The Strive Smart Preparatory School is located west of Denver in a predominately Latino community. The high school is surrounded by homes that are lower middle income where a majority of the students qualify for free lunches. Community quilts were made for the Strive Smart School and one of my community. The following is a comparison of both quilts, the mission of the school, and instructional strategies to determine the best way to educate English language learners using the second language acquisition theory.
Comparison of community quilts
When the Strive Smart quilt is compared to my quilt, I find more similarities than differences. Although the exact symbols are not same, the effort to provide the best education for my child …show more content…
The first level would be native-like proficiency to beginner and intermediate. During the first the phases of English learning acquisitions, the teacher should not be alarmed that the student is more silent, while trying to put the language concept together and the hesitation of speaking and making mistakes. Generally, patience is needed because it may take ELL’s up to six years to become proficient in English, moving from beginner to early advance with the most progress in early education and possibly an additional four years for the higher grade levels (Goldenberg, 2008). Essentially what ELL’s need is more time with oral English to develop the language, possibly a second block of instruction as described by Goldenberg (2008) which has shown to benefit ELL’s with higher scores on standardized tests. Furthermore teachers need to recognize the difference between conversational proficiency and academic language to understand what the ELL’s need to support academic success (Lucas, Villegas, & Freedson-Gonzalez, …show more content…
Stating directions orally and in writing, and demonstrating what the students are expected to do. Additionally, provide guided practice that involves a variety of techniques that provides hands-on practice using visual aids and other supplemental material. To help students retain the information, instructional strategies of questioning techniques could be used to support higher-level thinking that involves predicting, summarizing, problem solving, organizing, evaluating, and self monitoring (Freeman & Freeman, 2011). Graphic organizers and scaffolding techniques are commonly used strategies to assist students with support to the next level and visually organizing their learning Lucas, et al.