1.They don’t feel supported
When an ELL student doesn’t feel supported, they do not feel safe in their environment. This lack of support could be coming from a number of places. There may be a lack of support from their families, and feel like they have to do everything on their own. More concerning for the student is that they may be feeling like they are not supported by the school or their teachers. To feel supported is to feel enabled to try new things without fear of failure. To create this basis of support with your student will give them the feeling that you accept them and are willing to help them where they are at, and will assure them that your classroom is a place where they can feel safe. You could even show this support by presenting and accepting different forms of the assignment.
2. They don’t trust you
Your ELL student may simply not trust you. Although it may be something you don’t want to consider, have you ever said you would do one thing for your students and done another? Have you given them false conceptions of who you are as a teacher? Addressing this will ultimately help you answer the question of whether or not your ELLs trust you. They don’t believe you’ll do what you say you will, and language learning cannot happen absent trust, or love for that matter. We communicate with others to form a deeper bond with them, and we don’t want to create that bond unless trust exists in that relationship. They have to trust you enough to even begin to care about what you’re talking about.
3. Their previous academic achievement is substandard
Academic achievement may be hard for your ELLs to advance in because academics have always been something they struggled with, even in their native language. It may be helpful for your ELL students to learn an academic subject in their native language to help them learn English. Having an understanding of a subject or concept in their first language will make it easier to access it through the second language. They will basically transfer it from one language to the new language.
4. They never got a solid understanding of their native language
It is true that parents of English language learners should speak their primary language at home. Hearing rich, complex, and fluent language in a language your ELLs understand will promote their English proficiency. Once skills are improved and mastered in the first language, it will be transferred over into the second language with time. For some ELLs, especially those where their families speak broken English at home, it becomes a struggle for them to develop proficiency in either language. They are then unable to do work in either language, and it makes it exceptionally hard to find resources for this child. Before you ask if your ELL student is learning English, you may have to ask whether they have ever sufficiently learned a language.
5. You aren’t addressing their cultural differences.
You may be failing to recognize that cultural norms and expectations in the classroom may look different in the classroom for your ELLs. They may need more time to transition than you originally thought. You should learn about each of your students cultural background, helping you to get a better understanding of where they’re coming from. If your ELLs are also immigrants, you may be failing to look into what’s happening in their inner world. For these students, they may be dealing with culture shock, loneliness, and feeling constantly misunderstood.
6.You’re teaching them everything but the message
As tough as it might be to hear, your instruction as a teacher may be making it harder for your ELLs to advance. The most important part of language acquisition is to understand the message. They have to understand what the message is, so they can learn the words that map onto that message. As a teacher, you might be focusing on their words and correcting them without actually listening to see if they understood the message. If you can present and accept their work in a way where the message is presented first and clearly, maybe through alternate forms of work like pictures or gestures, it might be much easier for them to 1) understand the message, and then 2) figure out the words that are associated with that message.