Tiffany Dewalt

2/19/2015
LM 6

You are an Assistant Principal in charge of Special Education on your

school campus. You have an increasing number of Central American
immigrant students enrolling in your school.
Most of these
students are in the Early production stage of second language
acquisition. This means that he has limited comprehension,
produces one or two word responses, and uses present tense verbs.
Your Principal, knowing your positive nature and desire to
diff erentiate instruction, has asked you to conduct an after school
professional development activity for your schools teachers to
better meet the instructional needs of your schools Central
American immigrants. Your job is to help ensure that all your
students are able to access the schools curriculum.
What three strategies, from the list of 20 strategies provided on the
above attachment are you most likely to focus on in your
professional development activity? Please justify each of your
selections.

When developing my professional development to assist teachers on teaching strategies

for students who are limited in English, I want the training to be meaningful to all staff members.
Therefore, a few weeks before my professional development, I will send a mandatory survey to
the staff members. The survey will investigate the known languages of my school staff members.
Then, I will contact the translation department to find an available person that speaks a language
not listed by the campus teachers to collaborate with me in developing a simple lesson using the
foreign language.
At the professional development, I will have the translator talk to the teachers in the
unfamiliar language to catch the teachers attention. Then, I would have the translator to speak
again with pictures. Last, I would have the teachers discuss the feelings that they had with the
visuals and without. My goal would be to get teachers to truly feel how a student who is ESL

Tiffany Dewalt
2/19/2015
LM 6

feels in the classroom. Once that personal link is developed amongst the teachers I would
introduce my three strategies that I think will benefit the student at our campus.
The three strategies that I would focus on in the professional development are using
visual aids, providing sufficient wait time and providing instruction with ample repetition of
language.
Comment 1
Using visual aids are important because students need visual cues that can assist with
clarify the meaning. Visual cues also allow the students to see an image of what the teacher is
describing. Tomlinson stated when assisting students who speaks a primary language other than
English to have a strong support system for translating. (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 91). The pictures
will assist the student with mental and visual processing. Also, the visuals can be used frequently
by the student during independent practice. When using concrete objects and visual aids, they
will have an avenue to develop background knowledge.
Comment 2
The second strategy I would focus on is allowing sufficient wait time for the student to
respond. Student who are English language learners need additional time to formulate their
answers in English. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that the time needed may
fluctuate between each student. They will need time to translate their first language into the
appropriate English word. (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 91).
Comment 3
Providing ample repetition of language will help the students develop core language.
There are many ways to include repetition of language in the classroom. The use of IPads and
laptops are becoming more frequently used in the classrooms. Think about putting directions on

Tiffany Dewalt
2/19/2015
LM 6

audio or video tape so students can revisit explanations as needed (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 90). The
students are struggling to keep up with the teachers assignment and needs a lot of repetition to
understand and process the information that is given. The use of these devices can easily be
adapted to assist ESL learners. The voice recorder would allow the student to listen to
recordings when needed at their own pace to access the information.

References
Glencoe Online, 2005, Teaching Limited English Proficiency Students. New York, New York:
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/24
Imbeau, M. B., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2010). Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom.
ASCD.
Tomlinson, C.A. (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-ability Classroom (2nd Ed.).
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.