it's a Wednesday morning at Mason Crest
elementary school in Annandale Virginia
you won't find the fifth grade teachers
in front of their students though they
are at their weekly science planning
meeting preparing a lesson on the
difference between vascular and
nonvascular plants today's lesson was
created by teacher Andrew Pratt a lot of
the lesson is really unpacking the
vocabulary word vascular but then going
a little bit deeper you know what
exactly does that mean how are they
using their vascular tissue nearly half
of the students that basic the rest are
English language learners or ELLS all of
the fifth grade teachers have ELL's in
their classroom so an important part of
today's meeting will be making sure that
the ELL
's will be able to participate
fully in the lesson looking at the
lesson from an ELL point of view is
Katie Padilla a specialist in teaching
English to speakers of other languages
or ESOL she attends all fifth grade
team meetings so I tend to look at it
from the eyes of an English language
learner so I try to look for the things
that would be confusing or the things
that aren't as obvious and that would
need some kind of support and then I
suggest changes miss Padilla wants to
make sure that ELL's will be engaged
from the beginning of the lesson she has
a small change that will make a big
difference the vocab word that we're
gonna be focusing on today vascular
where have you heard this word before
what does this word mean to you I would
almost art the question have you heard
this word before because some have not
so if we change the question to just
have you ever seen the word vascular
well then it's safe because some people
might say yes it's okay if I answer that
question no because it's just a yes or
no question if the first question
automatically counts me out then I'm not
going to be as engaged in the lesson
Katie brings so many good ideas and
she's constantly serving as an advocate
for our English learners she will sit
there and she'll say you know I don't
know if this assessment is really
appropriate let's try an alternative
assessment for them or she'll say you
need to back up a little bit provide
them with some more background knowledge
and then you
can move forward at the piece you would
like to the role the ESOL teacher is to
help build the the knowledge and in the
confidence in our classroom teachers and
the whole the entire staff in the
schools that they have the strategies
the tools in their pocket to be able to
support English learners throughout the
day next Ms Padilla looks for ways to
tie the content of the lesson the
difference between vascular and
nonvascular plants to students
background knowledge and experiences she
will be pre teaching some concepts and
vocabulary words to a small group of
students at lunchtime and shares her
ideas with the group another one that
our pre teaching group is gonna see
today is straw like thinking of a straw
as a tube that they see every day so
that they can make the connections like
what does a straw do we're talking about
the stem for the when we're creating our
diagram I'd students say what this is
like a straw you know transporting water
from the roots to the leaves and the
flower is the connection they used in
fourth grade they told me yesterday the
4th grade teacher sent a straw for the
stem sometimes it's just that fresh pair
of eyes who looks at something and says
oh I think we could change this and make
it better
and so I'm kind of that voice to say oh
I think there's another way we can do
this and that doesn't always mean that
that's the idea that's taken but it's
another idea that's presented that they
can consider as we develop the lessons
she's there to give us those best
practices that we can use for our
language learners so that every single
person on the team is providing those
bridging services that allow them to
access their curriculum what's nice is
those strategies also work well for the
entire classroom she's able to offer
certain strategies do professional
development within that meeting it
doesn't have to take take place
somewhere distinct and separate or
outside of the building so that's why
those planning meetings are so important
because when we're sitting at the table
together she can share it as we're
developing the lesson reflecting on it
and tweaking it so that we can best
modify it to support the needs of all of
our language language learners because
we have
English Language Learners in all four classrooms
thanks to a commitment to collaboration
embedded at Mason Crest in all areas of
instruction and professional development
every teacher can contribute and support
ELLS not just specialists like Ms Padilla
but it really helps her students because
when they see us collaborating and they
see both teachers teaching these lessons
they're not looking at the ESOL teacher
like she's coming in to support just two
friends she's in to really support all
of them this collaborative model
highlights a key belief it may suppress
ELL's are everyone's kids
our philosophy is a collective
responsibility English language learners
belong to all of us every teacher
belongs to every child in this school so
when we look at a student it's not your
student or my student these are all of
our students
this video production was made possible
by the national education association
