They don't speak English and I don't speak Madarin Chinese....

This past summer I had a very interesting eye-opening experience. First, I vowed I wouldn't teach summer school. I did. Second, I vowed I would chose a school where I knew the numbers would be low. I chose the right building, but the students I had, didn't go there, so my numbers were larger than expected. Thirdly, the students I did have, 1/2 of them didn't speak English....so there goes my "I'm choosing this building so that I can have an easy-going summer" theory.

This past summer I taught a 4th grade, self-contained class in South Philadelphia. It was a very enlightening and eye-opening experience for me and I truly believe that I am a stronger educator as a result. Of the 20 students in my class, nearly half did not speak proficient English.  I only found that out once I finished giving my "first day of class, you best know that I am here to teach and not babysit" speech. One of the chinese students told me that there were a group of students who didn't speak English. Uh oh!

For the next four weeks, I would be trying different teaching strategies including small group work, writing and talking at the same time, over use of my hands while talking, demonstrating what I wanted to happen next, etc. etc. etc.

Prior to this, I very little experience working with students whose first language was not English. In those prior cases one spoke French with an African-tribal accent. I spoke French too, so we did just fine. In another case, one student was bilingual Spanish/English and communicated in English very well. But never did I have a whole group of students in one class who were not proficient in the language.

I owe a great deal of gratitude to the ESOL teacher that worked in the building with us this summer who pulled out the students during the literacy block.  She was consistent with the pull out group and every now and again would stop in during the Math block to check up on me and them. That's what I call team work!

But I can truly say, I've grown as a teacher as a result of that experience. Once I knew what the summer would be like I started educating myself. I began reading "Getting Started with English Language Learners" by Judie Haynes. I definitely kept an open mind and learned from them how I can best communicate with them. Once I learned how to communicate with them, the challenge was to then provide them the necessary academic/remedial support; the reason for which they were in summer school from the start.

During the course of the summer, it was pleasing to see my native-English speaker getting the hang of communicating with our English Language Learners. They would assist me in communicating our next tasks.
It is important to note we had our challenges, the teasing, the taunting, the laughing. Allow me to also point out that children are children no matter what the language or culture and don't think for one minute that our non-English speakers didn't understand what was going on and didn't come back with taunts of their own AND VICE VERCA!!

Stay open-minded. Variety is the spice of life and it's what makes this country to "magical" at times....the differences in cultures and tradtions! Many of our schools in Philadelphia that do well academically are those who student populations are greatly diversed. Check it out for yourself!