We Assure Harmony for English Learners When We All Play Our Parts in the Symphony
by Sarah Said
In a symphony each instrument is key to the sound of the harmony. If one instrument or section of the symphony fails, the whole piece falls apart. Could you imagine what would happen in the orchestra if the cello player didn’t play because that wasn’t his song? What if he felt like the song belonged to someone else? It could ruin the whole strings section and people who paid for tickets to the concert would be outraged. How terrible!
How does this analogy relate to teaching English Learners? Years ago, I was a high school teacher of English Learners and taught language arts. The students I taught were called “Sarah’s kids.” Even I made the mistake as a teacher and referred them as “my kids”. In way, yes they were “my kids”, I called all students in my classes “my kids”. However, I played into the culture that they were only my kids. With the increase of English Learners in the United States, we need to really need to rethink the culture in which we engage each other as teachers when considering services for English Learners. Some schools have had the dichotomy of the person with the special endorsement for teaching English Learners who is hired to service them will do EVERYTHING with them. Just as I would call them “my kids”, they called me “my teacher”. Even to the students, I was their only teacher.
It’s now time to think about programming on a larger scale that can really provide a stronger impact on the achievement of English Learners. If we don’t, not only are we not collaborating with each other, we are harming the education of students by simply not working together. In other words, let’s get some harmony happening in this symphony or we will empty the orchestra! (Read more about the power of using “our kids” from another EL specialist.)
As an English Learning Language Arts teacher, I have done everything from teach students reading skills in English to staying after school in order to help a student understand “The Rules of The Road” for Driver’s Education. In the morning, during the school day, the student could be found in class engaged with their phone and not being accommodated with modified materials from their Driver’s Education teacher. The Driver’s Education teacher believed that I had some super powers to make sure that students had the ability to pass their written test for their driver’s permits. Sometimes I do like to think of myself as Wonder Woman, but really I just broke down material for them in a way that was linguistically appropriate for them to understand content.
The issue here was not that the content teachers did not want to serve the English Learners, nor was it because I didn’t want to collaborate with my peers- we needed a shared vision for serving English Learners as a school. We needed to understand the our English Learners are an asset to our school community and our students needed better ways to grow linguistically, culturally and academically. Not only did we need a shared vision, we need to use that vision to restructure our program.
A vision cannot be developed by just one or two individuals, it needs to be something that a team of teachers, staff members and administrators creates together and embraces. Sounds simple right? Create a team and move forward. It’s not all bunnies and rainbows. Leading a team is hard! There is collaboration and communication, but there is also conflict and at times drama. We’re all trying to meet the same goal: supporting students. However, we are all trying to reach it from different angles because we all view education from different lenses.
Why are Teams so Important for Equitable Schools for English Learners?
In the case of English Learners, teams help teachers really work together to share information about students and practices. This is important in equalizing the playing field for English Learners. Practices such a building “data days” or “professional learning communities” help build conversation that needs to happen between multiple teachers and specialists to engage students success. The team really needs to have a purpose for their meetings. People need to know the end result they are working towards. In our case, it may be restructuring a school or program for English Learners. It is a waste of time and resources if the team is meeting without a purpose.
In order to bring change and transformation to a school, you need a group of passionate individuals, not one or two people who want to try something new. The purpose should have buy in from team members. You are not going to change your school in a day or even in a year. Change needs consistency, habit and shared responsibility and ownership.
Remember, you are having these meetings so that as a team you are supporting students in the way they need it. This is important to always keep in mind, especially when you team does end up in conflict. Going back to what you value about education and why you are in this field will help keep you and everyone around you grounded.
First Step: Establishing a Vision for How Teams View the Future For English Learners
Change cannot happen without a clear vision from a team. The vision needs to have input from the entire team. Before establishing the vision of the team, the team really needs to think about the values, beliefs, and assumptions of the team members. Sometimes teams create visions that they don’t all believe in later because there was not really a discussion about the meanings. The staff has to understand what the vision means in order to internalize it and then commit to it.
When thinking about English Learners, the team needs to pick apart ideas and misconceptions they have about who English Learners are and the way they learn. This will not happen in one meeting, you will need to have this discourse over time.
Here are some questions to ask you team:
Who are our English Learners? Where do they come from?
What languages to our learners speak?
What do we know about the culture of our students? How are we currently responsive to their cultures?
What are the past education experiences of our English Learners prior to coming to our school?
What are the needs of English Learners?
What are the needs of their families?
What is our understanding of: equity, growth,and learning for all?
You can have team members speak of their answers and even draw them out. You could even create case studies of categories of students in your program--Newcomers, long-term ELs, specific language backgrounds. These can be fictional case studies based on real ones in your school or district. When you see the answers of your team members you may be surprised of the views? (Commins, Miramontes & Nadeau, 1997)
Unfortunately, there can be members of a team who do not view our English Learners with an asset based approach. This leads to poor decision making on a large scale and small scale that really does not allow students to reach their highest potential. Yes, there may be issues. There is some risk taking involved in having these discussions. “An open and nonthreatening discussion of these issues can often allow people to see their own beliefs in a different light, and to test them against those of others. (Commins, Miramontes & Nadeau 1997) These discussions take time, but in the long run it will really help a team move forward in their approach is serving English Learners.
Stay Focused on The Vision and Goals
When it comes to working with teams of teachers and administrators for supporting English Learners, we want to do so much that we become over zealous and have too many ideas within our team. It is important to stay focused on the vision and remind your team of what it agreed to work towards. Easier said than done. We become so entrenched in our ideas that get side tracked so easily. Having an agreed list of norms and someone on the team who will guide the team if they become sidetracked is key when working towards goals.
One recommendation to keep teams more focused is collectively creating a one page “target” in that is short and straight to the point. It should not be more than one page. The target helps teams stay focused on their commitments to the school and their students. In his book Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction, author Jim Knight explains how to write a target that is clear for everyone involved in a child’s education to understand what is needed for the child to move forward in their education. The target describes the actions of the teacher as well as the student that the school or department aims to see in the classroom.
Example of a fictional school’s target
Instructional Improvement Target for Supporting English Learners
T= Teacher S= Student
Community Building:
(T) Finds ways to engage students in instruction through providing a culturally responsive classroom environment where students are comfortable.
(T) Posts expectations that realistic for students to follow.
(T) Has a growth mindset and believes all students can learn.
(S) Engage in activities teacher provides to build classroom community and trust.
(S) Are on task at least 90 percent or more of the time.
(S) Has a growth mindset and believes all tasks can be accomplished.
Content Planning
(T) Writes content and language objectives and communicates them to students.
(T) Has created a clear plan for learning that has been shared with the students
(T) All teachers engaged in learning are collaborating and communicating for student success.
(S) Can paraphrase and engage with content and learning objectives.
(S) Can describe the plan for learning.
Instruction
(T) Uses comprehensible input to communicate with students.
(T) Gives students opportunities to use language and learn content in the classroom through interaction in the classroom.
(T) Uses teaching strategies that are effective for the different types of students in the classroom.
(S) Works with teacher to try to understand teacher speech and communicates when they are having difficulty comprehending the teacher.
(S) Participates in classroom interaction activities to practice language usage and content knowledge.
(S) Uses learning strategies in order to comprehend content.
Assessment for Learning
(T) Uses a variety of informal assessment methods to assess language growth and content understanding.
(T) Knows students’ progress in language growth and content understanding.
(S) Understands learning and content objectives.
(S)Understands their own progress in language growth and content knowledge.
(Adapted from Knight, 2011)
This target created by the team supports emphasis of the “why” for teams as they have discussions about moving forward and implementing their shared vision.
Know the Challenge of Leading
Leading a team is exhausting. There are days where you will feel like your symphony sounds like a train wreck because you just cannot get each instrument to properly play its part. It will take practice and fine tuning. This is when you really need to reflect on yourself and the work you are doing with your team. Think of it this way, the stress you face now will help you grow a better program for students who need it the most. You can’t make these changes alone. The team will be able to work together to solve issues in your school.
You can transform a culture in a school with a strong team that has explored their values to develop a shared vision. You just need to keep them focused and help them remember why they are involved in this change in the first place. Then, you can make great music!
To Further Your Learning
from Edutopia How Teacher Teams Can Transform Schools
Seven Steps to Separating Difference from Disability by Catherine Collier
Citations
Knight, J. (2011) Unmistakable Impact:A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.
Commins, N., Miramontes, O., & Nadeau, A. (1997) Restructuring Schools for Linguistic Diversity : Linking Decision Making to Effective Programs. New York, New York: Teachers College Press