Bilingual Education Case Study

ELL students need to feel connected and understood in their classroom. Parents of these students need just as much support. ELL families may feel unsure about getting involved with their child’s learning because of their lack of English skills, lack of common American culture, and lack of knowledge of the American school system (WETA, 2015). Their child’s classroom teacher, principal, and school district can make these feelings of inadequacy less for all ELL families. With a few extra steps, ELL families can feel like they are involved and understand what’s going on in their child’s schooling system and feel welcome in their community. It is extremely important that a school, first, learn about their ELL population. Each child is going to be different and that means their needs will be different. A short description of a child’s ethnic and cultural background as well as situations they may have come from can be very useful to know. A school’s bilingual educators or resources in the community should be able to help with the knowledge you will need to make sure their classroom teacher and school know how to address that child’s specific needs (AdLit, 2015). One of the big barriers when working with ELL parents is language. There are some ways to combat this issue. A teacher needs to do his/her best to find a bilingual
One example would be free English classes. The classes could even cater to a parent being able to help their child in school. Depending on a parent’s English speaking ability, they could come into their child’s classroom one day and give a lesson on their native culture including music, decorations, food, and random items/trinkets. That would help the student feel as though his/her classmates understand more of where they come from and what is familiar to them. If the parent does not speak enough English, the classroom teacher can do this as well (WETA,