Integrating ELLs in a classroom requires careful planning when it comes to setting up supportive learning engagements. As seen in Steve Daniel Przymus’s article, pairing ELLs with non-ELLs based on their interests and having ELLs learn beside their non-ELL peers can be extremely successful. It would then follow that an effective teacher needs to group students with this in mind, placing ELLs in groups where they are supported and validated. In the article, \u201cFriendships and Group Work in Linguistically Diverse Mathematics Classrooms: Opportunities to Learn for English Language Learners\u201d, ethnographer Miwa Aoki Takeuchi shares interesting research that challenges teachers\u2019 common sense when it comes to creating effective groups in a class.<\/p>\n
Takeuchi conducts a study in a Grade 4 mathematics classroom in an Ontario school. The study focuses on ELLs\u2019 participation in group work during a school year. What the research clearly shows is that when English Language Learners were placed in groups strategically chosen by the teacher, the interactions these students had were strikingly different from when they were working in groups of friends (groups formed by student choice). Takeuchi shows that although in both circumstances ELLs were considered \u201cnovices\u201d in the groups in terms of language, they interacted in more complex ways when working with friends. In the teacher-assigned groups, the stronger non-ELL students took on dominant roles, acting as teachers, and eliciting very little interaction from ELL students. The conclusion given by the study is that ELL students could participate and have their input validated more when working with their recess friends.<\/p>\n
This article was extremely interesting to me because I think that it very much flies in the face of what I consider teachers\u2019 common sense. I venture that the consensus among educators is that if students are allowed to choose who they work with, this will lead to socialization that takes groups off topic. This is only one study, but it is surprising to me to see that when given the opportunity to work with friends, ELLs stayed on task and interacted with the subject matter. Despite the teacher\u2019s well-thought out organization of groups based on leadership, language level, and mathematical ability, the teacher-created groups were unsupportive for ELLs. Student choice in grouping versus deliberate placement of ELLs is certainly something that I will want to experiment with in future classes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Integrating ELLs in a classroom requires careful planning when it comes to setting up supportive learning engagements. As seen in Steve Daniel Przymus’s article, pairing ELLs with non-ELLs based on their interests and having ELLs learn beside their non-ELL peers can be extremely successful. It would then follow that an effective teacher needs to group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43952,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[849620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inquiry-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43952"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/teachermatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}