ESL Students Expose Student Teacher to Diverse Classroom

- Michelle Skowronek
In-Depth Education Story


The sounds of sneakers squeak down the hallway as 24 fourth graders line up to enter the Northeast Elementary School gymnasium. They file into the room and take a seat on the floor framing the circumference of the child-friendly emblems painted on the floor. Boys and girls of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities plop down on red circles, green squares, blue triangles and yellow rectangles while “Mr. H” lines up rows of volleyballs.

Brian Horner is an Ithaca College undergraduate student teacher. As he finishes up his last semester at IC, Horner teaches physical education at two different public school locations. His first placement is at Northeast Elementary, and his second will be at Charlotte High School in Rochester, NY.

On top of learning basic teaching skills, Horner gets hands on experience working with English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Northeast Elementary alone enrolls students from over 23 different countries. Cornell University plays a large role in the diversity at Northeast due to its assorted population of graduate students and professors. Mr. H has a handful of ESL students in his P.E. classes, most are Asian.

“When most people think of ESL students, they think of Hispanics, but most of my classes are made up of Asian ESL students,” he said. “Majority of the Asian students have parents working or studying at Cornell. Some of them understand English, others do not at all.”

Ithaca College professor of Social and Cultural Foundations of Education, Roberta Wallitt, trains student teachers to be culturally competent with an understanding of the needs of English language learners. Wallitt says classroom teachers often lack this training.

“They may not present in ways that are accessible to ESL students: demonstrating instead of just talking; using pictures; having hands-on activities,” she said. “They may also not know how to connect lessons to the students' experiences and cultures to help them understand.”

Mr. H has experienced the need to make phys ed class even more hands on when working with ESL students. Sometimes he needs to act out an activity with another student while explaining the directives.

“The other day I had to explain the next activity with more than just words,” Horner said. “I had another English speaking student demonstrate with me what the rest of the class would be doing. Then I slowed down and simplified my language until the ESL student seemed to understand.”

Here is a video of Mr. H teaching students how to rotate positions in volleyball.



Wallitt suggests jumping into a foreign student’s culture to better understand the student.

“Attending community events is another learning experience,” she said. “When they [teachers] only view students’ behaviors through an ‘American’ lens, they are likely to misinterpret and not be successful teachers.”

Horner says his experience at Northeast Elementary has greatly prepared him for teaching in multi-cultural settings, but most importantly, it has been an enjoyable experience.

“I love working with younger kids,” he said, “because that’s when P.E. is still fun. Effectively communicating with all the students, foreign or not, is an extra added bonus.”





A student lays exhausted after Mr. H says "freeze", ending that day's activities.