May 06 2020 29 mins
Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to create positive relationships with students and families in a kindergarten class for English Language Learners. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Mandy Yom of Skokie, Illinois.
In this episode we discuss:
- A game to put yourself in the shoes of an English Language Learner (ELL)
- How a sheltered ELL kindergarten program works
- How students are selected into the program in Illinois
- Mandy’s path to teaching
- Building relationships with ELL families
- Learning the value of boundaries
- Striving to find ways to include data-driven feedback into her practice
- Needing to adapt the kindergarten curriculum for ELLs
- The various challenges of distance learning
- Non-traditional ways of communicating with families
- Her ideal school: getting families truly involved