Toolbox 2. Responding effectively to English Language learners need for enough literacy to complete assignments in Physical Education classes

The teacher in the video above shows a high-level of self efficacy when she explains how she recognises and responds to her student's learning. What she doesn't mention explicitly but we can glean from the video is that responding well to needs requires planning.

Hill & Thrupp (2019) maps out this process clearly, "An important feature of good planning is that each teacher knows how to help every student achieve the learning intentions and recognises possible pathways for future learning. Coupled with this is making the anticipated learning intentions and learning experiences sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of every student. Consistent with Tatiako: cultural competencies for teachers of Maori learners, good planning enables students to feel valued and respected by their teacher. What students learn needs to be relevant, important, progressive and encouraging of commitment and motivation so teachers should often negotiate the curriculum with them. Hence students play a role in designing their own learning pathway. If students have co-constructed the success criteria with teacher, they are more likely to take greater ownership of their learning, be self-evaluative as they are working, ask questions as their work is being assessed and have a clearer idea about where they next need to focus their attention, that is, their next steps."

How does all this work out in my teaching?

One of my English Language learners (ELL) is short of literacy credits to pass NCEA level 1. Without enough literacy credits, he will probably leave high school without a certificate even though he has met all the other requirements. As a second language teacher this is a huge frustration for me and he is not the only student I have encountered over the years with this problem. Literacy credits are gained from a range of school subjects or three literacy unit standards. After talking to some of his teachers, I worked out that his language ability is sufficient to gain literacy credits through Physical Education. 

I then worked through the same process that Hill described. I looked up the requirements and exemplars for PE, talked to my student about what he had learnt in PE so far and we brainstormed how to approach the writing task he needed to complete by the end of this term. I then designed a website called "PE for ELL" with him in mind -- his love for soccer videos, movies and his lack of general sports vocabulary. I used the website as a teaching resource and he used it as a learning resource when he needed scaffolding for English expressions related to sports. When he first started, he was put off by the amount of words on the website, so I put in some video clips and tried to break up the paragraphs using visuals. On his own he pressed a button and translated the whole website into Spanish, his heart language. He then read out important key sections, such as "goal setting", "self-management" and "perseverance" with me and we talked through the concepts and started to discuss his assignment. To help him understand the concepts fully, I gathered simple sports stories for him to read as homework. He has no online access from home so books are the best resource.

The website is a work in progress as we continue working together around these key ideas. Ideally, he needs to be able to work independently on his assignment using the website without much dependence on me. I hope by the end of term this will happen.

Other ELL with higher linguistic abilities have asked for help on the same assignments and I have given them the link. It will be interesting to see if they are able to use the website independently to complete their work. I also hope to get feedback from PE teachers about the usefulness of the website for other ELL in their classes. This process has helped me develop higher levels of self-efficacy as I gain skills necessary to develop better resources. Although I have not yet reached the level of the teacher in the video above, I think I am heading there.

References

Hill, M. & Thrupp, M. (2019) The Professional Practice of Teaching in New Zealand: Cengage.

Ministry of Education (2011) Tātaiako Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners. Retrieved from: https://teachingcouncil.nz/sites/default/files/Tataiako_0.pdf