Thinking Outside of the Box for ELL Learners

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Thinking outside the box.  This expression with the commonly understood  meaning of thinking creatively to solve a problem actually has its origin with the 9-dots puzzle which asks that you draw 4 straight lines to cross all of the 9 dots without lifting your pencil:

There are various solutions to this problem which involve having to extend the line (s) outside of the box, thus “think outside of the box” to find the answer.

In terms of paradigms, sometimes you do not even realize you are inside of a particular box and then something twigs a creative thought which blooms into something great.  In the case of the story I am about to share, collaboration with parents, colleagues and the student led to a creative solution to a seemingly difficult problem.

At my school we have many students who are very new to Canada and are learning English as a Second Language.  Wait…second language?  Not always.  Sometimes we assume that the students coming to us are learning English as their second language but in many cases, English is their third or fourth language.  Thus, the term English Language Learner (ELL) is far more à propos.

When we register new ELL students, we automatically put them in our English program in a regular classroom with ELL supports such as:

• the teacher providing adapted learning materials in their subject area for the ELL student, focusing on vocabulary
• having students take an ELL option class with other ELL students and a teacher who works with them on English language skills
• an ELL pull-out during English Language Arts class to work with an Educational Assistant on English language skills, particularly if the student is level 1 or 2 ELL.
• additional ELL time during our Literacy period to work on English language skills on a computer program such as Rosetta Stone

A few months ago when we registered a student whom I will call Bea (not her real name), we set her up with exactly these types of supports.  We also put her in a class with another female student who speaks her first language of Arabic so that they could support each other while learning English.  Fast-forward a couple of weeks to parent conferences and Bea’s parents came in, very concerned about Bea.  We called a meeting which included our LAT/ELL specialist, the school counselor, an Arabic interpreter, the parents, Bea, and myself as the grade administrator for Bea’s grade.  It turned out that the interpreter was not really necessary as Bea’s parents spoke quite fluently in English but the interpreter, as an agent of CARE (an organization which helps new Canadians with settlement and adjustment to Canadian life) did act as a form of support for the family and helped them feel more comfortable approaching the school for help.
 
Bea’s parents were concerned because Bea was coming home from school crying and had reached the point of saying that she didn’t want to go to school anymore.  They told us she was frustrated at how slowly she was learning English and that she was very worried about falling behind academically in school.  Her parents related to us that Bea had been in the top of her class in Tunisia, the country where they had been living before coming to Canada.  Bea’s father was a doctor and her mother was a lawyer in their homeland and they are currently trying to have their education acknowledged in Canada.   So, it became clear to us that academics are important to Bea and her parents and it was easier to understand why she was so frustrated and worried about school. 

As we continued to discuss how things were going for Bea in her classes at our school, I mentioned that I had observed Bea in her French as a Second Language (FSL) option class and that I noticed how strong her French language skills were and that she seemed to enjoy this class.   To this, her parents replied that Bea’s second language is actually French and that she had studied enough French in Tunisia that she is actually quite fluent in French…and so are both of her parents!  As a former French Immersion teacher and current FI administrator in my school, I immediately began a short conversation with Bea and her parents in French and was fairly convinced that we could be meeting Bea’s academic needs in a completely different way than we usually do for ELL students.  My ELL “box” basically ripped open and an idea began to form about what to do to help Bea.  It broke my heart that she was disliking school so much that she didn’t want to come.  So, why couldn’t she become a French Immersion student?  If she took her core classes in French and we maintained all of the ELL supports that we already had in place to help her learn English, then maybe she would enjoy school again!  I mentioned this possibility to her parents who were very intrigued by the idea because they felt they could easily help her with her school work if it were in French.  They asked Bea what she thought about this and she looked at me and asked if it would be possible because she would like that very much.  I told them that we could do some testing and determine her level of French and then see what we could do.

Over the course of the next week, I tested Bea’s reading, writing and listening comprehension and I thought she was pretty fluent but I wanted a second option.  I asked a French Immersion colleague of mine to test her with the DELF materials and he felt that she could definitely handle being a French Immersion student, particularly because of her strong work ethic, desire to do well in school, and parental support. 

In our school we have two types of French Immersion classes: early immersion (students who have taken FI since kindergarten) and late immersion (students who began FI in grade 6).  Bea is in grade 8 so the decision we had to make was whether to put her in the late immersion class with students who have been learning French for only 3 years or early immersion with students who have been learning  French for 9 years.  It was an interesting conversation with my colleagues about where she would fit best, with her French being not quite as accomplished as the early FI students but probably a little more advanced than the late FI students.  Some other considerations included the fact that the late class was sitting at 29 students and the early classes were 24 and 25 students.  Also, the teachers felt that the late class tended to help themselves understand French by switching over to English a lot more than the early students and this would not be advantageous to a level 1 ELL student.
 
We decided to put Bea in an early immersion class and it has been wonderful to see her transformation.  Bea tells me that she loves it and is very happy with her new classes.  Her parents came in the other day to say thank you for seeing a way to help Bea to have academic success and that she enjoys coming to school and is happy again.

I know that the expression “thinking outside the box” is probably overused and the meaning over generalized but in this case it was an apt metaphor for the process of collaborating which led to a change in thinking  about how we meet the needs of certain ELL students.