Building Competence and Confidence

Part of the challenge to support English language acquisition for ELLs is the complexity of culture within which teaching and learning take place. As a culturally responsive educator, I'm aware that the culture of the classroom both informs and shapes my pedagogical decision-making, and therefore what I do ultimately reflects the assumptions, biases, and values I hold as an educator. For this portfolio posting, I am exploring two key artifacts that have brought further insight into the relationships between building communicative competence for ELLs and the teaching orientations, assumptions, and values that are held in me as a pedagogue and mainstream classroom educator.

ELLs bring to the classroom multiple social identities (e.g., biculturalism, multilingualism, immigrant status, and so on) and these students necessitate educators to seek out ways to give life to equity strategies and policies embedded within ministerial policy, programs, and services. The Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (2013) monograph offers research-based evidence that aims to deepen understanding of teaching practices that engage student populations with a full range of differences in learning background, strengths, needs and interests. Firstly, the monograph calls attention to the concept of culture. Culture is embedded within the students' multiple social realities, where values, beliefs, practices, and identifications inform and shape ways of knowing and being in the world. In this sense, culture encompasses broad notions of similarity and difference among, within, and between students' everyday lives (Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, 2013, p. 1). But culture also refers to the capacity of a particular set of dispositions and skills – a mindset that enables educators, students, and families to work creatively and effectively to support all learners in diverse settings. With my mindset as a culturally responsive educator, I deeply value home and school partnerships that take place between teachers and families. I look for ways to understand students’ experiences, such as through familial dialogue (e.g., correspondence in student agendas, newsletters, and phone calls), multiple assessments (e.g., anticipation guides, cloze exercises, journaling), and student clubs and school associations (e.g., chess club, dance club, spelling bees). These contexts provide me with the opportunity to represent students' knowledge in the curriculum, so it is meaningful and students see themselves reflected in the learning that takes place in the classroom(Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, 2013, p. 5). Through teaching and learning with ELLs, there occurs a cultural exchange and the resulting cosmopolitanism exhibits an intersection of cultural values, beliefs, and identifications being shaped and re-shaped throughout the course of instruction.

While ELLs exhibit their learning strengths when faced with multiple assessments in the classroom, teachers can further customize the data collection process through consideration of ELL students' preferred learning styles. Language learning can take place in contexts where emphasis is placed primarily on auditory, kinesthetic, or visual functions. In these contexts, ELLs may find that assessments have greater ability to exhibit their strengths while also building communicative competence in English language usage. How to Teach English For Different Learning Styles (2018) is a website designed to provide teachers with practical tools and lesson activities that can support the development of second language acquisition among ELLs. For auditory learners, ELLs may benefit from exposure to recitation, listening, and story-building games. For visual learners, ELLs may exhibit their strengths through participation in board, picture, and reading games. For kinesthetic learners, ELLs may find touch, spatial, and craft games invigorating and developmentally appropriate. When teachers build upon the strengths of students through their preferred modality of learning there is an opportunity to observe and recognize the talents, gifts, and promise that comes with learning English as an additional language. Students are no longer viewed as being at risk, but become identified as being at promise for further academic prowess and emotional strength. This insight reminds me of the following video, where discussion takes place on the unique qualities ELLs bring to the school community.