Emma Percival

EDUC 359
Classroom Observation
1. I did not see a lot of different strategies being used with the ELL student. She sits at
the front of the room to maintain attention and to be closer to the teacher. The
teacher finds this to be effective because it forces her to pay attention and the teacher
can see when shes struggling. Since she is the only ELL in the school, they do not
have a program. An ESL specialist comes in once a week and sits with her at the back
table during class time and works with her on the class content.
2. I did not notice any student behaviors that I would consider out of the ordinary for
an ELL. The student seems to be comfortable in the classroom. Her teacher
mentioned that when the class is doing independent work, the student would usually
fill in random answers then erase them before going over it as a class so she can fill
in the correct ones. When the teacher asked her about this she said I know Im going
to get them wrong so I dont try. Although this is not good for the student, I do not
think it is uncommon for ELLs to act this way. Her teacher says that she usually
memorizes information instead of actually understanding it. The teacher thinks this
is because she does not have a lot of background knowledge so she cant engage in
higher-level thinking.
3. All of the students seem to be very comfortable with each other. The ELL moved here
about a year and a half ago so she has been in a class with most of these kids for a
little while. She participates in conversation with her classmates even though she
does not have a wide vocabulary. She appears to have a good relationship with her
teacher. Her teacher describes her as a hard worker.
4. The ELL student does not receive any extra materials than her classmates. The only
time she receives supplemental instruction is when the ESL specialist comes. Other
than that, she gets what everyone else gets.

5. The ELL student seems to be comfortable in the classroom. She interacts with her
classmates and with the teacher. I only got to observe the ELL student for a little but
so I did not have the chance to really get a feel for the classroom environment.
However, while I was there, I got the feeling that the environment was very
welcoming. The teacher would often joke around with the students and they seemed
very comfortable with her. The student did not seem nervous or hesitant when
interacting in the classroom.
6. Of the five stages of language acquisition, I would say that the student is somewhere
in between stages three and four. The student has decent comprehension and does
not have too much trouble with grammar. However, the student struggles with
discourse. She does not understand jokes and does not have a wide vocabulary. She
can communicate on a basic level but cannot engage in higher-level thinking due to
her lack of background knowledge.
7. One accommodation the ELL student has, as mentioned earlier, is that she sits at the
front of the class to maintain attention and so her teacher can keep an eye on her.
This accommodation is on the checklist. This was probably listed because it is
common for ELL students to be in close proximity to the teacher. Another
accommodation that she gets is that she is allowed to make corrections on a test if
she fails it. Her teacher thinks this is a good way for her to learn from her mistakes.
This was not on the checklist. I am not sure why this strategy was not listed on the
checklist. There were other accommodations regarding assessments on the list but
nothing about correcting them.