Ministry of Education:
http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/support/diverse-student-needs/english-language-learners
English Language Learners. (1999). Diverse Student Needs. Retrieved from http://www2.gov.bc.ca on March 13, 2016.
Annotated Bibliography:
The government of BC/ the ministry of education has created a great source online. This resource is beneficial for both ELLs as well as ELL supporters/ specialists. The page on this website can be found through searching for ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS. Once you have found this specific page, you can see and click on the different links which are categorized as ELL Students: A Guide for Classroom Teachers; where it helps teachers who have minimal background experience help teach ELLs. The second link is for ELL Students: A Guide for ELL Specialists; this talks about what ELL specialists need to know, what they need to consider, as well as it further on provides educators with more resources and references. The site also contains PDF files on ELL Standards; ELL Policy and Guidelines and ELL Planning Too which is a new, research approach that ca be used as an “educational model for instructional and support planning”. This resource is useful and super important as it is designed for BC teachers, therefore, it is very handy.
Inquiry Reflection:
I was informed about this great resource by our very own wonderful educational librarian. She suggested that I take a good look at this site as it is worthy to look at as we are in BC and are doing our practicum in the lower mainland.
Initially, when I started the program, I assumed that all ELLs get extra support by ELL specialists. Therefore, I was not too worried about this. I thought they would have all the great resources to help support these students. I thought as a teacher/ teacher candidate, I would just teach all the students in the same manner. I was not aware of differentiated instruction, hence, was not worried. But upon arriving at practicum, I started to see how many ELLs do not get the extra support. Not all ELL specialists have access to some of the newest resources. Something that was not a distress for me all of a sudden became a concern which ended up being the topic for my inquiry project.
By looking at this website, I was able to learn what we can do as it suggests us how to guide and plan our lessons by keeping ELLs in mind. It provides us with some great instructional tips and strategies when working with ELLs. It teaches us how to assess, evaluate and report their work and progress. Because this is BC based, I find it to be constructive, worthy and practical. This site was where I initially started getting suggestions from to adopt into my teaching practices. Even though this web-page is a bit outdated, I still highly recommend taking a good look at it.