TL;DR:
- EL students can feel very isolated and overwhelmed in school.
- Bringing EL students together can help them feel less alone.
- As educators, we need to find ways to give them a sense of community.
- Connect the dots to see the bigger picture when connecting our EL students across the country.
Connecting Our EL Students Across the Community: Flying Solo
Sarapich is the only sixth-grade student in our school who speaks Khmer. He is 8, 803 miles away from his home country of Cambodia and in his first year of in-person learning after two years of education on a screen. Every day, he expends every ounce of his sensory skills to master listening, reading, writing, and speaking of the English language. At times, school can be painful and lonely and relentless…and is required.
He often wonders, “Is there anyone else out there like me?” His daily EL class with other bilingual peers provides a breath of relief, but even in the most diverse classroom of the building, no one speaks Khmer.
Connecting Our EL Students Across the Community: On Island Time
Many of our EL students and families can easily connect to the emotions of “Cast Away” living. Their resources, comforts, and friends have been severed. Anxiety is high. As educators, watching this movie play out in real life is more than unsettling. We realize that social-emotional learning is asking for our commitment. To restore these needs and increase access to joy, we joined forces and created a plan!
EL students and families can connect to the emotions of 'Cast Away' living. Their resources, comforts, and friends have been severed. Anxiety is high. As educators, watching this movie play out in real life is more than unsettling. Click To TweetConnecting Our EL Students Across the Community: Launching Pads Aren’t Only for Rockets
Our teaching and admin teams got together and launched our first-ever districtwide ELL Community Day! During school, 40 students from two different buildings and eight different grade levels met for the first time. For two hours, we held team-building games, played Bingo, hot potato, participated in STEM activities, ate tasty snacks, and created a craft. Students were grouped with peers across grade levels who spoke Spanish, Khmer, Russian, Twi, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Yoruba, French, and Arabic. We created stations so that they could remain together the entire time. The older students immediately adored their younger counterparts. The best part? The looks of confidence, adoration, and connection they exemplified throughout their time together. They could speak whichever language they preferred and switch anytime they wanted to!
Connecting Our EL Students Across the Community: Destination Station
Sarapich joined our students from his school. We used district transportation to bus him over to us. His eyes lit up when he sat with his peers who spoke Khmer. His voice spoke loudly as he joked with them while tossing the “hot potato.” His hands quickly dug out his phone to grab a few new friends’ social media information. He breathed easy and realized that there were other Cambodians who had been less than three miles away…the whole time?
All of our EL students deserve this chance. They are destined for greatness, and it is opportunities such as these that our schools can provide to assist them on their journeys. We are equipped with the resources to address their starving social and emotional needs and are enthusiastically ready to plan two or three more EL adventures for the remainder of this year. And we are working with other districts to connect them countywide!
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Connect the Dots
I look forward to hearing about how you commit to connecting the dots with your EL students and families this year! It is hard to see the big picture when you think the other “dots” are unreachable. When educators team up and lead students to each other, the bigger picture that emerges is life-changing. Contact me anytime to provide more information to help you on your journey!
If you enjoyed this post, please also check out our very first book, Take Me Home. It’s mission? To teach the world to view those who are learning a new language as an asset and never a handicap! A truly inspiring story of 11 of our former EL students who give a first-hand account of what it’s really like to become bilingual in America. Written in English and repeats in Spanish all in the same book…helping connect dots worldwide :)!
About Andrea Bitner
Andrea Bitner is a proud wife and mother of two beautiful daughters. She lives on the East Coast among some of the fastest-speaking people in the country! She has worked with students in grades K-12 through her twenty years in public education from all around the world. Her work as an English Language Teacher, Reading Specialist, Literacy Coach, Presenter, and High School English Teacher inspired her to continue to share the great news: Learning a Second Language is an asset, not a handicap! She hopes to inform, influence, and inspire all readers and leaders to continue to be a champion for all stakeholders in the education community around the world.
