Moving is stressful. We can all agree to that. How about moving that involves an airplane? And perhaps a different country, with different language, cultural and social norms? Stressful? Absolutely! Take away the airplane and new country, moving to or in a place with a different language is intimidating. The common phrase that first impressions are the most important is a standard educators really ought to live by; classroom management, expectations, mood, community all come to mind. So should acceptance, language, culture. By welcoming new students, AND their families warmly into the school community we set a precedent of openness, communication and cohesion in hopes that we can help the student settle as quickly as possible and work towards L2 acquisition as quickly as possible. By creating a school wide checklist for managing newcomers, all staff are on board and aware of the proceedings and what part they play. From the newcomer assessment, to parent meetings, to regular class integration, smoothly and appropriately integrate our new student into their new community the foundational step to their learning. The language assessment also provides a base assessment for which we can set expectations, growth plans and trajectories and outline areas of strengths and weaknesses and further to evaluate progress and outline new trajectories and outcomes.
Welcome Kit
Welcome Kit
After reviewing various welcoming letters for new ELL’s, I went on an internet scavenger hunt to find
what other schools, boards and teachers do for their new families and found
this site. What I liked about this site
is that it was all encompassing, from the teacher, the school and the
community. It gave parents a lot of
information that would most certainly help in their transition into the school
community. Providing translation
services right away is also a takeaway such that families are met with ease and
can choose to communicate in either L1 or L2.
Oral Communication
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Reading
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Writing
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Listens and
responds for in a variety of situations and contexts
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Reads text
with minimal errors
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Able to plan
for a writing task by generating ideas and information
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Expresses
thoughts and ideas effectively using effective vocabulary and grammar
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Generally
understands the purpose of the text features and text forms to construct
meaning.
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Able to
utilise a variety of forms and features in writing
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Capable of
holding a conversation for a variety of purposes
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Able to read
and infer meaning of sentences, familiar and unfamiliar words and
vocabulary
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Incorporate a
variety of sentence structures in writing
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I have included this rubric
not so much for the rubric itself but for the importance of having a focus and
intent to assess new ELL’s into the school and your classroom such that
appropriate expectations and milestones can be met. Further their social needs can be met as well
which removes barriers to their learning. Ensuring that we have an appropriate
initial assessment is paramount to this; if students aren’t assess proprerly
and fairly, or at all, there will be no way to set appropriate standards and benchmarks
for the students, and without goal there can be no plan.
This reflection on creating
engaging content that includes students’ culture and identity and sets a
reminder and a frame of reference for us as educators to constantly be
exploring with our students, to find out more about them and what engages them
and then finding ways to include that into lessons in a meaningful way. Including culture in the individual readers,
in the classroom visuals etc. Allowing for multi-lingual books, reflections and
pieces will encourage students to engage in lessons and progress
accordingly.
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