Advice for New ELL Teachers

Embarking on a career as a first-time teacher of English language learners (ELLs) can be a daunting experience, especially in public K–12 schools, where the needs of ELLs can be diverse and complex. Navigating the intricacies of supporting students with varying language proficiency levels, cultural backgrounds, and individual learning needs can be overwhelming for the ELL specialist. 

I wished I had received guidance on how to effectively support my students and collaborate with colleagues to ensure their success when I started my journey as an ELL teacher. By sharing experiences and lessons learned, my aim here is to provide advice and insights that I would have found helpful when I began my career—focusing on strategies for supporting ELLs, communicating with classroom teachers, and maintaining a positive relationship with colleagues.

Where to start

Focus on trying to ensure that all ELLs have appropriate support to pass their classes (they’ll need to play their part in this with good attendance, participation, and effort). Try varying strategies to help your students succeed in as many classes as possible. 

Communicate with classroom teachers about the ELLs on their roster as much as your schedule allows—discuss what you, as the ELL specialist, can do to support ELLs you do not work with all day.

This may also include ensuring that teachers are equitable with grading. Flexible grading is often needed for newcomer English learners. For example, if they get a 40 percent on an assignment, but they put a lot of effort into it and worked on it mostly independently, the classroom teacher needs to consider pushing the grade up to at least a passing grade, as it just might decrease the chances of these students dropping out.

Scaffolding will vary based on language needs and on individual study skills. You may need to scaffold a lot. As the ELL specialist, you may consider sharing some scaffolding methods (specifically geared toward ELLs, like sentence starters or word walls) with your colleagues once you feel comfortable doing this. 

In addition, regarding study skills and study endurance, it is helpful to learn as much information as possible about the students’ prior school experience. What academic tasks did they work on in their school in their home country? How much homework did they have, and how often did they receive it and complete it? If you can’t get much information out of the student or guardians, you might ask other ELL specialists and research online about study behaviors of students from similar backgrounds.

Every school is different in terms of how they view the role of the ELL specialist or how much they value the ELL specialist. Your role at your new school may look different than the role you played during your student teaching placements.

Working with colleagues

It might be helpful to ask your co-teachers and administrators to specify what they see as the role the ELL specialist plays and how that looks in the classroom. Be open to listening to their ideas. You may not agree, but it can be very helpful to have this information and share ideas early on.

Do your best to maintain positive relationships with colleagues, including your administrators. You never know when you’ll need to go to them for support (which is directly related to the success of your students). This can include times when you need to request extra support, such as from a teacher’s assistant, after-school programming, etc. You want to feel comfortable communicating with them.

Typically, stand-alone English as a Second Language classes may not always focus just on English. These classes can be a combination of different options:  

• A resource class where students get support with homework for other classes
• A place to reinforce what students learned in content classes
• A place to reinforce what they learned in English language learning class

Students need time and support from an ELL specialist with all three of these. Additionally, a stand-alone ELL class can be a place for a social and emotional reprieve. 

Co-teaching may vary by district and by teacher. With some classes, you will be more involved in co-teaching that includes co-planning. But in some districts and classes, although your administrators may label classes as co-taught, you may not be involved in planning at all (push-in model). The latter is not always ideal, but it is the reality. It is especially difficult to avoid if the school has the ELL specialist’s schedule distributed between multiple grade levels and subject areas. 

Seek colleagues in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), both in and out of your district, whom you can communicate with for support. Attend optional professional development sessions in your district to meet new colleagues. Join regional, state, or national professional organizations. Attend conferences to network with others in the field. This may provide you with a well-rounded perspective of how varied the role of the ELL specialist can be and help you to cultivate an invaluable support system. 

It’s most important to remember that your role is to support students. I hope the above will help you to find a balance between this and your own well-being.