Aileen Moore

EDUC 359

November 13, 2017

Classroom Observation

When I was an elementary school student, students who needed ELL instruction, known as

ESL students went to a separate classroom for part of the day. In this class, they had a different

ESL teacher and overall school experience. In my current and previous placements, I have not

seen many ELL students in the classroom. There is one student in my current placement at

Evergreen Elementary who receives ELL assistance in the morning.

This student is only in my classroom during the morning work period and returns in the

afternoon. In the morning, he has a one on one assistant work with him in the back of the

classroom on new words and phonics. This students is also developmentally behind others in the

class as he works on many of the words that they would have learned in first or second grade.

The class that I am in actually has several modifications, including ones I have never observed

before.

My fourth grade class is working on a co-teaching model for both mathematics and ELA

instruction. My classroom teacher Mrs. Henneforth balances both subjects with the special

education teacher Ms. Lowe. There are also two students in the class who have paraprofessionals

sit with them during the lesson. The original ELL student I observed is not present during this co-

teaching part of the day, and I have not yet observed in the afternoon to see if they are present for

math. Evergreen Elementary, from what I have observed, has many inclusion programs and
paraprofessionals to assist special needs students as well as ELL students. I have not seen much

small group instruction in this classroom only one or two times during ELA and Social Studies. I

believe this could be due to the fact that multiple students need extra instruction in my

classroom.

The materials I have noticed with the student I observed is specific worksheets that the

paraprofessional works on with him in the back of the classroom. I have not had the opportunity

to view what these worksheets contain up until this point. I would say that the classroom

environment works well for this student to be included in the full class, however I do not know

what their involvement is in the class as a whole during recess, lunch, specials, or the afternoon

period. Since this student also has special needs, I believe their level of comfort is defined a

little differently than that of many ELL students. My classroom has a very unique dynamic, and

it is unlike any other classroom that I have heard of before. That being said, I think the classroom

teacher is doing her due diligence to make sure that every student is thriving in this environment,

despite the various outside factors which change the classroom dynamic.