I INTRODUCTION
Overview of Program & Reflection on Experience
As a credentialed teacher seeking a Crosscultural Language and Academic Development (CLAD) certification approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), I opted for deeper learning through the program offered through UCLA Extension. The program consists of a sequence of six courses: Introduction to the Study of Teaching English Language Learners, Culture and Inclusion, Language and language Development, Assessment of English Learners, Foundations and Methods of English Language/Literacy Development and Content Instruction, and, the final course, CTEL Portfolio.
The courses in the program all required extensive reading of books and scholarly articles. Weekly writing assignments ranged from autobiographical vignettes to essays citations and sources. Discussions were demanding and central to each course as they provided connection to peers and professors through dialogue constructed through commentary and feedback. Responding to peers required active listening and close reading of colleagues reaction to articles and study of pedagogy. Multimodal by design, we exchanged videos, infographics, and lesson plans as we each cultivated our individual perspective on culturally responsive and relevant approaches to support students in their journey to acquire English language literacy.
Currently, I teach a double block of English Language Development (ELD) level 1/2 at an LAUSD high school. Working with an emergency CLAD for this class and I also hold an ELAS English Learner Authorization with my single subject teaching credentials in English and Art. The students in this class are mostly tenth graders and there is one ninth grader. This is the first time the school has offered a designated ELD class. The tenth-grade students who attended the school last year took English 9 and the LTEL class. The student population at this school is 98% Latino and many share Spanish as a heritage or home language.
Additionally, I teach Introduction to Art and in this class there are several students who are learning English language. For this reason, I use live captions and visual slides throughout instruction and whenever possible provide captions in Spanish language. If an assignment requires writing or reading, I provide differentiated versions of the text and sentence stems with word banks for all students to utilize.
When previously teaching at a private high school, several students learning English language were integrated into my visual art and computer science classes. These students did not share a common language but rather presented with diverse needs from home languages including Mandarin and Farsi. Last year, I worked at a public continuation high school located in the West Lake community between downtown, near the neighborhoods of Historic Filipinotown and K-town. This school community included students with diverse heritage ranging from Korean to Guatemalan descent. This experience broadened my perception of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies and their necessity to provide relevant learning experiences for all students.
Further, I have volunteered as an educator in Spanish speaking communities where I have been the person learning the dominant language because I am monolingual and English speaking. This experience enriched my understanding of the importance of context-rich supports to facilitate learning. I am learning Spanish language but I am very limited.
Since I effectively share the challenge presented by language to effectively communicate and experience the world, my empathy is real. I believe that this perspective will serve to provide more effective instruction to students as they work to acquire English literacy. As a vulnerable student, the teacher who is a life long learner maintains a closer connection to the work involved to increase literacy to better read our world and participate in society.
As the name suggests, this portfolio is a compilation of artifacts from the four core classes and is the work product of the final course in the sequence. Each section of this portfolio begins with an introduction to the course and features a curated selection of artifacts which demonstrate the skills and knowledge gained through the learning experience provided by the curriculum. From the granular to the macro, the shape of the program models best practices for instruction and content development. Moreover, the depth of knowledge gained through focus on working with students learning English is the purposeful connection between the conceptual underpinnings and instructional strategies.
