Case Study--ENL Teachers are Teachers of ALL Students
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Photo Credit: Kimm Marchovich
Katie Leven is a wife, mom and itinerant ENL (English as a New Language) teacher with 18 years of experience in Western New York. She’s traveled to 12 different counties, and left part of her heart in Argentina with her host family there. She is fluent in Spanish, and previously taught levels I-V Spanish and French at the High School level. She currently works through BOCES (Board of Cooperative Education Services) to provide Stand Alone and Integrated ENL services to K-12 students, along with professional development to teachers of MLLs (multilingual learners). In 2023, she was named ENL Teacher Leader of the Year by the RBE-RN West! You can listen to her podcast, The Intentional TESOL, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! She brings a variety of experiences and a ton of research to support any teacher who wants to learn more about language acquisition strategies and balanced literacy! She'll show you how to work smarter, not harder together for the benefit of ALL your learners!
Podcast: The Intentional TESOL
Made by: Katie Leven
Who: Katie Leven (ESOL teacher-O/N BOCES), and Amanda Carbone (Grade 4-Starpoint CSD)
What: Integrated Guided Reading and RTI time-Grade 4
Where: Regan Intermediate School, Starpoint Central School District
When: This is the first year my co-teacher (5 years of experience) and I (17 years of experience) have worked together. 2022-2023 school year
Why: We wanted to balance grade level and instructional-level guided reading lessons.
Context of the Case Study:
My co-teacher and I co-teach grade four Guided Reading and RTI time. (overflow/advanced guided reading time). This allowed me time with my eight ELLs in the classroom: 1 second year commanding, 3 first year commanding and 4 expanding.
In our fourth grade integrated ENL classroom, I arranged our time around her scheduled guided reading time because this would allow both teachers to work with small groups. We began the year by getting to know each other and classroom routines. Then we switched and together we evaluated all students’ instructional reading levels, and grouped students for instruction accordingly. During assessments, we noticed students struggling on identifying the genre of texts and summarizing.
We used those two areas of development for our beginning focus. The classroom teacher wanted to provide all instruction at their instructional levels. She asked me to provide notes on the characteristics of the genres and then practice reading on grade level within those groups. Having recently taken an additional graduate class on reading strategy groups, I was primed to differentiate the instruction based on the needs in those groups.
As a result of student interests, we decided to start with fantasy. The classroom teacher chose books from the Fountas and Pinnell leveled readers at the students instructional level. She used the supporting instructional materials, but broke them into chunks of pages for the students to read independently, instead of the whole book at once.
In my group, I provided notes on basic elements of the genre, then we read a 1-2 page fourth grade story, similar to what you might see on a NYS grade 3-8 assessment. The instructional focus was on the academic vocabulary to talk about the story elements and describe how we saw characteristics of the genre in the story. Then, we layered on summarizing practice and/or other comprehension strategies. (This included noticing cognates from other languages in the tier 2 & 3 vocabulary.) This was followed by comprehension questions, with a focus on reusing words from the question to start the answer.
Challenges and Successes:
Using the model challenged the two teachers to stay “on pace” with each other’s genre. We would check in at the end of a story or book to see if we needed to add something to enrich our instruction if the other teacher needed more time on that topic, or if we could start pre-teaching the next genre.
Over time, we ran out of major genres, then we started going back and looking deeper into comprehension strategies to talk and write about the books and stories we were reading. As the NYS ELA grade 3-8 exams approached, we switched our material to use old exams to preview questions that might be asked of the students, and also layer in the deeper focus on writing responses that included evidence, using the RACECES strategy. The explanation of that strategy and the corresponding checklist students used to check their work are found here.
I originally worried that I wasn’t going to be providing the instruction at their level like I’m used to usually doing, but the teacher’s vision for this time worked out better than I ever could have imagined! I was blown away by the students’ growth!
Additionally, it was amazing how we were able to tweak this model for exam preparation in a meaningful way and build up from where the students were at! This allowed them to be so much more successful!
Finally, I’m used to differentiation by proficiency level, so this process was similar to the idea of structures I might use across transitioning, expanding and commanding level MLLs.
For students at an entering or emerging level, I would want to pre-teach vocabulary with pictures and possibly their home language before looking at a sentence up to a paragraph at a time. (I would pick and choose the most important lines to get the gist of the story.)
Alternatives, if your district allows, would be to focus on the same skill using a picture book. For example, you could use If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to practice cause and effect. The student could practice sequencing by sketching the events in the story that cause the next and labeling with one word. You could provide an infographic to teach about nutrients/vitamins in foods instead of a written passage.
SuperTeacherWorksheets (grade level reading materials)
Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading materials (grade 4)
My own creations!
Check out the Intentional TESOL podcast with Katie Leven
Experiences from the 2023 NYSTESOL Conference