TPE-C- ELL

Due to the constant change in demographics, learning to effectively service ELLs will be a constant challenge for me. I have always worked in districts with a high percentage of ELLs. I feel blessed that I am bilingual; however, this does not entirely address the issue facing me as it relates to my ELL students. Even though the majority of the ELLs I have worked with are of Mexican origin, I know that within even this group, there is so much diversity. Students from the city vs. students from the rancho (country) and even those students who were born and raised here but who still primarily speak Spanish at home. I have had some Spanish speaking Mexican students who have never been to Mexico. I need not forget about my Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Philipino, or Central American and South American students that have been in my classrooms too.
The three student examples given in the article all describe students that I have had. The range of their backgrounds and experiences are mind boggling. I do not think I have ever fallen in the trap of believing that all students who speak Spanish are Mexican. I make it a point of asking information about where their parents are from. I am usually able to distinguish that by the Spanish dialect that they speak or by other pieces of information like knowing if they eat pupusas, they are from El Salvador. All of this makes me remember that period when I worked as a teacher is San Jose Unified. The principal at the time and one of the resource teachers would get together and go through grouping cards and new enrollments from the enrollment center and make various changes to the class lists before school started in the fall. I cannot count how many times Philipino students were placed into bilingual classrooms by mistake because I guess they were only paying attention to the surnames. These two created problems assuming that students with a Spanish last name were probably Mexican and needed to be placed into the ALA Program. They even made assumptions that a Mexican family would want their child placed automatically in the bilingual program. There were many Spanish speaking families who did not want their child places in the bilingual program. Did the administrator and the resource teacher assume that all were the same? Yes. I think so in many cases. This really bothered me as a teacher, and it bothered me as a parent as well because my daughter has a Spanish last name, and I would not want her placed in a bilingual program solely because of her last name. "Few states require teachers to have training in second language acquisition, ESL, or cross cultural communication." (p. 2) It seems that this would have to be reformed across the 50 states to require this especially for those states like California that are so culturally and linguistically diverse. The reality is that more and more ELL students are filling our classrooms, and it seems highly irresponsible to not address this in terms of adequate teaching training.
Finally, this article gave five strategies to assist teachers in the area of academic literacy as it relates to English language learners. These appear to be very practical strategies.