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English Learners & Science Resources
Start of the Bridge
At the start of the bridge standing bright and resilient students whom their only limitation is their lack of reading and speaking English. As an educator what will you do to give these students the tools to get through their challenges?There are many challenges for the children of immigrants only one we can focus on and feel empowered and empowering about!! How to teach them our curriculum with everyone's success as our result. Our vision for a successful year should include every single individual who passes through our classrooms.
My research shows that there are still thousands of English Learners who whether they drop out of high school or are falling through cracks. Throughout United States, teachers & professors alike have conducted studies that show us that equity in the classrooms has created a fundamental challenge for our educational system. (OECD, 2011) Furthermore, English learners are not dropping out because they don't see education as their only alternative to a better future, (Crandall & Sheppard, 2004)they are only suffering from limited knowledge of the English Language. What are being taught in their ESL classes are not sufficient to open doors for them in other classes appropriate to their age. (Youngs & Youngs, 2001) (Hirvela, 2006) There are remedial classes for such students prior to high school but only offered in handful of schools across the nations. There are many elements and factors that are valued by other researchers to spend months and years to discuss and offer resolutions for such challenges. This is a primary need of any student to know English appropriate to mainstream classroom needed in any content area. We are basically becoming desensitized to an ongoing ESL dilemma. Setting aside our differences and political favoritism, this can be resolved only when we focus on the need of any English Learner at any given time. (Benesch, 1993) My approach is to use technological advances in developing educational tools to bridge the language gap for ELL students only in Science classrooms. I was a secondary science teacher for 11 years and have vivid memories of these students’ track records. The ones who had the wit and the motivation to come forward and requested assistance, only ended up in my after school sessions, for couple of hours. I always wondered what happened to the ones who had the interest but had other obligation to the family or jobs to go to. I always wondered, if these students understood the content in their language, just like their peers, what would have been their experience in science. The time spent on learning a second language, the relevancy to other content in English classrooms can be essential. Two of us from Science and English department found that, collaborating efforts, to be an effective approach in assisting students achieve their excellence. Students would come to my Biology, I taught with Inquiry based approach; therefore I would be using their visual strengths in understanding the materials. ESL students would follow up with the English teacher to complete the assignments. English teacher would give them credit for her standard and I would give credit for the science part. The assessments as well as the teaching science core material were designed for ESL students with their needs in mind. |
How-To build the bridge
Using digital platform for Immigrant students in science classrooms to access their excellence by referring to this software for translation in the content area.
For example:In biology learning about Human Body, the software can assist them in their native language along with the English translation and pronunciation of the word and the translation of the body part they are learning about. 
Three of my favorite tools
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Lessons
First image shows body parts being taught in the middle school science classroom and second image shows organs in the body part of lessons in the high school science classroom.
An immigrant students regardless of gender most likely know these body parts in their language but face challenges when asked to say the word in English and describe each part in English. Same dilemma exist for ELL students in Science classroom covering genetics 
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End of the Bridge
WHAT'S NEXT!!
inThrough my study, I hope to reach those students who drop out of science due to their struggle with English. Students who are capable and have the incredible capacity to learn is for the ELL student or immigrant student who are in science classroom to be able to access his or her potential utilizing different tools.In many schools students have access to computers in classrooms, computer rooms, library or other similar facilities. This software is designed with the student's need, grade level and their science requirement for graduation and for moving on to college. By using the software called "BRIDGE" student will have to select in accord to his or her need ( The subject, their grade level & English grade which they were assessed for). Teachers will have to add in their curriculum, their lesson plans, Calendar, homework, etc...... English teacher will have to be able to access the program to assess student's progress. They are involved to intercept when student needs assistant with faced challenges. There is a inherited & integrated function built in to the program that would help students with translation, best use of word, grammatical mistakes, notification but not correction, auto spell check , etc......
Beauty is in the Triangulation and collaboration between teacher and student that make this different from others translation tools. BRIDGE will be geared toward science, therefore fluent in scientific words. The other difference is the capability of it to translate from any of the languages spoke in the district where the school is located. Possibilities are vast and depends on the school and students' needs.
Who is on this with me to take this to another level?
Beauty is in the Triangulation and collaboration between teacher and student that make this different from others translation tools. BRIDGE will be geared toward science, therefore fluent in scientific words. The other difference is the capability of it to translate from any of the languages spoke in the district where the school is located. Possibilities are vast and depends on the school and students' needs.
Who is on this with me to take this to another level?