This is a WOW article and hopefully all of you teachers of ELLs read and comment on this post. Guest blogger, Cathering Gewertz discusses David Coleman's remarks about the ELL's right to rigor in the annual meeting of the College Board. Coleman is the new president of the College Board and his remarks are indeed refreshingly different. Meeting participant, Lily Wong Fillmore assures us that ELLs can handle complex text if teachers are given the training to teach complex texts to English learners...."no more watered down text" stating that there is no way out for them. They become trapped in lower levels of learning and can't catch up to their English speaking peers. He also stated what is rather remarkable..." You should hold us accountable for making assessments worthy of you and your best work." The college board would be hostile to tests that fall short of assessing authentic learning.
This calls to mind our own attempts to teach ELLs. After reading this article I would like to learn more about the kind of teacher training Coleman wants to see. - All of us in LE could benefit from this knowledge.
Please express your thoughts about Coleman's discussion with the College Board members.
{I am interested in reading the Comments to the article, but I've posted it just a few minutes after it was published so there are none at this time.}
College Board Puts Spotlight on Needs of ELLs, New Kinds of Tests. Guest blogger, Catherine Gewertz. 10.24.12 Education Week - Learning the Language
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2012/10/college_board_puts_needs_of_el.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Knowing that English Language Learners are becoming a larger group of students each year, I think it is critical to provide them with rigorous and appropriate instruction that meets their needs. I fully agree the curriculum currently used for our ELL students is very “watered down”. I would be ecstatic to be able to provide literature that allows students to extend the texts and make personal connections with the story or characters, as well as to expand on their knowledge of a variety of topics. While much more would need to be done to implement this model at my school, I am excited that our school has taken a step in the right direction with a new focus to expose students to more non-fiction. While the non-fiction books are not part of their daily reading curriculum, I’m glad to see them being used during their Core Knowledge block.
ReplyDeleteMy concern with introducing complex text is this: I work with the most naïve first graders who are just beginning to read, and who often struggle with the mechanics of the “watered down” texts. While I want them to be exposed to many types of literature I worry they might struggle with the decoding and vocabulary of more complicated texts. I know they are very capable of understanding concepts addressed in more challenging texts, but I am concerned it would take an extraordinary amount of time to address all the vocabulary. I feel conflicted that introducing more complex literature may be a very slow process. Would the drawn out process show the types of results we want to see?