This year, I begin my 4th year as an 8th grade science teacher. Over the past 3 years I have learned so much about my community, my school, my students, my content, and teaching. In becoming a teacher I've made the conscious decision to be a life-long learner. I've made this decision to not only be that role model for my students, but mostly because I'm still interested in being my very best self. That being said, I'm currently taking an online class on how the ELL Brain learns. ELLs are English Language Learners and are a demographic that I'm very interested in further helping to be successful in my Science class. In order to do that there are a few areas Science Teachers in general need to identify and understand; The different challenges, the different language issues, the sociocultural issues, and finally the pedagogical issues that all come with teaching English language learners.
Challenges
I believe there are many challenges, when it comes to teaching science to any student, but one definitely stands out: Science has developed its own specialized vocabulary. In fact many people refer to it as learning a new language. This 'strange' vocabulary has been developed, mostly based on Latin and Greek words) so that scientists all over the world are able to better communicate. As I've discovered, this is GREAT for those students with native languages that are considered romance languages, as there are many similarities. Comparing Spanish and English, there are many cognates, or words that look and sound similar and that also have similar meanings. For students who have been introduced to these words in their native language, will gain more meaning from those activities, and the individuals who haven't, will not only be adding to their English vocabulary, but also their native language vocabulary. It will be my job to help identify those similarities so that students can begin to make the needed connections.
Language
With there being such a focus on learning the vocabulary associated with science, and the fact that ELLs are often required to pass a state science exam in order to receive a high school diploma, it is my job to help them gain this knowledge. The best approach to helping ELLs be successful in this endeavor is have them get out of their seats and DO science. This means engage them in different inquiry based labs (where they're given a question that they have to answer by the end of the lab), or activities that allow the students to put visuals, pictures, or experiences with the new 'unusual' words. There's a sheltered instruction activity called Observation Carousel, where students are getting out of their seats and visiting the different pictures around the classroom. As they rotate, students are writing what they know about the pictures; words or phrases. I see this being a great memory recall activity or even a pre-assessment to see what students already know on a topic. Either way, students are engaging with the content and practicing with the language. This last piece is key. Practice with words, especially the newly learned academic vocabulary is essential so that they can further develop their vocabulary, be able to speak about science, and accurately conceptualize the science they are being taught.
Socio-Cultural
Teachers need to design their instruction with an awareness of students' cultural backgrounds. Make meaningful connections to the knowledge, perspectives, and behaviors that English learners bring to their classroom. This first requires teachers to make relationships with their students, to get to know them, their strengths and weaknesses, their interests, and their individual cultures. From there, teachers should provide varying perspectives of the content being taught. As a science teacher, yes my content is based in fact, but how that fact affects individuals from other countries is/can be very interesting. Take the topic of climate change or global warming. This phenomenon affects people very differently all over the world, and to provide that insight to my students is important, especially if the ELLs in my classroom have a direct connection or experience.
Pedagogical
Make lessons exciting, relevant, and inquiry based so to ignite the curiosity in students. One of my goals for my students is to get them talking about science. Understandably, this is a difficult task for all students, not just my ELLs. In short, supports need to be available in order to help them be able do this. This year, I am interested in implementing a few different discourse supports for my students. The greatest support will be posting different sentence stems around my classroom so that students have a starting point to build from when they agree, disagree, want to site evidence, etc. I imagine this would be a bit of a process, so to start small with just a few agree and disagree options at first. Additionally, I will need to allow time throughout my units to let them practice by having them participate in class discussions.
