How can you support an ELL struggling to connect socially and/or emotionally within your classroom or school environment? What would you do if a student is feeling bullied for being culturally or linguistically different from peers? What are your resources as a teacher or which professionals can you contact or collaborate with to support the mental health of ELLs?

Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the Classroom

How can you support an ELL struggling to connect socially and/or emotionally within your classroom or school environment?

English Language Learners (ELLs) might struggle in their social and emotional wellbeing due to cultural barriers or lack of confidence, or learn very slowly, identifying with and remedying language development disabilities is crucial. Regardless of the given reason, providing a well-lit classroom with enough air circulation provides the ELL a better learning environment. Besides, healthy learning relationships and inclusivity can also help the ELL connect socially and emotionally. As noted by King and Echevarria (2020), a classroom that accommodates various learning materials, provides a stable and routine learning schedule, and uses bilingual education strategies allows ELLs to create new language proficiency levels and enjoy heightened social and emotional wellbeing. Teachers should provide students with praise, encouragement, and positive feedback that are necessary for learning (Yildirim, 2022). The use of pictures can help the ELL recognize faces of fellow students (WIDA, 2020). On the other hand, as a teacher, I should understand and respect each student's family, culture, and home language, this will motivate my ELL students to understand better (Yildirim, 2022).

If a student feels bullied for being different from their peers culturally or linguistically, I would motivate the offended student to work together on the approach that they could use when they encounter such incidents (Maske, 2023). On the other hand, I would motivate the offended student to focus on improving relationships with the learning staff and their fellow students before commencing a structured problem approach (Maske, 2023). For a middle-school student, they need a sense of control in their academic and personal lives, however, when they fail to have a sense of control in their academic and personal lives, it results in low self-esteem, reduced commitment to school, and increased social anxiety (Maske, 2020). Therefore, to increase the middle-school student's sense of control, they need to have a connection with teachers and other learning staff, parents, and students and maintain some degree of control over their academic progress and personal lives. Teachers should use routines to increase resilience in schools by making students autonomous. Independent students can manage their personal and academic lives (Maske, 2021).

What are your resources as a teacher, or which professionals can you contact or collaborate with to support the mental health of ELLs?

To support the mental health of ELLs, teachers need to work with other professionals in the learning institutions. ELL educators are essential during the developmental and early learning stages (King & Echevarria, 2020). These educators offer the need motivation and professional development to teachers working with ELLs. Speech language pathologists are also essential in addressing the mental health of ELLs and help them communicate effectively. Thus, I as a teacher need to collaborate with ESL teachers and other school staff to determine how cultural backgrounds can support the development of custom learning approaches. Also, I need to share the cultural information of different ELLs under my care, research the cultural backgrounds of different students to understand their language and educational backgrounds.

References

King, J., & Echevarria, J. (2020). ESL (ELL) literacy instruction: A guidebook to theory and practice. ESL (ELL) Literacy Instruction: A Guidebook to Theory and Practice (Second ed.).

Maske, J. (2021). Creating a middle school culture of autonomy (Doctoral dissertation, University of Montana). https://scholarw