Mistakes to Avoid When Teaching Newcomers
Welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Millie and I am an ESL educator and curriculum writer. I love planning and supporting students. The goal of this blog is to provide you with strategies to support your Language Learners.
Let’s dive into today’s blog with our reflection question.
What are some of your areas of growth when it comes to teaching newcomers?
A question that I get from teachers who teach and support Language Learners is….
How can I help my newcomers? Teachers who have been teaching for years seem to be stuck on how they can support newcomers in their schools.
It’s almost as if they think there is a magic trick that they should be doing and are actually surprised that their strategies they currently are using are effective.
Today, I am going to be sharing with you common mistakes teachers make when it comes to newcomers so that you can learn from them and not repeat them.
My first year as an ESL teacher I made A LOT of mistakes! One of the mistakes I made was thinking that my students needed to be pulled out in the hall to learn. I did this every day for about two months when I realized that it was not working. The worst part about it (which makes me cringe now) is that I was pulling them out of class and I was not providing them with academically challenging work.
The students were doing activities that were not aligned to the standards and were completely off the mark. I realized this when I was in the class one day and the other students had these beautiful projects they were working on. The students I had been working with had nothing.
When I saw this disappointment on the students I taught faces, I knew I needed to make a change and quickly. As a first year teacher, I knew I had to do something but I wasn’t quite sure what I needed to do. Then, I started to think about my previous jobs and what I did when I didn’t know something.
TRAINING! I found as much training and read as many books as I could get my hands on. Throughout that year, I grew a lot professionally. I made some mistakes, and I want to share those with you so you can learn from them.
Mistake #1: Making assumptions about their academic ability. There are so many assumptions that you can make as a teacher. I have to remind myself daily not to make them. For example, some teachers make assumptions about the Language Learners learning ability. Sometimes you will hear “They can’t do this activity because they are a newcomer.” Surprisingly I hear this more from ESL teachers than I do from mainstream teachers. Teachers who see results have the expectation that their Language Learners can meet those tough academic goals. Go into each class with high expectations of your students and leave those assumptions at the door.
Mistake #2: Not providing Language Learners with rigorous learning activities. A lot of times teachers think that activities have to be “easy” for Language Learners. Just because your Language Learners are not fluent in English does not mean they are not capable of doing rigorous learning activities. Your newcomers are capable of thinking critically. An important part of our jobs as ESL teachers is to provide them with the tools so that they can succeed.
Mistake # 3: Forgetting that we need all the stakeholders involved to ensure the success of our students. That means we need their other teachers, administrators, parents/guardians, and the community. You cannot do this alone. Throughout the school year if you find yourself feeling the burden of doing it all, think about who you can all rely on for support.
After hearing my mistakes, what is a mistake that you have made? I would love for you to share in the comments. You know what they say “Sharing is caring”! Is sharing really caring? 🙂
Do you want more content and tips? Then simply go to my myadventuresinesl.com for more tips and tricks.
You can download the transcript here.
