What is the role of ESL teachers at your school?
J$mooTH asked:
I am curious in learning more about this field. I am earning my certification in Secondary Social Studies, but I have been told that it is difficult to get a job in this field. ESL is in much more demand, is it not?
What do these teachers do all day? How does their work differ from a normal classroom teacher?
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I am curious in learning more about this field. I am earning my certification in Secondary Social Studies, but I have been told that it is difficult to get a job in this field. ESL is in much more demand, is it not?
What do these teachers do all day? How does their work differ from a normal classroom teacher?
September 1st, 2009 at 6:53 am
It all depends on your school district and what grade you teach. For example, I teach first grade ESL in Miami-Dade County. All of my students are level 1 and 2 students. I have a bachelors in Elementary Education and I have an ESL and CCHL endorsement. Because of the large ESL population in my school, each grade level has a minimum of 1 ESL self contained class. As a self contained teacher, I have the same job as a regular classroom teacher except I must provide CCHL (Curriculum Content in the Home Language - This year it is Social Studies that is being taught in Spanish). In other schools where the ESL population is smaller, the ESL teacher pulls out the ESL students for their Language Arts block. In Middle and High School, the ESL teachers teaches a course called Language Arts/ESOL. Again, this is how it is done in my school district which has a high ESL population.
My work differs from other classroom teachers in the sense that I must submit a request for a LEP meeting if I see that a student is not meeting expectations. I must create a Pupil Monitoring Plan like other teachers but if the student is still struggling I must first request another LEP meeting and hope and pray that the school district approves the request for a Bilingual Assessment and a Student Study Team. I must make sure that I use different methods to teach concepts and I must use more visual aides to help the students understand what I am trying to convey to them. I also use a lot of hands on activities and I use technology to help them hear others speak English. Although I do speak Spanish, I limit my use of Spanish and speak Spanish only during Social Studies and when I have information to give to the students that is extremely important.