Transcript
1 turns · 24 minTeaching 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 another episode of the Equipping ELLs podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me today. I want to start today with a scene and I want you to close your eyes and picture this. You are a parent and you moved to a new country less than a year ago. Your child has been placed in a school where you do not speak the language of most of the teachers or the other parents. You've received a letter in the mail, in English, about something called a parent-teacher conference. You're not entirely sure what that means or what is expected of you. You walk into the building. The front office person speaks to you quickly and you can catch maybe half of what they say. You are led to a classroom where a teacher smiles at you and begins speaking. You catch a few words, your child's name, numbers that might be scores, a face that seems to be communicating something, concern, encouragement. You're not really sure. You leave the building not entirely knowing what just happened, whether your child is okay, whether you're supposed to do something different at home, whether the teacher thinks you are a good parent. That is the experience of parent communication from the other side of the table. And I think holding that experience in your mind changes everything about how you approach communicating with the families of your ELL students. Today, we are talking about how to build real trust with your ELL families across languages, across culture, and across all the complexity that comes with serving students whose families are navigating so much more than just school. Now, parent communication is always important, right? When we have a solid homeschool connection, we know that's where success lies. But when we're talking about ELL families, this carries an additional weight and an additional complexity. Language is the most obvious barrier here. And when a parent does not speak English and you do not speak their home language, communication that would take two minutes with another family might take 20, or it might not happen at all without intentional support. But language is not the only barrier. Culture shapes how families understand the role of teachers, the role of schools, and the role of parents in education. In some cultures, a parent questioning a teacher is deeply disrespectful. So when you invite parents to share concerns, they may not even when concerns exist. In other cultures, the expectation is that parents are extremely involved and parents may be confused or even hurt when that involvement is not happening. There is no single cultural norm for how parents and teachers relate. And assuming your
Episode notes
In Episode 220 of the Equipping ELLs podcast, Beth Vaucher opens with a scene that shifts everything — an invitation to imagine being an ELL parent walking into a parent-teacher conference in a language you do not speak, catching only a few words, and leaving without knowing whether your child is okay or what you were supposed to do differently. That scene, she says, changes everything about how you approach parent communication. Today's episode is about building real trust with ELL families — across language, culture, and all the complexity that comes with it.
Beth opens by naming the three layers of complexity that make ELL parent communication uniquely different. Language is the most obvious — what takes two minutes with a fluent family might take twenty minutes or simply not happen at all. But culture shapes how families understand the teacher's role and the parent's role in education, and those norms vary enormously. In some cultures a parent questioning a teacher is disrespectful. In others, parents expect deep involvement and feel hurt when it is not happening. And then there is trust — families who have very good reasons to be cautious about institutions because of immigration status, past trauma, or difficult experiences with authority. A parent who does not respond to outreach is not necessarily disengaged. They may be working three jobs, afraid, or simply unable to