very specific ideas.  

The teacher is a Language Arts teacher.  He starts each morning with word building work.  Learning prefixes, suffixes and root words.  My students have limited vocabulary so I expect them to learn the meanings but not to be able to generate words from these items.  They will also not be able to participate in the fill-in-the-blank sheets applying the learned word parts with words and making it fit.    They can participate but this shouldn't be counted against them.  

Next the class works on grammar and sentence diagraming.  Again, my students lack the basic vocabulary so identifying parts of speech in a sentence is problematic.  I expect them to learn what a subject, predicate,  verb, noun, adjective, adverb, article, conjunction are.  They can do basic diagramming and follow along as the class does the more advanced parts of speech.  Also, since copying the sentences takes so long, because the students doesn't know the basics to copy quickly, I ask them to do the first 2 or 3 to prove basic understanding.

We are working on getting reading assignments completed.  Reading logs and journals are ok since they are allowed to pick a book at their level and attempt to complete journal entries.  However textbook readings are problematic.  Antiquated English is antiquated English whether read to one's self or read aloud by a teacher.  It takes too long to explain each sentence of a story.  Therefore chunks of classwork are missing.  Certain standards are missed. 

This is where the ESL teacher needs to realize what the student will be missing in class and build lessons around that.  Without the cumbersome language.  Never an easy job.  We also have to do this in Math, Science, Social Studies, Technology classes and all the 'enrichment' classes.  An ESL class is usually about 45 minutes long.  In Elementary schools of large numbers, the students might be lucky to go to ESL every day.  Many rural schools have 'pull-out' classes 1-3 times per week.  We have a huge task.  I am fortunate enough to see my students every day.  It's still not enough.

Helping new-comer students is daunting, especially in HS.  We are supposed to teach the ESL curriculum but....the students get nothing out of class...teachers ask for help, some want me to teach their curriculum.  I try to do what is best for the student.  Thank God language acquisition is pretty much, inate and a survival need.  They will get the basics on their own and I try to focus on the academic.

1/25/13
Yesterday the same group of students had another science sheet to work on.  They decided they could work on it without me.  They asked some of the other students, who understood more English to help and once in a while, asked me for help, but they were working autonomously.  That made me happy, to know that they felt they could take it on their own, with some support.

Modifications:
Using notes,
peer help,
teacher help,
bilingual dictionaries,
partner/team work.

Working with my Middle School New Comers is a whole different world however.  They are just learning, in 7th  grade, to spread their wings and do things for themselves.  They do not have the self confidence or higher level thinking skills to take what they know (prior knowledge) and apply it to what they see.  Quite often they don't see the obvious things and have to be lead or reminded.  This is developmental.  So I have to teach them the English and the critical thinking to be able to help themselves.   By 8th grade there is some kind of emotional and mental growth spurt and they are beginning to use the thinking skills and be more autonomous.

Last night my Juntos (Together) 4 H club hosted the first of 5 workshops designed to educate families on how the educational system works, how to help the student have success in school and go on to higher education.  The families that came were all Hispanic - mostly club member families.  It was interesting to see them work on projects in mixed groups of mothers, fathers, students and some grandparents.  It seemed that In one project they had to create a bridge with very limited materials.  Creativity was needed.  It seems the women did most of the work.  Granted there were more mothers in attendance than fathers, but it makes me wonder. Maybe the dads were just tired. Maybe they don't seem much stock in creative thinking?  If it's not practical it is not important?

Part of the reason I say that is because of a speaker I heard once, whose topic was living in poverty.  My family had lived in poverty at a jobless time,  without really realizing it and much of what the speaker said hit home for myself and my husband.  It showed us too, that God had us experience poverty so that we could see what our students might be living through.  Many teachers have never lived in poverty so they have NO CLUE.

This speaker talked about how the average words spoken to a child of poverty (or of uneducated parents) per day is so much lower than that of a professional.  [http://centerforeducation.rice.edu/slc/LS/30MillionWordGap.html]  I feel that critical thinking skills go along with that.  The parents don't use the words, have the skills and are too tired.  It's just not important.

In my family word games and thinking creatively are pastimes for us.  We try to out pun each other and we try to create with what we've got.  I save things for repurposing in my classroom.  Therefore I have to teach my students the skill of repurposing too.