How to Engage ELL Student Families, Essay Example

Abstract

This paper contains an introduction that introduces the essence of engaging families in the progress of their children. A complete interview of a kindergarten teacher as she explains how they engage the parents of their ELL students in their academic progress is covered. Recommendations which are in line with the findings of the interview are equally discussed exhaustively.

Introduction

In many schools all over the world, English is majorly learnt as a second language. Different countries all over the world have since made this language a compulsory requirement to ensure sufficient competence. In the respective schools, parents need to be informed of the academic progress of their children in each grade of their studies. Involving the families has, therefore, been so salient though very hectic. The idea of involving these families has been proven to improve the general understanding and, therefore, the performance of these students. Owing to this, several schools have adapted the idea of involving families in different ways of the studies (Larsen, 2000). To a greater extent, this move has registered a positive result toward ensuring adorable success from the students. Involving families in the academic progress of their children is dependent on the relationship between the families and the school, more specifically, class teachers. The methods that the teachers use in involving the families are equally dependent on the academic capability of their child. Excellent students require very minimal attention; thus, reducing the need for their families to meet their teachers. On the contrary, averagely performing students would be explicitly the center of attraction in every meeting held between the parents and their families. This is majorly to improve the overall performance of the students; hence improve performance.

Using both the languages in teaching for translation

From the interview conducted in a school on a kindergarten teacher, with five years’ experience in teaching, different ways have been employed to engage families in the academic progress of their children. In a class of 10, four are African Americans, four are American, and the other two Latin Americans, and communication between the three groups of children has been the hardest thing since one of them speaks only Spanish. The school has several writings all over. Most of these are simple word translation from other words to English. Several teachers with different cultural background are part of the administration. The school has a welcoming environment starting with decorations from the gate. The environment shows some signs of sufficient preparation for learning. Being that the school is owned by an Indian, the need to teach English language has rapidly risen. From her response, it takes a lot to teach English as a first language. Some extra work is needed to ensure that the students fully understand the language. Here, the teacher is coerced to understand both the language of the student and English that should be taught to the student. After a series of explanation, the teacher is supposed to translate the language further into the one understood by the student. Because of the level of education, most of the students are occasionally picked from the school by their families. This is the best means of instructing the family on how to assist their children in learning the language.

Giving out extra tutorials to the families for private tuition

The student that only speaks Spanish is given extra assignment with both English and Spanish to help in building his vocabulary. This seeks to keep the student at a closer level with others and increase his competence. The teacher translates each word of the given assignment for reference. She must explain the words in both English and Spanish for the student to understand. The interaction between the students is equally not easy because of the language barrier between them. This requires that she gives extra tutorials to the student with different culture. For her to ensure that the communication is enhanced, extra work must be given to get all the students to the same level. (Wolfe & Jones, 1982). This is the major challenge of such a system. Providing necessary support like producing books in both the languages could hasten the understanding pace. From the findings, the teacher involves families frequently. She uses the current academic progress to help in setting future goals for the students. This ensures that every family gets involved in their children’s academic progress. Most of the work given to these children is monitored by the parents themselves. A parent is the first person to develop an interest in getting involved in a child’s success. The teacher further explains to the parents what they need to do so as to complacently assist their kids at home. The increased interaction between families and their children in matters that concern their academic progress increases the interest of the child in learning. The parents are given the relevant resources that guide them through the process of coaching their own children. Once the goals are explained to them, the families work quite hard to help their children achieve them. They play a major role in ensuring their children’s success.

Developing a personal friendship with the families as a form of motivation

Involving the families of a child requires that some of their needs are met. To meet these needs, a very close relationship between the parents and the teachers are necessary. Giving a close attention to each of the demands as to how to bring an effective change on their children’s academic performance is quite necessary. From the interview, the teacher took most of her time listening to parents. She gave them a closer attention, increasing the relationship between them and these parents, hence the children. She invited the parents to get involved in every aspect of the child’s development stage. This is independent of whether they are interested or not. As she implies, some of the parents are not so keen on their children’s academic progress. They simply bring them to school in the morning and take them back in the evening. Such parents must be forced to get involved in their children’s academic progress.

Involving families in identifying the strengths and the weaknesses of the students

Families are required to fill in some questionnaires on the academic history of their children. Some are interviewed informally when they bring or pick their children from school. Here, the successive performance is linked with the questionnaires and a conclusion is drawn. According to the teacher, her experience is her asset. The capability of a child is first detected by the parents. They easily notice the capability from the reactions of the child from childhood. Owing to the fact that many cultures are involved, lots of diversity must be taken into consideration. Parents must be involved to assist teachers in handling the cultures resulting from religion. This helps in taking care of religion and balancing academics alongside. Most of the ELL students learn with vigor once their parents show positive interest in their learning.

Developing a close relationship between the students and their families

Lastly, ELL families keep an open communication between them and their children teachers. In most cases, the students are assisted in understanding English through a translator. Some of the parents equally have a major problem in efficient communication. This has, therefore, called for a third individual to help in the communication. In the school that the interview was conducted, the owner of the school is an Indian. In most cases, he does some of the translation for both the parents and students. In most cases, for the included party, a parent or a close family member is recommended for appreciation of both the cultures.

Recommendations

The classroom should be quite diverse to allow for accommodation of every culture. It is a bit hectic to overload a particular culture with a system with which they are quite uncomfortable. Creating a diverse classroom would mean that all the other cultures are accommodated comfortably. In the school that the interview was conducted, the diversity of the classroom was not satisfactory. Any other culture would find it hard to learn English since only Indian and Spain languages are considered. Other diverse languages like French or German would not easily cope. This would coerce the parents to have a different picture about the institution hence lose faith in them. The diversity can be improved by ensuring several other teachers taking care of the institution at the early stages of teach (Richards & Rodgers, 2001).

The curriculum used should take care of every culture. For English learners, curriculum is either biased towards Britain or America. A little alteration on the curriculum to embrace other cultures comfortably would serve the globe better. Compulsory learning of the language for the current competence requires that each culture should be left to set their relevant curriculum as long as it is in harmony with the global standard system (James, 1969). On this, different cultures would easily find it interesting to learn English. The fact that their diversity is appreciated would ignite the morale in them to admire the language.

The classroom should be quite inclusive to ensure that a complete interaction between the students is seen. In many occasions, two students with similar cultures that are different from the others would naturally keep to themselves. A student with a unique culture would keep in solitude. The remaining students with similar cultures would form a different group. In such a situation, helping such students would be cumbersome (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). The different cultures would still be advertised in an institution that teaches the second language; English. Coming up with an inclusive classroom where everybody participates and all the students viewed as a family would be recommended.

Creating an open communication with the students and their parents would be quite salient. A friendly environment should be created between the parents, students and schools. The urge to let the parents free in an institution increases the interaction between the parents and teachers. A strong relationship between the parents and teachers improves the rate at which students and teachers relate. A more personal friendship would be recommended. The communication between the teachers and students should also be very frequent regardless of the academic capability of the students. In a normal environment, students usually work quite hard not to fail the teachers who have trust in them. A continuous communication would make the ELL students learn more from the vocabularies used by their teachers. This improves their vocabulary capacity hence advanced teaching (Asher, 1996).

Lastly, according to Marsh (2001), showing that the families’ native languages are appreciated would start a strong positive feeling towards learning other languages. Once parents realize that their native language is appreciated, including struggling to know some bit of it as a teacher, interest would be developed in learning English. Respecting the parents’ wishes for their children will make them have the impression that the teachers have their children’s interest at heart. Encouraging parents to use their native languages in telling their children stories before they go to bed would improve their urge to read. Providing them with bilingual books written in both their native languages and translated in English would best serve this purpose.

References

Asher, J. (1996). Learning another language through actions (5th ed.). Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.

James, J. A., (1969).The total physical response approach to second language learning. The Modern Language Journal, 53(1), 3-17.

Larsen, F., D. (2000).Techniques and principles in language teaching (2nd ed.).Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Marsh, V., (2001).Total physical response storytelling: a communicative approach to language learning. Chandler, AZ: TPRS Publications Inc.

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S., (2001).Approaches and methods in language teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wolfe, D.E. & Jones, G. (1982).Integrating total physical response strategy in a level I Spanish class foreign language annals. Foreign Language Annals, 15(4), 273-280.