I’ll be leading a training for my colleagues next month on teaching English Language Learners, and it will including having a student panel.

To help them prepare for the event, I created a relatively simple survey that they’ll complete prior to our planning the discussion.

After I made, the thought occurred to me that it could be a useful tool to share more widely – to ELLs in all my classes, to ELLs throughout our school, and even to ELLs throughout the country.

You can download it here. It lists these three questions:

1. What do teacher do that helps you understand what they are teaching, even though you may not know English that well? For example, do they show pictures that help you understand the content?

Please try to write about specific lessons and experiences.

2. What are specific actions teachers have taken to help you become motivated to learn different subjects and the English language? Please try to write about specific lessons and experiences.

3. What have teachers done to help you not feel bad about making mistakes and, instead, learn from them? In other words, what are the best actions teachers have taken to correct English errors you have made in writing or in speaking?

 

It would be easiest to have Intermediates and Advanced ELLs take it, but Beginners could obviously do it with a lot of assistance or if they answered in their home language.

If you decide to share it with your students, I would love to hear the results.

And if you have suggestions on how to make it better, I would love to hear your thoughts, too!