ELL Student Report

Growing up in a Spanish speaking household, I was an ELL student when I was in elementary school. My mom only speaks Spanish, and my dad speaks both English and Spanish, but his fluency in English came many years later. My first language was Spanish, but I learned English soon after I learned Spanish. As a result, I clearly remember having to take the CELDT test, which is a test that is given to any student who do not speak English at home, and is used to measure the students proficiency in English. Science is a unique subject in and of itself, because the real challenge arises when science teachers aim to my make the science content comprehensible. Although science content can be translated, that is where the issue lies, because the teacher

The teacher is the source of energy in the classroom, and the students feed off of that energy. An educator can have all of the adequate materials, strategies, and tools, yet if the teacher creates a place in which their students do not feel safe, engaged, and understood, than the problem lies with the teacher and not the students. There was an interesting article that I read, in which it suggested the resource of literacy bags to increase the rate of learning and understanding of science among ELL students. Literacy bags help meet the linguistic needs of (Martin, Daughenbaugh, Shaw, & Burch, 2013). This semester, I actually had the opportunity to create my very first literacy bag in my Children’s Literature course, and it was the such an insightful and fun activity! I witnessed how literacy backpacks go beyond the classroom and actually serve more functions, including the promoting of family bonding. Typically, a literacy bag should include a theme, a few activities related to the subject one is teaching or wanting to teach, a prop or plush animal to match the theme, either a few fiction or non-fiction books, supplies to complete the activities, instructions, and in this case some sort of audio accompaniment for the ELL student and their family. Susan Ferguson Martin et al. (2013) mentioned that, “The objective of this activity is to increase the enjoyment of reading science for young children and/or ELLs as well as teaching the correct science concepts that fiction books or videos often portray incorrectly by giving inanimate objects characteristics of life” (pg. 25). After all, so long as the science teacher does their best to encourage and do as much as possible to make science content accessible to all students, in particular English language learners, then they have done an amazing job at giving the ELL students an equitable, well rounded science