Group C

In the Instructional Adaptation book by Lalas and Solomon, the story about the teacher, Ms. Graves, having to teach a mainstream science class with some students who were English language learners and some who were special needs students really stood out to me. The author describes how Ms. Graves is a very well educated teacher, but gets frustrated when the ELL and SNS don't do as well in her class. I think that it is understandable to have this feeling because not only is she trying to teach the curriculum that is necessary, but she needs to do so in sufficient time. If students who need extra help understanding, it might slow the learning process for the rest of the class. I believe that while it is important for students to sometimes be integrated in mainstream classes, it could affect others negatively when it comes to education. On the other hand, if those students weren't integrated, they would not get the same education. I think a way to help the teacher with students who might need extra help would be to have someone else in the classroom specifically for them. This helper would be able to help certain students stay away from the "caught in the cocoon” phenomenon.

While I think that an extra person would benefit some, it also might be a distraction to other students and sometimes to the teacher as well. If this issue was so simple as to just add another instructor in the classroom, I'm sure it would have already been done. I found a video that gives a few simple ideas to help make the English learning student and their parents feel more comfortable in the classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWx9YllpEYY&feature=related

Here is another article that discusses the English language barrier and offers strategies not only to help the students, but ways to also help the teachers become more culturally aware as well. I think that it is very important for teachers to know about how to help students in the mainstream classes as well as know as much as they can about their students cultures as well.