Working with students learning English is a great kind of work for me. I enjoy people and like sharing my love of learning about the natural world and the world of language and song. My classroom is not a beautifully organized Pinterest space.
Since I graduated from college with a BA in Education in 1983, I have worked with people learning English. I started in a summer school and worked teaching Math to English language learning middle schoolers. They were the sons and daughters of Mexican migrant farm workers. I did not have any experience teaching, but I could communicate in Spanish about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. I feel like I blocked out the memory of how poorly I was prepared. I also blocked out any memories of classroom management failings. I do remember I taught the standard algorithm with very little concept development. It wasn't until ten years later, after a course in Visual Mathematics, that I understood the concept of two negatives make a positive. I memorized the statement as fact and taught it that way to that first group of kids.
Every year I learn from students what it is that I need to teach them. Now, a lot of what I need to teach them has had to be data-fied. I hear the first grade English Langauge Learner (ELL) say, "Him run to school". I understand her intent, so I know she isn't stuck in the Silent Period when she doesn't know enough English to say her own thoughts, and I know she needs to get some miles on her tongue saying, "He runs to school." I say, "Yes! He runs to school. Say it with me. He runs to school." The student repeats. If she is with other students that might need this practice I'll enlist the help of the others and make it more like a chant-on-the-fly. "He runs to school in the morning, he runs to school at night, he runs to school in the afternoon, he runs with all his might." Data-fying her original sentence means scoring it to begin finding out if the instruction is effective. Unfortunately, to see if instruction is effective it needs to be compared with the other first grade students learning that same lesson, hence a speaking task for all first grade ELL students at her level. I need a picture of the boy running to school. No, I need a whole series of pictures of different people running to different places. I will enlist help creating pictures. Other verbs riding, driving, skipping, walking, rolling, jumping, skating, skiing might make for some funny images. I see a series of art lessons culminating in a class made flip book.
