ESL and general education teachers can collaborate to help plan curriculum and support the specific needs of their struggling English language learners.Teachers need collaborative resources for different areas of lesson planning, instructional settings, and curriculum design. General education teachers spend many hours in instructional planning, classroom management, and assessment usually without any input from ESL teachers. In their collaboration, ESL and general education teachers should consider a variety of instructional strategies and develop a system for checking and rechecking how students acquire knowledge. Teachers can use various resources to begin the collaboration process. There are other things teachers can do as well to facilitate the process of working together.
Implications and Conclusions for General Education and ESL Teachers
ESL and general education teachers benefit greatly from collaboration. The critical need to successfully teach struggling ELLs in primary grades makes collaboration not only beneficial, but necessary.
Before teachers can truly collaborate, they need to understand their ELLs and the areas in which they struggle. They will also want to consider how they have grouped their students. Teachers take this information as input when they meet with other teachers to work on practical solutions. Teachers face constraints of time, curriculum, and district procedures. They can suggest collaborative models to their administrators and colleagues as part of the solution. The ultimate goal is to create a supportive learning environment for teachers and students.
Teachers can develop a plan, use various resources to aid in collaboration, and follow guidelines that facilitate collaboration to experience positive results. They can ask questions along the way to guide their inquiry and collaborative efforts.
The support and input teachers receive in collaboration in turn gives them the ability to better support their lower performing readers. Collaboration gives ESL specialists and general education teachers ways in which they can work together to further ELLs’ progress to ensure success in general education classrooms. Teacher tips: These tips will help you maximize the benefits of collaboration for you and your students. A collaborative plan should reflect goals for supporting ELLs. In your plan include characteristics of your struggling ELLs, teaching strategies, and a modifications checklist for monitoring their work. Find common areas of learning and reading difficulties to facilitate your collaboration with ESL or general education teachers. Use collaboration to help you plan reading and oral instruction to meet your students’ critical needs.
