ELL Context

JP Elementary has approximately 350 students making up 16 divisions

(4 Montessori) of Kindergarten-Grade 5 classes. It is in a lower socio-
economic area and about 30% of the school population are ELLs.
There is a fairly high rate of staff turnover, particularly in LST,
however the ELL specialist has been at the school for many years.
The ELL position is only 0.6 FTE, so service is provided Monday-
Wednesday only.
- Starting in May every year, the ELL specialist does assessments
for students entering Kindergarten in September whose parents
indicated on their registration that a language other than English is
spoken at home.

- Yearly assessments are completed every spring for students who

are not new to the district. The assessments are provided by the
district and administered by the ELL specialist.

- Assessments for students who are new to the school are

completed by the ELL specialist upon their arrival. She also sits down
with and gets to know the parents and the students’ history.

- Before ELL service begins each year, the ELL specialist does
quick assessments with students who received both direct and
consult service the previous year, determines who receives direct
service and consult service, and plans the ELL pull-out groups based
on the assessments.

- ELL service is small group pull-out only.

- All assessments are the same district-wide.

- Students who have additional needs are assessed by the ELL

specialist and then brought to a SBT meeting to determine any
additional supports or services they might receive.

- complete SIOP checklist with classroom teachers by September

30th (to see what strategies are being used by classroom teachers
to make content accessible to ELLs).

- The ELL specialist meets informally with teachers to discuss what

methods they are using in their classes to support their ELL
students and suggest other strategies and resources that they could
use.

Objective or Rationale
The objective for evaluating the ELL program at JP Elementary is
to determine if the very limited ELL resources could be used more
effectively in order to maximize benefits to all ELL students. Much
of the ELL programming is dictated by the district, but the school is
responsible for deciding whether their service will be small group pull-
out, in-class support, or a combination of the two.

Problem Areas and Recommendations

Problem: Many students who are ELLs are not receiving direct ELL
service because of the lack of ELL specialist time.

Possible Solutions:

- Provide classroom teachers with professional development on

practical strategies to use with their ELL students.

- Use some EA time with the level 1 or 2 ELL students in regular

classes if one-on-one support is needed (there are 17 EAs starting in
September for 16 divisions, and the district has made it very clear
that an EA is assigned to a class, not a particular student). EAs could
use some LIF time to learn strategies that are beneficial to ELL
students.

- A combination of in-class and pull-out service. At JP Elementary,

this would mean that with the ELL specialist in the classroom,
students who would otherwise be only consult ELL service would
benefit from some direct ELL service throughout the year.
Classroom teachers working closely with the ELL specialist would
increase every teacher’s toolbox of strategies for ELL learners,
increase classroom teachers’ knowledge about their ELL students,
and increase classroom teachers’ intercultural competence, which is
particularly important given our limited time with an ELL specialist in
the school.

Problem: ELL service is pull-out only.

Possible Solution:

A combination of in-class and pull-out service. A push-in program

where the classroom teacher and ELL teacher work together to
differentiate so that content is accessible to all levels of ELLs within
a classroom, thus “meeting the needs of ELLs who bring a wide
range of linguistic, academic and life skills” (Minaya-Rowe) to the
classroom. This is beneficial to struggling students or students with
LDs as well. The Ministry of Education states that “all teachers, not
just ESL specialists, need to address the learning needs of ESL
students and be prepared to adjust their instructional approaches to
accommodate the different levels of English proficiency and
different learning rates and styles of their students” (BC Ministry
1999). Classroom teachers would benefit from the resources and
expertise of the ELL specialist in differentiating for students. The
ELL teacher would come into the classroom to support the ELLs
with the language and content as well as differentiated assessments.

Level 1 ELLs could get pull-out support to build their conversational

English with same level peers, in addition to in-class support for
building content area vocabulary and knowledge.

Problem: There does not seem to be a collective responsibility

between teachers, administrators, and parents for students in the
ELL program.

Possible Solution:

- Get parents more involved. Colorin Colorado has an ariticle called

Helping Parents become Partners. The ELL teacher in the article has
some great strategies for beginning to get parents involved. She
suggests that “we can make school a more welcoming place, by
discussing the importance of direct participation, by being pro-active
and, for example, inviting parents the classroom first”
(www.colorincolorado.org/article/helping-parents-become-partners).

- Get classroom teachers involved. While not all teachers are ELL
teachers, we are all teachers of ELLs. Show staff that good ELL
teaching practices are actually good teaching practices for all
students and give teachers practical ideas to use in their classrooms.

- Get administrators involved in fostering a welcoming school

environment for ELLs and their families and showing leadership in
valuing collaboration time between classroom teachers and ELL
specialists.

Conclusion
The ELL program at JP Elementary is run in line with the district
recommendations and policies. Assessments are provided by the
district and administered by the ELL specialist. The area that the
school has flexibility is what format the program runs in. At
present, it is an exclusively pull-out program with the ELL specialist
collaborating with classroom teachers. The biggest issue at JP is
that there is very limited time with the ELL specialist in the school,
 and so the ELL instruction time is limited. More collaboration and
professional development for teachers would benefit our ELLs
especially since there isn’t ELL service every day.

Works Cited

Anonymous. “Helping Parents Become Partners.” Colorin Colorado , 1

Dec. 2015, www.colorincolorado.org/article/helping-parents-become-
partners.

British Columbia. Ministry of Education. English Language Learners: A

Guide for Classroom Teachers. 1999.
www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/administration/kindergarten-to-
grade-12/english-language-learners/classroom.pdf

British Columbia. Ministry of Education. ESL Learners: A Guide to

ESL Specialists. 1999. calp.ca/_uploads/resource-doc-105.pdf

Minaya-Rowe, Liliana. “Options for English Language Learners.” AASA,

www.aasa.org/schooladministratorarticle.aspx?id=4140.