Allison La Rue

T&L 401

Reflection on Mentor teachers practice of ELL accommodations

November 20, 2019

 During my advanced practicum, there was one student who was in the ELL program in

our classroom. This student was mostly proficient in English in the writing level, but he had a

hard time speaking in the language. Due to the language barrier, this student often was quiet

during class and did not want to speak out loud to his peers. It was apparent from this first day

that this student was quieter than the rest, and I feel that if my mentor teacher and the ELL

specialist in the school district had not put procedures in place to help this student, he would

have had a much harder time in school this year.

One thing that I immediately noticed my mentor teaching doing in response to this

student was to have one-on-one discussions with him before they all shared out to the class.

This way, my mentor teacher was able to understand what this student was thinking and

whether or not he was understanding the lesson concepts. This student would also not feel as

pressured to speak out loud. I thought this was a great way for the teacher to still be able to

understand what he knew without making him uncomfortable during the first weeks of our

school year. Little by little, as the school year went on, this student started to become more

comfortable speaking out loud and I think this was all due to the work of my mentor teacher.
 I also observed that this student would be taken out of the classroom by the ELL

specialist to work on his language skills throughout the week. As the school year progressed, I

saw his ability to talk with his peers increase, and I talked with the ELL specialist about what

services she provides him. I saw how they would do a lot of read aloud stories to each other,

and this would help him with his confidence speaking out loud. Through this experience, I saw

how much language learning is also about building up the students confidence, and I saw this

student make strides when he received help from my mentor teacher and the ELL specialist.