Communicationg with your ELL parents

Patty Schuler · Post by **Patty Schuler** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 11:42 am

Are you easily able to communicate with your ELL parents? How do you accomplish this? As a teacher of adult ELLs I often bring to class lunch menus, report cards, school notices, study guides, etc. to "practice" reading and vocabulary. I am a substitute teacher in our district so I have access to these things. Any advice on making things easier for the parents to communicate with their child's teacher?

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 5:07 pm

It would be great if you were able to talk about the differences in school culture. Parents from another country often have different ideas of what "should" happen in school. Some parents think that there should be more homework. Some parents think that homework should be drill and kill type of work rather than projects which they don't understand. Some parents don't understand the use of groups to learn in school where the children are talking rather than the teacher. Some parents think that their education system is much further ahead than your education system and don't understand the breadth of things the children are taught in your education system. Some parents think that parent interviews are for the teacher to talk to tell you how their child is progressing and what areas they should emphasize at home rather than an opportunity for the ideas to go both ways. Some parents believe in corporal punishment and on and on. It would help the parents if they knew the kinds of teaching your school district promotes and what each kind of teaching brings out - labs, group learning, projects, and so on. It wouldn't hurt to provide them with some statistics from the UN about the quality of education in your area. it wouldn't hurt for them to experience some of their class taught in different ways so they could see that they can still learn from their peers, not just the teacher.

We have a lot of Asian parents who say that their children are not learning quicky enough and that there is not enough homework, that the children were using their own language during class and they wanted them to speak only English at school. We had a meeting to explain our program which uses a lot of group work including being able to use their own language. But the parents had never been to a presentation, some didn't understand the presentation and some couldn't understand it because they had never used such methods themselves. It took the bilingual tutors the parents had hied to really explain the education system to the parents. Since the tutors have done well in life and school, they were able to convince the parents that we had a good system even though it was different.

Our education system also encourages children to ask questions and stand up for themselves and this is not always a pattern of behaviour that is accepted in the home. It would help to talk about these issues as well, especially for teenagers.

There is a lot of research that if the parents talk to their children in their own language, read and tell stories from their own language and carry on their traditions and celebrations, that the children really benefit. We emphasized this as well so that they would do Asian things after school and on weekends. For most kids this turned out well but there are always a few that are struggling in English and sometimes in their own language as well and so need extra help.

1st.gr.teach · Post by **1st.gr.teach** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:11 am

In my school, most parents of ELLs speak very limited English. Something we found helpful is to have older ELLs who speak the same language come to parent-teacher conferences to translate between the teacher and the parent. Without a translator, I had one parent who said almost nothing until the end of the parent-teacher conference. I was explaining his son's progress but not sure if he was understanding anything. Finally, the father spoke and I realized that he understood a great portion of what I was saying.

wenrodriguez · Post by **wenrodriguez** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:30 am

Translating documents like report cards and school notices is helpful. Find someone in the school that can help you accomplish this. It willalso make parents more comfortable with you. Learning a few keys words of phrases about the subject matter that will be discussed can be helpful too. Parents will appreciate your effort. Also like someone said some parents can understand English much better that speaking it, so mind the speed of your speech. Goodluck.