Math has often been labeled as the universal language. While it might be true that numbers work the same way regardless of the language spoken, teachers cannot assume that their English Language Learners (ELLs), or English Learners, will automatically pick up the context. To address this, junior Danielle Harrington, who is Brazilian, started by creating a tutoring club.
Math courses designed for English learners allow them to learn math’s basic foundations, considering the subject is taught differently worldwide. At Malden High School, the population of immigrant students continues to grow and flourish in terms of number and diversity, and the school has accommodated this by providing a variety of courses such as ELL peer tutoring for all subjects—the most noticeable being in math.
As an elective, tutoring was available for all students struggling with math; however, they implicated a single class for English learners.
“I think there are a lot of strengths we have for the math department in supporting ELL students!” exclaimed Chris Giordano, an ELL math teacher. “We have sections that are specifically geared towards our early developing English Learners for Math 1 and 2 … though it would be nice to find a way to carry on those supports from Math 3 and other courses.”
“I did a peer tutoring program for English Learners last year… I felt like it was fine but there is no specific operation to it,” junior Danielle Harrington, who is Brazilian, stated. Her job was “to help people who were struggling, but I had a lack of direction and knowledge of how best to help,” and she felt that there was no effective way for those struggling to gain anything from certain styles of tutoring. For example, simply telling students the answer with little to no explanation would not help them truly understand how to solve the problem
In hopes of expanding opportunities for English Learners, Harrington came up with the idea of creating a club focused on providing ELL math tutoring.
As someone who has always heavily enjoyed math, she wants to share the knowledge she gained from advanced math courses with English Learners. “I want students to be able to learn subjects properly without being held back, especially those who do have the talent and know more than what the school offers to them,” she expressed.
While planning the club framework, Harrington decided that “a few ELL math classes will have peer tutoring, and I will use both qualitative and quantitative analysis for my work.”
Students will come after school to have either teachers or advanced students help out. “The designed class-wide peer tutoring will still involve individualized tutor-student interaction,” said Harrington, “though teachers are told what topics students struggle with. Teachers will make sure to always review such topics with the entire class so that everyone is getting the same education.”
To determine the club’s effectiveness, “I will analyze progress in IXL and MATHia performance,” said Harrington. She is positive that, if done right, the club can properly succeed. She added that she genuinely wants to push ideas that will try and build a way to give ELL students good and effective math ways; if this does not work, she will go back to modeling something more effective.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities for clubs to help out in that regard,” said Giordano. “I know that in the past, there have been tutoring sessions that have come out of clubs or other organizations in this school. I know that’s something students have taken advantage of in the past. I would love to see something like that continue.”
“I would also love for there to be an opportunity for the math teachers to collaborate with some of the teachers from the ELL department,” expressed Giordano. This way, “we can talk more about what strategies they’re using in their classrooms that we can also replicate with our students.,” He concluded that a club like Harrington’s can facilitate progress in connecting English learning and math.
Even if starting a club will not be easy, Harrington is excited to begin finding a way to communicate with teachers and successfully establish a club that will help Malden High students.
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