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Monique Isaak
Achia Chang
T&L 333
December 1, 2015

Teacher Interview

For my teacher interview I contacted Mrs. McDonald who teaches in the Kindergarten

classroom at Columbia Ridge Elementary School in Ephrata, Washington. She has been teaching

over a course of five years and within two different schools. For my senior project in high

school, I had the opportunity to job shadow in her classroom. Personally, I found this to be a

very beneficial opportunity because I was able to see how her classroom operates and learn about

the strategies she uses to teach all of her students. When I became aware that we were

conducting a teacher interview for Teach and Learn 333, I knew she would be a perfect

candidate. Mrs. McDonald has an average class size of 20 to 23 students. Each year she has

about five ELL students in her own classroom with their first language being Spanish. While job

shadowing I noticed how she used special techniques to teach the material to her ELL students.

In effort to contact her about my project, I emailed her with a proposal of the assignment I was

working on. After her response, I completed the interview over a phone call. Mrs. McDonald

was highly informative throughout the interview process.

The first question I asked in the interview was what are the main difficulties dealing with

ELL students? The answer she provided was that ELL students have a low language. Although

she was honest about the difficulty, she made it clear that all of her ELLs are eager to learn. She

emphasized that this is a problem that exists in many classrooms at her school. Mrs. McDonald

knows that because ELL students lack the understanding of the English language it can create a

challenge for teachers to clearly educate the material. One main thing that stood out to me while
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discussing this question was the idea of intensive vocabulary instruction. She stressed the

importance of making this one of her top priorities in her classroom for not only ELLs, but also

all of her students. Mrs. McDonald did not focus on the difficulties; rather she used a positive

attitude to demonstrate her passion for teaching every student in her classroom.

Another main difficulty that Mrs. McDonald has experienced associated with ELL

students is working with their parents. Similar to ELLs, their parents are eager to be a part of

their students academic journey, but their education is very limited. Many of the parents of ELL

students are not fluent in the English language and a strong language barrier is created between

the teacher and the parents. Wright states, ELLs and their families, many of whom are from

lower-socioeconomic homes and communities, typically are among the least empowered

individuals in our society. When policies at the school have a negative impact on ELLs or their

families, for several reasons, may be discouraged from speaking out. (Wright 309). In order to

accommodate this issue, teachers are granted the source of having access to a translator. The

translator enables teachers and administrators to communicate with parents and develop a full

understanding of their concerns or opinions about their childs performance or can help them

address any of their question. This is a great tool for all teachers.

The next question I presented were what strategies are used to teach ELL students in your

classroom? Mrs. McDonald has only been a teacher for a couple years; however, she had many

strategies to share with me. All of the teachers within her school use a program called GLAD

(Guided Language Acquisition and Design). GLAD uses strategies that support the vocabulary

and language development of students through the use of very intentional and integrated unites

that scaffold content in a way where ELL students can be successful. The strategies consist of

incorporating visual pictures so students can make a connection to the concept and the language.
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Another strategy Mrs. McDonald used is an I do, We do, You do, model. The purpose of this is

strategy is to provide ELLs with explicit instruction. First, she demonstrated, then the students

all completed the activity together, and then they finished by working alone. While job

shadowing in her classroom, I saw this strategy used multiple times with successful results.

The last portion of questions I asked Mrs. McDonald related to assessments and special

programs. As stated before, Mrs. McDonald teaches students of a young age. She bases her

assessments on classroom-based activities. Specifically, she used this type of assessment to

spend one-on-one time with her students and give clear explanations for every student. Also, she

briefly mentioned a computerized assessment used in their school titled STAR. The benefit of

this assessment is that adults are able to support the students taking this assessment by helping

the students gain a better understanding of what the questions are truly asking.

The special programs that exist in Columbia Ridge Elementary School are employing full

time ELL bi-lingual para-professionsals. Their purpose is to support all of the ELLs. The para-

professional works to meet every student where they are at in their language development and all

of their diverse needs. While job shadowing with Mrs. McDonald, I was able to see specific

strategies the para-professional would use. I noticed that during certain portions of the school

day, Mrs. McDonald would have all of the ELL students work together with the para-

professional. Throughout the rest of the time spent in the classroom, Mrs. McDonald allowed

ELL students to work with other students who were stronger in the English language. The

student interaction demonstrated cooperative learning, which is student collaboration in pairs or

small groups to solve a problem, complete a specific task, or complete a project (Wright 170).

By using this strategy, students are able to practice both language and academic content.
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Through practice, students learn how to interact with each other and strengthen their

understanding of the material.

While in the process of crafting this essay, I had fellow colleagues review my paper. To

start this process, Morgan Logan edited my paper and encouraged me to implement connections

between the textbook and classroom. In effort to do this I found material in the text that related

to the strategies and techniques Mrs. McDonald used. Sabrina Pridemore reviewed my interview

paper as well and noted that I go further in depth about the role of a para-professional. In

response, I expanded on purpose of the special programs used in Columbia Ridge Elementary

School.

Overall, the interview process with Mrs. McDonald allowed me to become more aware of

what the true experience of teaching and working with ELL students entails. By pursuing a

teaching degree with an ELL endorsement, I am excited to use the strategies and techniques that

Mrs. McDonald used within her classroom. The interview created an opportunity to apply what I

have learned within the Teach and Learn 333 class and see how it works within a real classroom.
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Works Cited

Wright, Wayne E. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory,
Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Pub., 2010. Print.
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Interview questions and responses

1. What are you main difficulties dealing with ELL students?
a. Then main difficulties that come with working with ELL students is there
low language. In my experience, many of the ELL students I have worked
with are all very eager and excited to learn dont understand the content
being taught or the language used in the Common Core State Standards as
well as many supportive curriculums. While this is more of a barrier for ELL
students it puts a big emphasis on intensive vocabulary instruction. Another
difficulty working with ELL students is many of their parents speak very
little or no English at all in which means unless you as the teacher are bi-
lingual in the native language of the students, communication with parents
will be difficult or minimal without the help of a translator. While the
parents want nothing more than to help their students they do not know
how to help nor do they understand the concepts their students needs help
with.
2. What strategies do you use to teach ELL students?
a. GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition and Design) are teaching strategies that
any teacher at any grade level can incorporate into their teaching practices.
GLAD uses many different strategies that supports the vocabulary and
language development of students through the use of very intentional and
integrated units that scaffolds content in a way were ELL students can be
successful.
3. What have your experiences been like while working with ELL students parents?
a. For the most part ELL parents want nothing more than to help their children
learn. While communication is sometimes difficult due to the language
barrier, I have always had access to a translator who can assist if needed.
4. What languages do the majority of your ELL students speak?
a. Spanish
5. What assessments have you found successful with ELL students?
a. Being that I work with young children I try to stay away from worksheet
type assessments. Classroom based assessments are given one on one by
myself in which I have the ability to explain the directions in more than one
way if I feel they are not understanding. Many schools are using
computerized assessments such as STAR in which can be given with support
from an adult to better explain any of the questions if needed or to monitor
the students understanding of what is being asked of them to do.
6. Does you school implement any special programs for ELL students specifically?
a. My school has a full time ELL bi-lingual para-professional. Throughout the
day she pushes into classrooms and supports the ELL students wherever
their needs are. While ELL students have a similar need to language
development, they are still very diverse in their needs. She works
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collaboratively with the teachers to support the students. While she does
not have a specific curriculum in which she follows, she does use GLAD
strategies as the IDEAS curriculum to support her instruction.