ELL Report

Sarah Miller

1. Description

a. The setting of the field experience takes place in my classroom at Brantley County Middle
School.

b. The student with which I worked for this module is a current ninth grade student at Brantley
County High School. The name in which I will refer to her throughout this report and my
reflective thoughts is Laura. Laura is a fifteen-year-old native Mandarin speaker from China. She
moved to Georgia during last school year (2014-2015), and her proficiency level in English falls,
in my opinion, in Stage 3: Speech Emergence Stage of Acquisition. She can ask questions and
provide short, simple responses. While her responses are short, she is a very sweet and
hardworking young lady.

c. The days and times that I met with Laura are as follows: Monday, October 17; Tuesday, October
18; and Thursday, October 20. We chose to meet on these days because her writing assignment
was given on that Monday and due on Friday, October 21. We met after school, Laura would ride
the bus to the middle school, and her father picked her up from there. We spent at least an hour
each time, but spent more than that others (specifically listed in the Field Experience Logs).

d. Ways in which I interacted/engaged with Laura (including pedagogical strategies) are: activating
background knowledge, connecting vocabulary to home language, dramatizing and using
pictures, utilizing a graphic organizer, and teacher modeling/proofing.
Our lessons revolved around Laura’s writing assignment, which was to write a short story
using a sentence starter from a list provided, including figurative language, sensory
language, and dialogue. Laura’s teacher asked her to use Google Docs to author the
document on Google Classroom. She allowed Laura to “share” the document with me and
allowed me to make suggestions and comments before Laura turned in the story.
1. Activating Background Knowledge
Laura chose the sentence starter “As I carefully entered the haunted house, the
door shut behind me and…” After discussing all of the choices, she chose this
because she loves scary movies. I used this to activate her prior knowledge of
scary, haunted houses. I wrote down some ideas she had and some of the
descriptions Laura used while explaining her experiences.
2. Connecting Vocabulary to Home Language
At times, we had trouble communicating. To overcome this, we used Google
Translate. We had to use Chinese because Mandarin was not listed, so that was a
bit funny for us. We got to bridge the language gap enough, but it was not
completely accurate. However, this allowed me to connect some of the
vocabulary to her native language.
3. Dramatizing and Using Pictures
 While brainstorming, Laura and I used acting and pictures to determine which
words and sensory language to use in her writing. Acting out words was very easy
to do in this case because of our scary story. To help with developing sensory
language, I used images on Google for her to describe. We also did the opposite;
if she was unsure about a word, we would use Google Images to search and she
would agree or disagree.
4. Utilizing a Graphic Organizer
Our brainstorming phase took the longest of the writing process. We were able to
use a graphic organizer to organize ideas for Laura’s haunted house story. I wrote
the ideas down in the organizer, while she dictated. I decided to use full, complete
sentences rather than phrases in our graphic organizer.
5. Modeling/Proofing
To begin writing the rough draft, I modeled some of the sentences for Laura. She
would copy modeled sentences for the rest of the sentences. We did this to vary
her sentences structures because she wrote in very short, simple sentences. We
also did this for inserting dialogue to her story. To proofread, I did the majority of
this by selecting the line in which there was an error, and she had to find the error
and correct.

2. Objectives and Assessments


Objective
(Content) ELAGSE9-10W3:
The student will write a
narrative to develop real or
imagined experiences or
events using effective
technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured
events sequences.
(Content) ELAGSE9-10W3b:
The student will use
narratives techniques such as
dialogue, pacing, description,
reflection, and multiple plot
lines…
ISTE Global Collaborator:
Students use digital tools to
broaden their perspectives
and enrich their learning by
collaborating with others
and working effectively in
teams locally and globally.
Students:
b. use collaborative
technologies to work with
others, including peers,
experts or community
members, to examine issues
and problems from multiple
viewpoints.
Here are two learning objectives and how I will assess each.
Assessment
Formative assessment took place through-
out her writing process.
Brainstorming Graphic Organizer
Rough Draft
Final Draft
Formative assessment took place through-
out her writing process.
Brainstorming Graphic Organizer
Rough Draft
Final Draft
Formative Assessment through observation Yes. Laura was able to effectively use
of Laura’s work with Google Docs and
Google Classroom.
Was the objective met?
Evidence of student learning.
Yes, but not necessarily on grade-level
writing. Laura was able to develop a
narrative based on an imagined
experience. She effectively included
sensory and figurative language. Laura
did have several grammatical errors in
her writing.
Yes, but not necessarily on grade-level
writing. Laura was able to develop a
narrative based on an imagined
experience. She effectively included
dialogue to enhance the narrative.
Google Docs to communicate and
collaborate with me in regards to
suggestions and comments in her
writing.
3. Resources
Listed below are the resources I used to aid in my lessons with Laura, along with brief descriptions of
how I used them.

1. The Iris Center. Retrieved from

http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/ell/cresource/q2/p09/#content

I referenced this Iris site for the majority of my instructional strategies to use in
Laura’s lessons. From this site, I learned best practices in activating prior
knowledge, teaching vocabulary, and differentiating instruction for students. In
addition to these best practices, this site helped me to identify which Stage of
Acquisition Laura best fits: Stage 3.

2. Everything ESL. Retrieved from

http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/tips_teaching_ells_write_10803.php

This site helped me identify come challenges ELL students face in writing before
I had to face them with Laura. Also, it provided me with tips on ways to
overcome these challenges. For example, this site led me to help Laura fill out
her graphic organizer in complete sentences rather than phrases.

3. WiDA: English Language Development (ELD) Standards. Retrieved from

https://www.wida.us/standards/CAN_DOs/

The WiDA site has “Can Do” lists broken down into grade level chunks. This
allowed me to review the variety of “can do” descriptors that I could expect from
Laura (before I met her). These descriptors were helpful because they are broken
down into different sectors: recount, explain, argue, and discuss. I focused on
recount and explain for the nature of our lesson.