Your Students Have Assets, Not Deficiencies: Differentiating Instruction for English Learners based on Strengths and Interests

by Sarah Said

Being in the field as long as I have, I hear the constant chorus of “I just don’t know what to do to help this child.”  Here is the scenario: A child just came to the United States from Yemen.  He has moved around a lot because of the recent conflicts in the country.  He is a fourth grader, but he has missed two grades because of his mobility.  His school has thirty-five minute pull out services for all students.  During those thirty-five minutes, he will get reinforcement in Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing.  Throughout the rest of the day, he will be in a classroom with peers of his age and grade level who do not speak his home language.  What is a classroom teacher to do?

What I have described is not an unusual scene in schools across America.  Yes, there are schools that have the numbers of students to host Bilingual, Newcomer, and Dual Language programs.  Not every school or situation is the same.  Some schools have a system where classroom teachers are encouraged to get their English Learning endorsements and/or professional development in Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol.  Where others need more support in developing programming for English Learners and development for teachers.

With the population of English Learners increasing in the United States, there are districts that have really gone above and beyond with providing the right support systems for students.  In other places, English Learning is still the untouchable force that is too scary to tackle.  Have no fear, you can differentiate for your students without having to write twenty-eight or so lesson plans.  It’s all a matter of creativity, flexibility, and having accurate knowledge of your students.  It also takes a different mindset that understands growth and what Carol Dweck would call “the power of yet.” Your students have the skill sets needed to be successful, you just need to give them time to exhibit them. This is where we don’t just think about English Learner programming, we also think about the quality of instruction that will help our English Learners grow.

Get to Know Your Students

Test data gives us information about students and their performance.  How often do we seek information about students from students?  Yes, we group by test scores and some of our observations. This gives us a starting point. However, we can build even more on this, by learning more about our students. How can we find ways to get to know our students in the beginning of the year in order to guide our practices?  Many of us were trained to use a student or parent survey to get information about our students.  Sometimes that is helpful, but at times students and parents may not give us enough information in writing. Try to use visual forms of having students explain their strengths, interests, experiences, and identities.

Create an Infographic—Students can communicate skills, learning styles, and interests.

Using a tool like Canva, students can use a combination of words and pictures in order to explain their strengths to their teacher. Above is an infographic that a typical student would have made.  Infusing technology and allowing students to use visuals will engage students and also give them an opportunity to be more expressive about their strengths. You can make this open ended or have them refer to specific content skills and or learning styles.

Not only are you getting the information that you need to help guide your differentiation for that student, but you are also giving the student the opportunity to utilize technology and gain a skill. It may also increase their engagement in your classroom.  Canva is a very user friendly application that allows users to create professional graphics.

Assemble a Cultural Bag—Students can communicate experiences and cultural values.

Years ago, I was teaching eighth grade language arts.  About one-third of my classroom consisted of English Learners. I explained to my students that as readers we carry experiences.  We call this our “cultural bag”. These experiences help define how we understand a text. I asked students a series of questions about their lives. Where does your family come from?  What do you enjoy?  What are your hopes?  

Students then used realia and mixed media to create their "cultural bag" in order to explain who they were as a person and reader to me.  This project gave me a lot of information when thinking about text choice for different groups of students.  From there, I was able to form reading groups based on interest. Forming these groups gave students more motivation to want to read the texts that were recommended.

Student Created Trading Cards—Students can communicate skills and learning styles.

Being a mother of school aged children, Pokemon has been all the rage in my house for a while. On the Pokemon cards, there is an image of a character and a description of them.  I had learned about the idea of creating Student Created Trading Cards from an Instructional Coach in Champaign, Illinois named Kirstin Sowers. She had shared that she implemented with strategy with high school students and it was a success. I was so intrigued by it that I worked with our Middle School team to implement the strategy in their classroom.

Depending on the age of your students, you can have them create learning style and interest trading cards.  You can even play a game with them.  If you have access to technology, you can put the template on a google doc that has a table with 2 rows and 4 columns per page. Then you can accommodate for students even more by using sentence stems for each item and having students complete the card by filling in the blanks with their answers. On the other side of the card, the student take a “selfie” or bring an image of them that describes them as a learner and paste it into the card.

Your cards can look something like this:

Not only will students be able to communicate about their own needs in the classroom, but they can learn about the needs of their peers as well.  They can see that all learners in their classroom are different. They will also learn that everyone needs support and has strengths.  In addition to what they learn about their peers, the will also have opportunities for interaction and language practice as they trade and discuss the cards with their peers.

By the way, the adorable child in that picture belongs to me. Thumbs up!!! 

If you'd like to learn more about creating individual student plans, read Essential Elements for a Powerful Language Plan.

Create an Environment that Enables Differentiation For English Learners

You first need to understand that all learners are language learners.  Creating an environment that is language rich for everyone is key. This ranges from labeling items in the classroom to having word and concept walls that all students can interact with to allowing students a chance to be able to use language through interacting with other students .  Having a variety of texts pertaining to content that are readily available to students also will engage them more with language.

In addition to providing a language rich environment, grouping and seating arrangements are important for our English Learners. Really, this is important for all learners.  Yes, we talked data earlier.  Test data is important along with the anecdotal data you have on each student.  This is important when considering grouping and seating arrangements.  First of all, groups should never be set in stone.  Some teachers use a clock strategy so students work with a variety of classmates.  Others, use an A-B-C-D method for grouping students.

I used rainbow sticks to group students. They were literally these popsicle sticks that someone painted all colors of the rainbow.  I found them in an area book rescue facility that allows teachers to search for items and take them home. Yes, they were someone’s garbage. But, they were my treasure. Sometimes, I used the sticks to group by interest or ability without students knowing that I was doing it. Other times, I just randomly grouped kids with handing them different sticks and telling them to move into their groups.

The colors helped me with grouping but also seating. On my seating chart, the colors did match up with students language proficiency levels.  I tried to strategically think about how kids needed to be seated with someone that can be a language model.  At the same time, I didn’t want my arrangements to be too polarized. This was not something that I publicized in class.

Looking at the picture, I didn’t seat students in the traditional method of keeping English Learners alone together and keeping non-English Learners away from them.  It is great for English Learners to have companionship, but at the same time the need to be exposed to students who can model language for them. On the flip side, developing students have an opportunity to build confidence being the model for a student who is a newcomer. Being vigilant of who sat with who was a practice that I always observed to serve all students.

I didn’t want to group a student who is bridging (in a sheltered English Learning setting) or a student who is a non-English Learner (in a general education classroom) that had no language background of their English Learner peers with a newcomer who has just started school with us.  It would be difficult for both students to not only interact but also engage academically.  The students may become jaded or frustrated because of too much challenge or lack of it. From another lens, it would give students who were second or third year a great opportunity to spend time with a student who has a strong English proficiency background to expand on their language. Pairing them up with a non-English Learner or student who is Bridging into English proficiency would be helpful. Always keeping your arrangements flexible and changing it up throughout the year is good for students instructionally, socially, and emotionally.

Design Lessons that Allow for All Students to Engage and Grow Linguistically

In a general classroom of twenty-eight students, it is difficult and time-consuming to have individual lesson plans for all students.  It is also not acceptable to allow for remediation all the time for English Learners.  These students need support in language.  This doesn’t mean that teachers should water down content.  It just means that they need to think about “how” to speak in the classroom and what they would need to write down on the board or how to word a handout they are giving students.

Creating Content and Language Objectives

Writing content and language objectives that are clear for students is vital. Content and Language objectives are important for all students. The SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) model, a research based framework, established twenty years ago by Dr. Jana Echievarra, Dr. Mary Ellen Vogt, and Dr. Deborah Short, provides a foundation for teachers to plan according to the needs of English Learners.  The first component of the model refers to lesson planning and using clear content and language objectives for students.  Not only should teachers plan these objectives in their plan to create a path for student learning, but they need to communicate those objectives to students visually and in writing.  They also need to assure that students have reflection on those objectives at the end of the lesson.

Incorporating the Four Domains of Language (Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing) Into Classroom Lessons As Much As Possible

Yes, we do naturally incorporate the domains of language into our teaching. How often do we really strategize ways of doing this? “This differentiation process requires knowing and understanding both key cultural and linguistic factors that profoundly and predictably impact each student’s learning and language acquisition.” (Fairbairn & Jones-Vo 2010) Once we have gained that knowledge, we need to plan for how to allow students to interact with language. This can be done a variety of ways.  

We don’t always thinking about enhancing students’ listening comprehension in class. Teachers often utilize methods of comprehensible input in order to allow students to understand key concepts and vocabulary.  This could range from using hand movements and gestures to just slowing down the speed of their speech.  Allowing students to learn, listen, and comprehend is key.  How you use comprehensible input is based on who you have in your classrooms and their needs.  Also, allowing students wait time in classroom discussions gives them more opportunities to answer questions.  The way the brain works when acquiring language is not always as quick as you would like to it be.  Give children time to process information.  Having smaller group discussions in larger classrooms is also helpful for listening comprehension.

When thinking about reading, giving students access to materials that are linguistically appropriate and high interest  as well as allowing time to read in class is key.   Using tools like Newsela allows for teachers to give students the same content but at various levels When allowing students time to read in class, reading activities need to be engaging for students. I was a big fan of paired reading because I saw more growth in my students as they read to each other in class.

Moving from actually reading in class to actually being able to comprehend a text or concept, giving students a choice in how that is done helps students build the skill of reading comprehension but also aids students in building their strengths and potential.  As a teacher, I used a chart in the classroom that allowed students to choose how they wanted to convey their comprehension of their book club novel.

This picture is a three dimensional model that student created to explain his interpretation of Louise Halse Anderson’s Speak.  The student was able to understand text and using his artistic abilities communicate that understand to his teacher and peers.  This not only built reading comprehension and motivated this student to want to read more, but it also made the student feel more confident.

In addition to providing opportunities for students to expand on their literacy skills, it is key top give students opportunities to use language in interaction through speaking activities as well.  Encourage your district to provide you with training in Kagan Structures.  Kagan structures are different methods that promote student engagement and conversation.  This is great language practice for your students. Kagan provides training all over the country for schools to use their structures.  Also engaging your classroom with applications such as Screencastify will allow students to practice presentation skills without having to stand in front of an audience.  The application allows students to film their computer screens and speak as they are moving through the content on their screen.

Applying Methods That Are Adaptable to Students’ Cultures

Understanding the linguistic abilities of your students has value, but the cultural norms of your students also need to be recognized.  Wait time is crucial when considering English Learners.  There are cultures that take longer than others to respond in a conversation. There are also cultures where children do not look adults in the eye as a form of respect.  Having a classroom that is inviting and risk-free for children of other cultures is pertinent for academic success. Using the knowledge from student created materials that you have gained from students will make a difference in creating the ultimate environment for differentiating for English Learners.

The next time that the teacher down the hall says, “Oh… I have four newcomers in my class” in a damsel in distress like voice their hand across their head, (maybe I’m exaggerating here) you tell them what a phenomenal experience they will have teaching in that classroom. Our students’ languages are assets not hindrances.  It is time we learn more about them and provide a language rich experience that is differentiated towards their needs.

To Further Your Learning

• from CAL SIOP: Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol

Citation

• Fairbairn, S., Jones-Vo, S. (2010) Differentiating Instruction and Assessment for English Language Learners. Philadelphia, PA. Caslon,Inc.