Language Diversity Plan

The students in United States History II at W high school come from diverse

backgrounds including but not limited to gender, ethnic background, first language, and

socioeconomic status. This particular class is made up of approximately 33 11th grade students

including 18 girls and 15 boys. Of the 33 students, 24 are general education students, one student

is in special-education, and eight students are English language learners (ELLs). Five of the eight

ELL students speak Spanish as their language one (L1). In addition to Spanish, Korean, Somali,

and Swedish are also represented in the classroom language community. Six of the eight ELLs

are at a level 3 of English language acquisition while the other two ELL students are currently at

a level 2 of English language acquisition. Although most of the ELL students are at an

intermediate level of English language acquisition, they still need additional support in academic

content language.

My instructional plan is to use culturally relevant examples during lessons to help

students understand and relate to class content. Additionally, I plan to utilize culturally relevant

projects to engage and motivate students. Furthermore, I will employ the Content-Based

Instruction (CBI) method to teach language objectives together with content objectives. The use

of CBI is meant to increase student interest and make United States history a more interesting

subject to study and learn about. To further support ELL students, I will create and implement

the use of a “word wall”. The “word wall” will be a designated area in my classroom that will

display academic content vocabulary along with visuals (if needed). The purpose of the word

wall is to serve as a visual reference for content vocabulary. Given that the study of United States

history requires background knowledge of American culture, I will make sure to explain “insider

knowledge”, or knowledge that U.S.--raised students might possess due to their upbringing.
 I plan on using informal formative assessments to monitor student learning, and formal

summative assessments to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit. To

conduct one type of informal formative assessment, I will walk around the classroom and listen

closely to student discussions, comments, and questions during think-pair-share activities. This

will help me assess student understanding of concepts as learning and teaching is happening.

Exit tickets will be completed daily. Exit tickets will also serve as a formative assessment.

Formal summative assessment will take place in the form of exams.

To effectively execute my language diversity plan, I plan to use technology in the

classroom such as PowerPoint presentations and educational TEDTalk and Crash Course videos

related to United States history. Play Posit is one example of how the use of technology can aid

in supporting the language development of ELL students. Play Posit is a website that allows

educators to edit instructional videos—this includes adding pauses where needed, adding guided

questions in order to differentiate videos according to learners’ needs.

If the plan that I formulated were to fail, I would refer to my “get to know you” activity

to draw examples of historical topics that are of interest to my students. This type of curriculum

reformation is meant to further personalize content to increase student motivation, attentiveness,

and class participation.