Who are the Standard English Learners

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For the past two years I have worked as a teachers’ aide for special education classrooms. I have had the privilege of working in over fifteen different schools and over thirty different classrooms ranging from kinder garden to the adult transition program. For the past three months I have been working in an adult transition classroom with five students. Four out of our five students are non-verbal and have severe behaviors. The school is located in the small city of Corona, CA with Hispanic students being the majority group. In the classroom I am the only aide who can fluently speak and write Spanish. Being bilingual has helped me in my job because all of our student’s parents are Spanish speaking and are originally from Mexico. Throughout the school year the teacher likes to be in constant contact with the parents about their child’s progress and behaviors; however, he does not speak Spanish, so I have taken the role of communicating with the parents. Adapting to the school has not been a challenge because I feel like I understand the Latino community. I have had to translate letters from parents as well as be the main communicator between the teacher and parents. Both my parents are Hispanic and spoke very little English when I was growing up, so I know what it is like to have parents who feel discourage that they do not speak English. Culturally I have not had an issue with the students or the parents. I always make it an effort to be as kind as possible when speaking to the parents and always reassure them that if they need anything the can always contact the school. Unfortunately I have not had much interaction with other cultures, which is why I feel that on the continuum I fall under cultural precompetence. I have a c... ... middle of paper ... ...t lacks proficiency in English. Both groups of students need additional support in schools. It is evident that a majority of school children and EL or SEL. Some critical instructional priorities are peer tutoring, flexible grouping, one on one time with a teacher, reciprocal instruction, differentiated strategies, etc. A child who is struggling with learning English obviously need additional support in the classroom, The support should mainly come from a teacher, but peers could also provide support to their classmates. When I was in fifth grade we had a student come into our classroom during second semester and he only knew Spanish. The teacher had asked me if I could assist him with his work and interpret class instructions to him. The student would often be pulled out of class to work on learning English and was provided with extra one and one help and support.

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