ELL

On September 9, a half a week into the school year the class was observed. the teacher gave over a little bit of background information about the different students in the class. It could’ve been hard to find which one was the new, American immigrant had she not had a dark, middle eastern complexion. She looked comfortable in her place and although vocabulary words were being taught she was not being singled out. When discussing this point with the special educator she said “I teach the words for Rachel to understand the topic that will be discussed, but I do not want her to feel out of place”. As the year went on during literature lessons the teacher would teach vocabulary words to her as they come up in the lesson. Sometimes she is given cards with the words and sometimes it is given over orally.

During the observation there was writing time. The class is up to filling out four squares about a given topic. On the Monday, November 4 the students wrote about different foods. The next week, on the 11^th they were writing about the middle eastern diet. The general education teacher said in an interview “We are incorporating into our curriculum ideas that will be culturally comfortable for Rachel”. She went on to say that they read a book about the middle eastern culture the past week so now the students have information to write about. She described how Rachel was able to add in new insights, such as how the diet effects the Jewish life and she answer the girls’ questions.

As the class moved on to learning how to write paragraphs Rachel started falling behind. She is able to answer questions. She can write phrases but has a hard time writing sentences and developing a piece on a topic.