From: Tina <mrsblar@yahoo.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 1999020613:04:43
Subject: inclusion

	My experience with inclusion is with my "ESOL" team. All our students
are on either an ESE or an ESOL team.  Pre-inclusion, we pulled out
the ESOL 1 kids for as long as they needed to be self-contained to
learn how to speak and understand enough English to survive nicely in
the mainstream classroom. Those who had just arrived from Puerto Rico,
for example, had weeks or months of intensive English training,
integrating some math, Social Studies and science while focusing
mainly on speaking, reading and writing in English.  
  Many of our students are Spanish speaking and inclusion does not
seem to be working. They are not getting the intensive English
training they need to keep up in my math class. I speak and teach more
slowly and carefully, using examI have a combination of "low", average, and "high" students in my 7th
grade math classes.  I find that all of them can get the concepts -
when I ask my least proficient student to explain something, he can do
so. The difficulty comes when they need to do computations. If I'm not
actively teaching a skill (like multiplying fractions), I'll let the
kids use calculators. That seems to level the playing field
considerably. In the meantime, I spend 5 or 10 minutes a week trying
to pick up the basics that those few students missed along the way
(like multiplication tables or long division) so they will eventually
be able to do the computations as well. 

Post a reply to this message
Post a related public discussion message
Ask Teacher2Teacher a new question