EP210 - Stop Guessing What Your ELL Students Need Next — Do This Instead

Teaching ELL students is a privilege and a joy. Is it easy? No way. But with the right support, you can feel empowered to tackle each day with ease and confidence. I'm your host, Beth Beauches, founder of Inspiring Young Learners. With over 10 years of teaching both nationally and internationally, I know what it takes to ensure that your ELL students have what they need to thrive today, tomorrow, and for life. I'm on a mission to empower you to equip your English language learners. Welcome to Equipping ELLs. Let's get to today's episode. Hey there, and welcome back to the Equipping ELLs podcast. I'm your host, Beth Fauché, and as always, I am so glad you're here with me today. We have been on an incredible journey together over the last several weeks. We have been walking through our ELL success cycle and starting with knowing your who, where we covered things like the stages your students are in and what language acquisition actually looks like in a real classroom. We've also talked about knowing your what, how to stop waiting for test scores and start using what you observe every single day to make powerful instructional decisions. Then we moved into the how, highlighting scaffolding strategies that actually move students toward independence and how sheltered instruction is supposed to function in every classroom that your students walk into. If you've missed any of these episodes, wherever you're listening, just scroll back one or two episodes and you can catch up on this journey we've been on. And today we're going to dive into the when piece. And this piece can be forgotten, it can be frustrating, it can be overlooked, but it also can be a very powerful tool in order to have language growth for your multilingual learners. So let's dive in and break down what it means to really be able to pinpoint when your students need more support, less support, when you're over scaffolding, what they need next, all those questions that go through our minds every single day, right? That's what we're going to be talking about today. Now I want to start with a question and I want you to actually think about this and not just hear it and move on. I want you to think about the last time you felt truly confident walking into a lesson with your ELL students. Not second guessing yourself, not hoping the activity was going to land, but genuinely, quietly confident. What did that feel like? I still recall those lessons where I just was so prepared. I knew exactly what my students needed. I had everything prepped and ready to go. And the lesson just is a home run. Those are great days as a teacher. Now, so think back to those moments. What did that feel like for you? And more importantly, what made it possible? If you have had that experience, I would guess it was because you knew exactly what your students needed that day. You had a clear picture of where each of them was at and what would move them forward. And you were not starting from scratch. You were not pulling something off Pinterest at seven o'clock the night before. and hoping for the best. You were confident in what your students needed and you found the resources that fit what they needed, not