Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi there.
I teach in a school district with primarily Hmong students. They aren't refugees, all of them have been born in the U.S. and can speak very well, especially socially.
I'm in classrooms helping..with differentiation, flex grouping, etc. about half of the time. The other half I pull out and they want me to "pre-teach." I'm having a really hard time with this-due to no teacher collaboration time...some teachers not wanting really to collaborate...and feeling like I just have no idea what I'm doing.
With 2nd and 3rd grade, it's a lot more simple. I can still do remedial stuff with them and they don't mind being taught the material in advance. With 4th grade, I just have NO idea what to do with them. Teaching them isolated grammatical concepts won't help them. They think it's strange for me to teach them stuff in advance when they'll just learn it the next day. Any advice? Do you think they just don't need my time? How can I use that most effectively?
Any ideas would be great!

Sure a difficult situation. How can you pre-teach when you don't know what they will be teaching? Is there a textbook? How many kids do you get at once? If it is a small group it would seem to be a good time to try and find out their difficulties and work on those no matter what the teacher is doing. If you do get the co-operation of the teacher you could work with vocabulary and make sure it is understood. Lots of games and stories, plays and so on. I think you are a valuable addition to any program no matter what you do. Some special attention usually benefits students enormously. It is never wasted time.

This is a tough issue that never gets any easier, at least in the 18 years I have worked in ESL in just your position. First of all, do you know your 4th graders reading levels? How close to grade level are they? Is this a case of true need or perceived need on the part of the teacher? There are two sure-fire areas where student like you describe need help--writing and inferential reading comprehension. Both of these can be addressed usng the same materials from the classroom or your own materials. There are days when you think that yout work is in vain, especially when you are overworked and tired. The nature of any teaching is unpredictable. When I taught first grade a long time ago I figured out that if I could have one day a month where the day went as planned and everyone learned something, just one little thing, then life was good. The same goes for ESL. Hang in there.