Chapter 3

On March 30th a few people met at St. Luke's to discuss the various principles of Chapter 3.

Thank you to Mary Ann for hosting this event.  It is such a good meeting place!

What follows are some questions that came out of the discussion.

Enjoy - see you on May 12th!

Reflective Practice for Teachers of ELLs

Empathy

v  Am I incorporating a social justice perspective in my work?

v  Have I tried to build a positive relationship with my students?

v  Have I tried to understand family culture, background, trauma and interests?

v  Have I taken steps to incorporate the cultures of all my students?

v  Have I looked at each child as a reflection of God’s love and creation?

v  Have I made my classroom a safe, comfortable and productive learning space for all?

v  Am I an ally and advocate for our students and their families?

v  Have I tried to learn about our students from the perspective of their own community?

v  Have I been explicit about our classroom discourse community’s implicit learning norms?

v  Have I monitored social and academic disempowerment closely and counteract the disempowerment dynamic?

Knowledge

v  Have I understood family bkgd, educational history, trauma, learning style?

v  Have I clarified the content and language goals of the lesson for the students?

v  Have I helped the student acquire school-matched quality learning (task) skills, personal narrative style, formal register and planning speech?

v  Have I focused my attention on acquisition theory, using appropriate zones of proximal development?

v  Do I look for the cause of student difficulty in myself, my language use, my classroom culture, my curriculum, my methodology?

v  Have I provided daily time for students to reflect on their learning before, during & after?

v  Have I provided clarity, suggestions and support to the teachers I work with?

Skills

v  Have I accounted for my use of instructional language?

v  Have I accounted for cultural mismatch in learning tasks?

v  Have I planned and prepared to scaffold the academic content?

v  Have I been helping students develop stronger tier 2 & 3 vocabulary?

v  Do I provide problem-solving and contextual language practice each day?