Presenter: Emma Eversole, College of Education, Elementary Education
Authors: Emma Eversole
Faculty Advisor: Juan Friere, College of Education, TESOL
Institution: Brigham Young University
I focused on researching the effects of bias and racism on English Language Learner, ELL, students, and interviewing an immigrant family with personal experiences in the ELL program. The main theme that continually comes up is the importance of realizing the fine distinction that teachers need to walk between understanding that ELL students have different experiences and need a varied approach of teaching along with extra assistance in learning English, and not singling out our ELL students through bias and racism and causing feelings of being different, weird, or unwelcome. Through my research, I focused on learning about ELL children’s funds of knowledge, pedagogies of the home and family involvement/engagement, and the perspectives and experiences of successes, struggles, and failures with school-family partnerships. As teachers take into consideration and learn about these factors that influence and contribute to our ELL students, we can better prepare ourselves to walk the fine distinction and to recognize and minimize the effects of bias and racism in our classrooms.