Last Friday I had the pleasure of meeting my ELL student (who for the sake of confidentiality will be referred to as "S") at South Burlington High School. When S was seven years old, he and his family escaped from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and stayed with relatives in Egypt. They were eventually granted permission to emigrate to the United States, but S's papers did not go through, and therefore he had to stay with his relatives in Egypt for three years without his family. S is a fairly quiet, reserved individual. However, I believe that part of his conservative nature stems from the fact that his WIDA levels are low and therefore his competence in academic English is limited, where academic English refers to the elevated, sophisticated language in which course material is taught in a classroom.
      We worked on a project for his health class that entailed viewing a powerpoint containing information about the various types of wellness: physical wellness, social wellness, emotional wellness, and spiritual wellness, before answering questions about the material. One of the questions that S had to answer was which wellness had the highest score during a self-evaluation activity in class, which one was the lowest, and explain why such results might have occurred. I was surprised when he said that he scored highest in social wellness, considering his quiet disposition. However, I think this harkens back to the idea that he is not as confident in the classroom with his academic English, which could be seen in his struggle to understand the complex words surrounding the topic, but his conversational English is more fluid, allowing for him to communicate with his peers more easily. Furthermore, he is an avid soccer player and he loves playing FIFA with his friends. Such activities require more athletic, physical interaction as opposed to copious amounts of conversational communication. Therefore, based on the combination between having a higher knowledge-base of conversational English, and interacting with individuals in a more non-verbal setting, outside of the classroom he probably feels more comfortable being social. Furthermore, since French is the official language of the Congo, S can speak it fluently and as I am a French minor, I was able to aide him by explaining certain words or phrases in French which helped increase his understanding of the material and the task-it has been proven that a bilingual approach to teaching ELL students that incorporates both their native language and English, is the most effective method of instruction.