The emergent bilingual student I have chosen as my focal student has become one of my favorite students in my class. As I have gotten to know him more, I have figured out ways to modify my teaching that directly benefits him, but also benefits the rest of my class seeing as 21 out of the 24 students either are currently English Language Learners or are reclassified. This focal student also happens to have an IEP, in which I have to modify the lessons for him in different ways other than just for language. The way I modify lessons to reach this student is by including realia to get his attention and make sure he is interested. He may not understand every word used in conversation, but he is able to see my examples and know what I am trying to say. I use this for all students as well, but I choose my examples carefully for this student to make sure he knows what my examples are already, and can make connections to his own life with them. This, along with making sure that any text I give my students is short, but full of important information, but in simple terms, has made this student more interested in the course as well as understanding what is going on in this chemistry class.
I make sure to talk with this student one on one every single class period in order to gauge where he is at with the content, as well as go over many examples and give visual representations whenever possible. He seems to have been reacting to this well over the few weeks I have been his teacher, and I will continue to gauge his success and understanding for the duration of my student teaching experience so that I can bring these modifications to my own classroom in the fall.
EDUC 416 Blog 
Wow that is a lot of english language learners! In my class of 30 I only have 2! I think it is awesome you use tangible items to help the student understand concepts. It sounds like the effort you make to personally connect with this student every class would be really beneficial to gauge where they are in the learning process. Also the shortened and simplified text is a must, words especially in languages other than your primary language can be very overwhelming. Nicole I think it is important that the modifications you implement are helping ALL of your students learn.
LikeLike
Hi, Nicole! Thanks for sharing your approaches to supporting EBs, specifically realia and the use of visual representation. These are two effective strategies! Realia can be very effective in building background knowledge through the use of artifacts, manipulatives, and even bringing into the classroom guest speakers/experts and/or taking field trips. The following article on realia from Teaching Tolerance may be a useful resource for learning more about this pedagogical strategy: https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/teaching-strategies/exploring-texts-through-read-alouds/realia. Although the article is geared toward lower grades, I think you will be able to see how similar supports can be used in the secondary classroom.
LikeLike