In Washburn’s article, “Alone, Confused, and Frustrated: Developing Empathy and Strategies for Working with English Language Learners,” it discusses extensively on the feelings, attitudes, and behaviours ELL (English Language Learners) face daily in their classrooms. Much like what the title suggests, many ELLs undergo many negative feelings and emotions due to language barriers. According to Washburn’s experiences with ELLs, many “reported being frustrated, feeling lost, feeling stupid or dumb, and being overwhelmed” (p. 248) when working in classroom where there were no differentiation. In addition, the ELLs were often confused, “felt left out, out of place, excluded, or alone” (p. 248).

It is obvious that these scenarios happen often in classrooms with all students, especially ELLs. Due to language barriers and no differentiation (from the teacher), many students end up falling through the cracks and feel so low in their ability and self-esteem. Students often end up losing their inquiry, passion, engagement because they are usually bored or tune out the lesson. Differentiated instruction is key when working with ELLs. Teachers must actively try to incorporate experiential learning activities where the said students “can stimulate thinking about strategies for improving communication across the language barriers” (p. 248). Differentiation can also come in the form of “teaching more slowly and providing translations” (p. 248) for learners so that students are able to illustrate words, phrases, and grammatical concepts in their minds or in their L1. Body language, pictures, and place also play a key role in the aiding ELLs in the classroom. Differentiated instruction can also be simple like “be more patient, look for extra materials, try harder to pronounce a strange name, wait a minute longer for a student to comprehend and formulate an answer, or take an extra five minutes to look up a word in another language” (p. 250). When teachers are putting in the effort in differentiating instruction, ELLs are given an equal opportunity to be engage and fully understand what is being taught in the classroom as their peers.

I have been blessed to have worked with so many ELLs in my tutoring job. I as well agree with Washburn when he states so eloquently that it would be a great wish that “all teachers were required to study a foreign language, not so much to achieve a high level of proficiency (although that would be good) but because they study of a foreign language reduces us all, on occasion, to the often frustrated and confused state that ELLs experience” (p. 250).

Washburn, Gay N. (2008). Alone, confused and frustrated: developing empathy and strategies for working with english language learners. The Clearing House, 81(6). p. 247-250.