Standard 4.b is from my graduate class ESC 727 at Lehman College. The purpose of this assignment was for us to do a child study on one of our current student. The project asked that we gathered pertinent information about the student in regards to their ELL status, their family background, how the school’s overall snapshot informs how I teach this current student, how it influences their behavior towards school, and learning a new language; and how do I use this information to guide my teaching.
The artifact addresses if I am able “to use a variety of standards-based language proficiency instrument to show language growth and to inform my instruction.” Furthermore, it informs if I am familiar with national and state requirements, procedures, and instruments for ELL identification, reclassification, and exit from language support programs.
In this particular child study I had to cover three major categories. These included, gathering information about the learner, collecting data about social and academic language proficiency, and analyzing the data that I have collected about the student. In the first category, I gathered information about the student L2, their background in terms of family, the impact of the school on the student in order to inform my pedagogy. Taking into consideration the student’s social background it aided in what services I provided for the student, and helped me to tailor my assessment to fit the student’s need.
Overall, this artifact did help me to better service this child academically, however, the student was impacted by other social constraints which created a lot of student-teacher set-backs. On the other hand, I think that assessing our students, and finding out directly from them what how they learn, and meeting them halfway is beneficial to both the teacher, and the students. Whereas, this artifact serves as a guide on how I can cater to all the needs of my students in order to prepare them for college and career.
