Strengths Of Bilingual Students

To my question asking what the bilingual students’ strengths are, Melissa answered that she appreciates the diversity that her “ELLs(English language learners)” bring into the classroom including different experiences in their home countries and different background knowledge as the strengths that the students have. She said that the ELL’s mainstream English-speaking peers are very curious on their ELL peers and love to hear about their countries and why they are here. On the other hand, what Melissa perceived as their major challenges is that the students initially come into the school with little or no English proficiency. She feels like the students have a very difficult time in communicating what they need and what they want. She spoke,
“A lot of them are like- being able to look around and see what their classmates are doing and being able to figure things out without being told”, Nicole said. I asked Nicole what their challenges are “besides their language challenges” are this time and she responded, “How to make friends with their peer and reading social cues”. She added, “ Like if they act out and their classmates think it’s funny, so they keep doing it even though it’s not appropriate. It’s easier in the younger grades because they don’t have to talk to play with blocks or other toys but in the higher grades, it’s kind of hard because their interaction involves more
Her goal in every ESL pull-out session is to get her ELLs to talk in English as much as possible instead of focusing too much on the reading and writing. Sendak elementary school defines their language goal for bilingual students by intactly adopting the district language goal of English skill development. The TESOL program description which was written by the district provides specifies that the primary focus of the program is on the development of English skills in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It also adds that the TESOL program they provide for ELLs is the most realistic for the district because of their diverse population within English language learner