This year my school has adopted readers workshop (two hours
of literacy in a block). They have also made multiple
grade levels have literacy, math, lunch, specials and
recess at the exact same times. Therefore, pulling kids
out has become a nightmare, because we just can't take them
from class.

They are killing ESL, so to speak.

The literacy specialists have decided that we should do
only push in. However, when we do, the teachers are doing
whole class lessons, or they have the kids doing
independent reading or some other activity. So we, the ESL
teachers, wind up acting like overpaid assistants. We have
no input on lessons, no input on books to be used (the
literacy people have decided what works...)

I got chided yesterday by the literacy specialist because
she decided I was going too fast in a book SHE had chosen
(it was a 30 page book with one or two sentences per page.
The kids thought it was dumb) she chided me for not
previewing vocab, not stretching it out, not finding all
sorts of meaning. When I pointed out that I had JUST
walked into the class when the classroom teacher handed me
a new-to-me book to "teach" that day, I am only in the
class 1/2 hour two times a week, I don't even work at that
school 1/2 the week, when was I supposed to preview the
book? The specialist didn't even realize the kids were
ESL, she gave them a book filled with idioms, yet no plot
to speak of...

This is how it is going for us...no input to lessons, no
consideration that we have things to teach these kids,
too. It's assumed that ESL is English "lite" or that there
is something wrong with these kids. Our schools scored
keep dropping, we get more ESL kids every year, and yet
they won't let us teach them in the way that is most
effective for them!

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