Teaching English Learners with Ms. Jennifer LaChonce

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

students, language, bilingual teacher, teachers, esl, talking, learn, classroom, esl teacher, teaching, english, arabic, amy, experiences, stories, jennifer, bilingual, school, years, classes

SPEAKERS

Amy Vujaklija, Jennifer LaChonce, Joi Patterson

Jennifer LaChonce: 00:03

It's very important that students feel safe to speak when they know they're going to make mistakes in the language. They know they're not going to be laughed at. And they know that they can fumble through some of that language as they're learning and that they will be affirmed and encouraged.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:23

Welcome to our podcast teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joy. I am Dr. Amy Vujaklija, Director of educator preparation.

Joi Patterson: 00:34

And I am back to Joi Patterson chief diversity officer. Our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:49

So join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it.

Joi Patterson: 00:58

Hello, Amy

Amy Vujaklija: 01:00

Hello joy How are you today? I am great. And I'm excited about our conversation today. You know, Amy, I used to be a bilingual teacher. And a lot of people would always say, Oh, so you taught ESL? And I would say no, I was a bilingual teacher. So hopefully today some of our conversation will kind of let our audience know kind of what is the difference. But for me, you know, it was not only hard enough to teach middle grades, you remember those times? I remember I mean, I happen to teach science to eighth grade students, and I taught science in Spanish and in English. And you know, the reason that I had to teach science in Spanish is because they were learning English, so I was more about the content. I needed them to learn the science more than I needed them to learn the English that was left up to who the ESL teacher was one. Excellent. And it's really I just had a conversation today with one of our local districts. They're wanting to expand their programs, they want to have a cohort. We have the supports for our English learners to learn English. But what school districts are really needing right now are the bilingual teachers. Absolutely.

Joi Patterson: 02:35

And there's a strong need for both. So our conversation today is really going to help us understand what the needs are, and how do we work to fulfill those needs.

Amy Vujaklija: 02:48

Oh, yes. So let me introduce Jennifer la Sean's who is originally from Columbus, Ohio, and also has adopted Jordan as a second home. She completed her BA in Spanish math and teaching at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. She taught newcomers in Michigan for several years while completing her Master's in teaching at Aquinas College with a focus on bilingual education. She then moved to Amman, Jordan with her family and worked in K eight education there for over a decade after moving to the Chicagoland area in 2018. Her current role is as a middle school English language teacher in the South West Chicago suburbs to newcomers from the Middle East. She is also a doctoral candidate in the interdisciplinary Leadership program at Governor State University, and an ESL teaching methods instructor at Trinity Christian College, her doctoral work centers around her passions and I want to tap into this I want to talk more about this in our conversation today. Understanding ESL teachers researching el pedagogy, and developing teacher training methods that are trauma informed and meet the needs of students with refugee experiences. So welcome to our podcast, Jennifer Love Shawn's Miss Lois John's or May we say Jennifer please.

Joi Patterson: 04:27

I love the last name. They'll say your last name again Jennifer. Machines was Shawn. Is it French?

Jennifer LaChonce: 04:35

It is it is French and background though I don't speak French.

Joi Patterson: 04:39

And one of the languages that you belt speak right. You know, before you came on, Jennifer, Amy and I were talking about well first shout out to all middle grades teachers. You know, just shout out to all of them. Because we have to be special today. take that on both Amy and I started our teaching careers as middle school students, but I wouldn't have had it any different. You know, I love that age group, so many blessings to you for tackling middle grade students, but it sounds like you are living your best life, taking all the gifts that you have, and you have shared them with the world, literally. And you're continuing to do so. So I just want to talk to you tell us a little bit more about your journey to becoming an ESL teacher, because that's how I started teaching. I started teaching that as an ESL teacher, but a bilingual teacher. And so Amy, and I will dissect that song while we're talking between an ESL teacher and a bilingual teacher. But I was crazy enough to teach eighth grade science to non speaking, English students, you know, and that was hard enough, you know, so what's hard are teaching the science or, you know, teaching it in another language. So quite challenging when we start talking about El responsibilities and bilingual teacher responsibility, but tell us about your journey to becoming an ESL teacher.

Jennifer LaChonce: 06:12

Sure. Well, I didn't start out college thinking I was going to be a teacher, I actually started out in engineering, and had loved math and sciences. So it is quite the journey. And as I got into some of my engineering classes, I was really realizing how much I missed some of my summer jobs in high school, I had worked in an after school program and in a daycare program during the summers and worked in different camps, and had just really reflected on the number of teachers that invested in me, and my life. And I thought, I don't know if engineering is really the right fit. For me, I love being in the classroom, I love being with children in and supporting them as they grow and develop, I switched gears and took some some education classes. And that really resonated with me, I thought I was going to do math and science actually. And I was taking some Spanish classes just as kind of your core requirements to take some language. And I thought it'd be really neat to study abroad for a semester. So I signed up to study in the Dominican Republic and spent a semester there with a group from my, from my college and students from from other colleges all over the United States. And so we were part of a cohort there. And one of my classes was an ESL methods class. So that really changed everything. For me, I was living with a host family, learning the Spanish language, traveling around the country, and learning about what it could look like to be an ESL teacher. And when I got back to my regular campus, I knew that was the direction I wanted to take. So from there, I had had a great relationship with my college roommate, but we decided to request a third roommate and move into a triple room the next year. And we just figured we'd get a Spanish speaker as a roommate. And I got a wonderful student who's still a good friend of mine now from Palestine. And at first I thought, Oh, wow, what what language do they speak there? What's What's the culture like and living and growing and learning with the fuzzier about the Middle East and about some of the different political situations, their cultural issues, things that had formed her in her life really grew my my love for that area, and really compelled me to, to move not just from learning Spanish, but that was a really fun language to learn, why not learn Arabic. So it's really kind of wild. I so my first job was teaching ESL, but most of my students were Spanish speakers. And then after a few years, I actually moved to the country of Jordan and started learning learning Arabic there. I mostly taught in a third grade classroom for a while and a fourth grade classroom for a while. They were very excited to have a native English speaker there. So it was more of a bilingual setup and that sense where I was doing some of the English classes and then the Jordanian teacher was doing some of the Arabic classes. And we did sort of some co teaching or kind of taking turns on different portions of the classroom instruction. So that was sort of my my beginning into El teaching. And then as we were living in Jordan, because we were there for over a decade, there was a huge number of Iraqi refugees early on. And then later on in our years there we had around a million refugees from Syria move into the country. So my my heart really grew for for these students that had suffered through war and civil unrest and just incredible difference qualities and, and come over to Jordan and we're seeking to establish a new life and wanted to stay involved with that. So when we move back to the states, that's what I kind of looked around in the area where we found ourself in Chicagoland and said, All right, where can I really best support students that have had some of these refugee type experiences Arabic speakers. And that's where I found myself in middle school.

Joi Patterson: 10:28

Very good, because we know it's more than just about language, right? And Amy and I both know, you know, you get yourself into these immersion experiences. And those are the best experiences to just open us up, as we learn more and more about each other. So we've been using like, ESL, ESL, you know, bilingual, all of these things. So before we go too far, and get deeper into these questions, I want to talk about, let's define some of these furs before we're. So let's define El, el formally E L L, kind of you know, how it's trending, and what is now and what students are considered El. I also want to discuss you know that Amy and I were discussing this a little bit earlier, in my situation of being a bilingual teacher, kind of that difference between being an ESL teacher and a bilingual teacher. So let's just talk about some of the definitions because we continue to say this, and not know what we're talking about. And

Jennifer LaChonce: 11:30

I've done a little bit of, of all of them. In back, when I started my Teacher Training, we call it ESL, it was English as a second language. But for many of our students, it's not necessarily their second language, it might be their third or fourth language. And it can also kind of think about a deficit that student has students have. So we we tend to use English learner for ESL, or ELL was English language learner. But with the English learner, you you kind of have a succinct acronym that, that focuses on what students are achieving. And so I think that's really a big part of that is, is there students that are proficient and one are far more other languages, but they are, they're in that process of, of also gaining their their English language proficiency. You will also hear the term emergent bilingual EB a few times you'll you'll hear that as well. And that's, that's a good one that also focuses on what students are achieving and what they're growing towards. The only tricky thing with that is, again, if they do speak, other languages, they might not be bilingual. They could be trilingual, or other things. But I do like about the ESL and the EB as far as acronyms to use for these students, because it does focus on on their strengths.

Amy Vujaklija: 12:50

Could you say more about the difference between El or ESL? And what a bilingual teacher, would you? What would you say is that distinguishing those distinguishing characteristics?

Jennifer LaChonce: 13:06

Sure. In the ESL classroom, where I'm working right now, our goal is really to build up English language proficiency. And our students come from multiple language settings. So the majority of my students are Arabic speakers, and I do speak Arabic. But I'm not teaching them reading and writing skills in Arabic, I'm focusing on the skills they need to succeed in English. I may use some Arabic at different times, just as part of their transition to becoming proficient. Some of those things are more in just having conversations as we get to know each other and to encourage them, help them learn things about about culture, or how to navigate the bell schedule, the middle school, those sorts of things. But our academic teaching, we're really working on English language proficiency. I did work in one of the schools in Georgia and I'd mentioned was kind of a very much a bilingual setup where I gave English classes and I spoken English the entire time. And then I had a co teacher who was Jordanian, and she always spoken Arabic, and always taught Arabic language. So we had our language classes for reading and writing. But then they would take social studies part of the time in English and take social studies part of the time in Arabic. And the goal was really that they would develop full academic proficiency in both languages. So that would be kind of a fully bilingual program. Here in the States, you do find that quite a bit, especially with Spanish and English as the two languages and kind of a dual language program. That's not as common. I haven't encountered it really with with Arabic, and a bilingual program where the full goal would be reading and writing proficiency in both languages. But that kind of setup is what that could look for. What another thing that we do in English And when we code things will work in the public schools, as we'll talk about our Transitional Bilingual Education. So we are using Arabic because it's their second language as we transition them into English fluency. So I may use some Arabic language, when it comes to terminology or concepts, some of those deeper higher level concepts that students are able to access and understand in their first language as they build English language proficiency. So what that would look like if you're talking about a seventh grader that comes in, and that student has had schooling in their first language, lips, we're just using Arabic as the example. So they have all that content language. Well, I'm as a seventh grader, I'm not going to just teach them how to speak read, write, listen, and English, I also want them to continue learning content in math and science and social studies, until they're ready to take that on an English. So I can use some content translation, some concepts, those sorts of things in their first language as they're part of that transitional program. So I kind of say that the TBE, the Transitional Bilingual Education would be kind of in between just a full English immersion program to a dual language program.

Amy Vujaklija: 16:20

That makes things so much clearer for our listeners, and you make a good point about students who might have a rich vocabulary in their native language, when they might have difficulty in the content area, maybe it's science, in in using the English language. But it's not that they have a gap in knowledge or have any kind of learning disability, it is literally the language. And so if they can have a hook in their home native language, as they learn content, and the English language at the same time, it's they can really benefit their progress, academic progress.

Jennifer LaChonce: 17:12

Exactly.

Amy Vujaklija: 17:15

Now, you are a candidate in our interdisciplinary leadership program, with a focus in higher education administration, and you've already completed the coursework. So mentioned in your bio, that your passion is understanding ESL teachers, researching alle pedagogy, developing teacher training methods that are trauma informed in the needs of students with refugee experiences. Where do you think your direction is headed? As you start the research? And I'm fascinating, I will just have to say that I'm fascinated myself with what it looks like to develop the training methods that are trauma informed when you layer that with refugee experiences,

Jennifer LaChonce: 18:08

right? Yes, now you're getting to the heart of what gets me going and gets me excited. I've found a number of times as classroom teachers, we go to professional development seminars, and someone who has probably been away from the classroom for a decade or more is sort of talking at us, and telling us, this is what you ought to be doing in the classroom. And this is why you're doing things wrong, or we've got this new method that's going to fix everything for you. And that can be really, really discouraging, even if they have great ideas to share. If we're were talked down to, we're not going to hear it well, we're not going to receive what those experts are sharing with us. So I really want to understand better what the lived experience is for our teachers in the classroom, and get at the heart of where they are and what kind of tools and strategies they want. And also draw out some of their strengths and some of the ways that they have gained expertise through their experiences, and be able to use those to prepare new teachers that are in their their early years in the classroom. It can be really easy to get discouraged. We've We've been through a lot as teachers, especially through these pandemic years and through different political things going back and forth and headlines and all of that and we know not as many teachers, not as many people are joining the profession. More teachers are trying out other careers and we don't have enough people coming into education. So I want to be someone that is bringing encouragement and excitement into the profession and really relying on the story. rinks that that our teachers bring in. And a lot of that does come down to the relationships that we have with our students. And I would say one of those pivotal things about working with the middle grades, which I really love doing is relationship is so key to you're working with them, they're not going to complete an activity or participate in a classroom if they don't think their teacher really cares about them and is really invested in and who they are and who they're becoming. So in the ESL classroom, and this is true of all classrooms, but in the ELT classroom, our students have been through a number of types of trauma, and really getting to deeper relationships with these students understanding more of their experiences, and having the tools and strategies to listen to them to care for them to, to give them ways to become more resilient and more successful in their new country, is just massive. So that's really what gets me going.

Joi Patterson: 21:03

You know, I liked the fact that you said encouragement, I was kind of laughing to myself, when you talk about, you have these professional development companies to come in, and they tell you what you're doing wrong, or here's something new that's going to help you, which doesn't sound encouraging at all, like, Okay, I've been spending all these years just spinning my wheels. We know that the best way to recruit and to retain teachers is through other teachers that have great experiences. Our students, teaching is the only profession that our students get to see every day all day. So they get to look at USA, or yes, you know, like I don't. And so we have a responsibility. So thank you for saying that I just didn't want to go on without mentioning that. So I wanted to give some numbers for this next questions. There are about 250, over 250,000 ELL students enrolled in Illinois schools. That's a lot. Our largest school district, of course, is CPS, Chicago Public School, where there's over 70,000 of the students there. And there are 158 languages that are recognized for ESL. And so that's a lot of language. So when we start talking about the need, and the preparation for ESL teachers, and bilingual teachers, I mean, first we have the fact of the language, which you just talked about, so we have the language. And then when you also bring in culture, and you bring in abilities, and sometimes you bring in trauma, can you talk more about the need, those are the number of people we need teachers we need, but talk more about the preparation, because this helps us as well, that's needed for ESL teachers and bilingual teachers, because when I became a bilingual teacher, trust me, I had no idea of what I was getting into, you know, I had 40 students, 40, non English speaking students. And at the time that I was in the classroom, they were kind of ranked like a through g based on how much English they knew. Sure. And I had a through g in my, in my science classroom. And here's a book, here's the curriculum, have fun. And so that was that was my introduction to 40, non English speaking students. So tell us really, in terms of the need, and in best practices, the preparation?

Jennifer LaChonce: 23:51

Oh, that's, that's a big question.

Joi Patterson: 23:54

I know. But you get to be, you get to be as opinionated as you want to be. Jennifer, this is your show. I

Jennifer LaChonce: 24:02

would say one way I start my day is with what I would call community time. And you know, sometimes in the elementary schools, they would call it morning meetings. But I think with our with our older students, it makes more sense to have kind of that community time where we really get to practice sharing our stories and listening to each other, and building some of that, that safety, and that trust in that relationship. And we can grow in vocabulary, and in just language skills through that time. So before you try to get to the standards that you need to teach the content that you need to teach, if we aren't working together in community, that's going to fall apart anyway. I've heard different people say sometimes you have to slow down in order to speed up. And so that it's it's kind of slowing down. You're not trying to march through these curriculum standards or work towards whatever assessment is coming next. spit kind of slowing down early on to build and establish kind of those norms, it's very important that students feel safe to speak, when they know they're going to make mistakes in the language. They know they're not going to be laughed at. And they know that they can fumble through some of that language as they're learning, and that they will be affirmed and encouraged in that process. So I think that's, that's a big part of it. We also have an incredible wealth through technology to communicate with each other. And I'm really excited about that we have through just, you know, using Google Images, for example, if you want to explain what a word is, you can pop up images very quickly and have students kind of latch on to what a word might mean, or what a word does it mean, through pictures. And I like starting out with a lot of pictures, because they can then connect that picture to the words that you're teaching, and not immediately go to translate. So then kind of after that we do we do use translate, the different apps that are out there for translating material can make things move really quickly and allow people from different languages to build some connections and some some friendships early on. So I'm not afraid to to use translate, as it gets, gets people excited about learning and get some some concepts of what's going to be happening in the classroom. And then you, you have to be able to kind of pull back from that over time, so that you can focus on that English language proficiency. So that's some of that trick that takes the expertise of the teacher to work through that. So establishing the community allowing various languages to be spoken, allowing some translation of things to happen, and then kind of nudging them through that process to they grow more confident in using the English language. Another kind of tool that I really like is called the Fair model for vocabulary. And you can find many different iterations of this online. But what it helps to do is to figure out, not just like this word means this word in a new language because there aren't, for most words, there's just not direct translations of this means this. Instead, you can figure out a word has things that are related to the word things that are synonyms of the word antonyms of the word pictures of the word, ways that you would use that word in a context that I think could be really helpful. The simple example would be the word for shirts in Arabic and the word for shirts in English, because we have t shirts, and we have blouses, and we have dress shirts. And you might think like an Arabic there's the word blusa, which sounds like blouse, but it's actually used more for the t shirt, and the word kameez, which is connected to the Spanish word Cammisa for sure, that one is really more of your button down dress shirt. So when you're doing things with vocabulary, you want to use images, you want to use what the word does refer to what it doesn't refer to, to learn a lot more about how language gets put together. So that's kind of just a simple example of that.

Amy Vujaklija: 28:29

I want to extend a little bit, you said the word safety is about students fearing making a mistake. Let's all be honest. With middle grade, you make a mistake, and you don't want to feel stupid, you don't want to have people looking at you don't want anybody laughing. And so building that community in that safety and community is so very important. But I feel like there's another level of safety here that we haven't really talked a whole lot about yet. That is in reference to the experiences that many refugee or migrant children may have had. Could you speak a little bit about that? Because I think that just having an awareness would really open up and shift a lot of people's teaching methods, just with a simple explanation.

Jennifer LaChonce: 29:31

Absolutely. I'll start with with a story and how that kind of opened my eyes to better understand trauma. And this was after I'd been working with students with refugee experiences for actually a number of years. And when it happened, I was like, oh my goodness, why did I not think of this sooner? So we often set separate kids into small groups to do different different work or to work at different stations in the classroom. And then when it's time to switch groups, or come back together as a whole class, I would set a timer on my iPad and it would ring a tone. And that's a normal thing that we do in the classroom. And the tone, I found out, actually sounded very similar to an air raid siren. And this was not until we were a couple months into the school year. And finally one of the students kind of looked at me and I noticed they didn't transition well, they would get really active, keep talking didn't seem to respond to what was happening when it was time to come back as a whole group or whatnot. And she finally told me, she's like, you know, that sound, every time I hear that sound, I get scared, because it sounds just like the air rates back in Yemen. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, what I'm trying to do as as a happy signal to let's get back to a new part of class is actually causing some trauma, trauma memories, or PTSD, or what you want to call it like she was, she was fearful. And it was putting her in that kind of freeze or flight or fight mode, because she would hear that sound. And, you know, very quickly, I thought, Oh, my goodness, let's, let's change the sound right away. And so it's pretty easy to do, you can go through and I could could ask, okay, which which sound on here is a peaceful one for you, which is one that would make sense for you that would help you feel good in the classroom so that we could switch to a new group and, and transition smoothly. And I let her choose what she liked. And that's just something very small. And it took me creating that safe place in the school, so that she felt comfortable telling me what was going on. And I wish that I had known it sooner. But it does really highlight how we might think as teachers, that we're doing all the right things. And we might get frustrated by behavior and say this is a really negative behavior, the student isn't paying attention, the student seems to be distracted. When I when I asked for something. And we we don't actually have no idea that that a small thing that we've done is is triggering something that happened in their past. And that's why they're ignoring or that's why they are turning around and not looking at me or they're getting distracted with something else is that there's something else going on in their lives that we have no idea about. So I think we can assume a negative intention from students like oh, they're, they're just being naughty, or they don't really like being here, or they don't want to learn. And actually, students do want to learn, they're survivors. But we're not aware of what else has gone on in their lives. And it can just it takes that relationship and that time and that awareness to build that and it really takes I guess I would say we need to believe the positive in our students and and assume that they do want to learn they do want to be there. And and drawing that out, instead of assuming a negative.

Amy Vujaklija: 33:17

Yes, when you say air raid siren, it kind of makes me want to make comparisons to the ACES the scale for adverse childhood experiences. If we know something about where the children come from, or what circumstances in which they have entered the country, it would probably provide us with some insights or assumption of positive intentions, a generous spirit and more connection to our students as well.

Jennifer LaChonce: 33:56

Having worked with different students from various countries for 20 years now, I've revelant students sharing some of their stories with me. And I would say that just about every ELL student that we have in our schools, they have been through some type of trauma, just moving from one culture to another culture, from one language to another culture is a shock. We call it culture shock. But the reasons that many of our students are coming to the United States is because the places where they've been are no longer safe places for them to learn. So whether they they come here with a refugee visa, because they have they've fled their country and gone to a United Nations refugee camp and then been through that years long process of applying to come over as a refugee, or their families have saved up their money and been able to get their immigrant visa card to come over here for a better economic opportunity a better schooling opportunity for Their families are whether they've come seeking asylum because the gangs or the drug trade or level of the violence that that students are experiencing in their home countries have meant that survival means you need to cross the border and get somewhere safe. Any of those situations, these are students that have been through all sorts of trauma through leaving in the middle of the night through interrupted schooling, not knowing where the next meal is coming from not knowing where they're going to sleep next, and having to think on their feet and survive as a family to make a new life in a new place.

Joi Patterson: 35:39

This is so important that you bring this up, because it's important as teachers that we understand that we are teaching people, we're not just teaching content. We're teaching people first. And it's a matter of meeting all of those needs before that readiness to learn, right? Otherwise, teaching becomes very, very frustrating to us when we don't understand why students are not responding. You know, because then what's the point of what's the point of teaching them? You know, I remember, my issue were more of food insecurities. My students were bused into a school, they were coming from one neighborhood into another neighborhood and bus and oftentimes missing the free breakfast program. Or the parents didn't fill out the paperwork to get free breakfast, because information that they didn't want to share with the school and therefore they didn't qualify for. So on my little salary, I will get big boxes of Cheerios, I kept talking to Amy about that all the time. And that's what I would give them because that was one little thing that I could do to help with a readiness to learn. It might be that there were some food insecurities. And you're talking about, I mean, food is a big thing. You're talking about some other things that's pretty high on Maslow's list, you know, we need nourishment, right. And then also we need safety, right? And so you talk about some of those, what you perceive is very safe, they may not perceive as safe. It's really getting to know the whole person before you treat them. Right. And it's a relationship is not just information exchange this relationship. I know we're finishing up here, but can you give us some strategies share with some prospective, and some current ESL teachers, some strategies? Sure.

Jennifer LaChonce: 37:48

I guess I'm thinking about my favorite books that I love to read that I love to read as a little girl and that I enjoy reading now. I love reading narrative, fiction, historical fiction, or dystopian world fiction, I love the stories where you have a character who has faced adversity and, and overcomes. So one of the stories that I I've read with my students before was called the breadwinner. And it goes through a student in a child in Afghanistan and the time of the war and what what that child goes through to survive. Another story that my, my sixth graders really loved was actually Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. And again, you you have this, this little boy whose family is starving, and he wins the golden ticket and perseveres through the adventure in the Chocolate Factory. I've done just a lot with narratives. And there are some phenomenal, short stories out there. And there are some longer novels that really give the students some kind of places to look at their life and the life of this character. And say, Well, this child in this story had these adverse experiences and they overcame and you know, who were the helpers in that? Was there a teacher was there a counselor was there. an animal's sometimes it's talking animals, different things that go on in, in their lives that help them make it through that story. And we love narrative stories, because we want that that satisfying ending, I think that can be a really great way is just to teach good stories and to build that love of literature and learn to identify with characters. And then moving on from that you want to move the students into a place where they can start to write their own stories.

Joi Patterson: 39:42

I like that. I like that.

Jennifer LaChonce: 39:46

So yeah, using some of those models of really good storytelling, with strong characters that work through adversity, that learn some of those tools themselves and learn to look for the helper and look for who in their life can can help them To overcome, and then and build in the skills that they need to share from their own stories. That's

Amy Vujaklija: 40:06

fantastic. And as an English teacher, I can certainly appreciate you wanting to use narrative to teach. I want to say that our lived experiences are probably the best teachers. But if we could bottle up some of your experiences as an ESL or bilingual teacher, how could we improve educator preparation programs? What would you say you wish you knew, then that perhaps could be implemented into preparation for ELL teachers.

Jennifer LaChonce: 40:44

If I think back to the college years, you know, that kind of Pebble age when you're taking your courses. One thing I would suggest spending time with people that don't come from your own background, I used to sit at the International Table because I had this international student as a roommate. And that's how you know, the school cafeteria. Even in the college campus, there were people would would sit in different cliques. And so it's going and building friendships with new people. And international students are often there in their own culture shock and their own stages of learning what it's like to be an American college student, spend time with them, and ask good questions. And just teaching yourself to be willing to consider the stories of other people. So I think that could be a big part of it. And in in those internship places, with your cooperating teachers, I think there's some phenomenal opportunities there to really learn and really grow. And so to take advantage of those times and make sure that your placements are in diverse classrooms, I think that's something I've appreciated being at Governor state myself in in the doctoral program is that the professors that I have come from some very different backgrounds and myself, and the amount that I have learned from their experiences has been enormous for me. So yeah, I would say being intentional about building relationships with others that are different and asking good questions and being a good listener.

Joi Patterson: 42:21

Very good. I like so, Amy, at Governor State University, we have several programs, right. We have an ESL certificate program, undergraduate ESL endorsement programs, and we also have bilingual endorsement tell us some of the things that we're doing at Governor State University, and what are you seeing as needs and partnerships.

Amy Vujaklija: 42:47

I want to return to what I said earlier, regarding a meeting with local school districts. I know that one of our local school districts pre pandemic had approximately 150 ESL students. Well, currently, the same school district has about 240. And the need is exponentially increased for bilingual teachers. So I want to focus on our certificate in bilingual English as a second language education. It's a postback endorsement, which means you're coming back after obtaining a Professional Educator License. And there are 18 semester hours of credit for ESL, and I think that speaking to what you said, Jennifer, about being intentional, there are 100 clock hours of teaching experience or in a bilingual setting there are required for all the coursework. Three additional semester hours can be taken to achieve the bilingual endorsement, as well as taking the language proficiency. And we're even working with school districts building cohorts, and to assist with that language proficiency. And I want to put in a plug for our School of extended learning. We have an English language learning center for international students. And there's a part time English learning program for community members and visitors to help improve their academic or professional English skills. So JC wants to be the hub, the community resource for not just our local schools, but for the community as well. So just a couple of little plugs in I'm just so excited, so happy that you're in our doctoral program, and that you are doing this research this work that This is phenomenal. Can't wait to bring you back and talk about what your findings were and how your capstone turned out. And to talk more to us about it, I'm pretty

Jennifer LaChonce: 45:14

excited to do it's it's gonna be a wonderful year.

Joi Patterson: 45:16

It is you've done some wonderful things. You've given us a lot of information, and it's not textbook information. Right, right. Yeah, it's not it really comes from the heart. And I think that that's where teaching starts hard first, head second. So I really, really appreciate your perspective has been very helpful. Thank you.

Amy Vujaklija: 45:39

Yes, thank you for being with us. I can't wait to have another conversation. So listeners know what, Jennifer Beck.

Jennifer LaChonce: 45:49

Thank you so much.

Amy Vujaklija: 45:52

Thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi. Visit our website at govst.edu/teaching and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode.

Joi Patterson: 46:09

We appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi