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As a future bilingual educator I would like to know are some of the most sucessful strategies when teaching bilingual or english learner students? 

Hi Laura! I'm also a future bilingual educator and I've had a couple of classes already that have taught me important strategies. For instance, group work is highly important, and how we structure the groups can hold a lot of power in students learning outcomes. Also, modifications with students that are bilingual or English learners are highly important, so it's important to keep that in mind. 

Hi Laura! I am not a future bilingual educator, but I am working in a classroom right now that has two ELL students who primarily speak Spanish. Both students just recently moved to the states from Guatemala and only one student can hold a conversation with my Cooperating Teacher and I. The other student only uses a few words in English and neither my CT or I know enough Spanish to communicate better with either student. We do have a TESOL teacher who works with the two students every so often, but not at a scheduled time. I find it hard to teach our ELL students just because of how different both ELL students are. To me, I think group work is important, but sometimes, at least in my placement, students copy one another when they are in groups, so it loses its effectiveness. My CT and I have to definitely modify our lessons, so that our ELL students can participate and learn more from our lessons. We have to give the two students alphabet charts that have pictures and lower and upper case letters. They use the chart to help them strengthen their English writing and they practice their letter-sound correspondances.

Hello Laura, I'm currently majoring in bilingual education and from what I've heard and seen a good strategy to use within the classroom would have to be promoting social interaction. Social interaction helps students engage whether it be with their primary or secondary language, and that way your student will find the confidence they need to be successful as they are in their language acquisition journey. 

Hello Laura,

I am also majoring in bilingual education and in my classes I have learned that allowing students to utilize their native language when learning is very beneficial to them. Not only do they gain confidence when their native language is accepted in the classroom, but they also learn how to appreciate it. It is great because they can make connections using both languages and they can share their knowledge with their peers.

Hey Laura -

I am not majoring in bilingual education; however, I did recently watch a very interesting webinar on NSTA about multilingual learners and Science education. I would highly suggest it! It was facilitated by Scott Grapin (I am not 100% sure of the first name as I do not have my notes with me and this was a few weeks ago) However, it was very enlightening to learn effective ways to incorporate strategies to assist multilingual learners in their understanding.