by Zachary Smith
One of the struggles I have had during my professional career as an ELL teacher is assisting my ELLs with finding activities to become involved in. We all know that our students need engagement and interaction with other students in order to more quickly and effectively pick up on social language (BICS). Not until I accepted a position at Cedar Rapids (CR) Washington High School has a solution to this problem become so clear: sign up ELLs for the speech team!
You may think this sounds crazy. “These students are new to the language, how can they be on the speech team?” you might ask. “Easily!” I respond with a grin from ear to ear. The students don’t need any English language to be a mime. I was very fortunate that the speech teacher at CR Washington, Mrs. Carrie Tinkham, is one of the most phenomenally patient, kind, and understanding educators I have had the experience to call a colleague and a friend. She has created such a positive atmosphere and vibe on our speech team… and no one gets cut. If a student shows interest, there is a place for him or her on our team. The large group speech team proves this, considering we had well over 150 students involved.
This year, we had a few ELLs involved in large group and individual speech. We had students in a choral reading group, and short film. Also, we had two students perform in individual events for prose and review. The amount of growth that the students involved on this team showed this year compared to other students was truly remarkable. I cannot believe the amount of pure confidence these students developed so quickly. It was so fun and rewarding to see.
Jennifer Tecuapetla was one of our ELLs who was on the choral reading team. Jennifer retold an immigrant’s story from Mexico in this reading. She did such an outstanding job that at the district competition she was singled out by the judge for delivering such an emotionally impactful performance. She also competed in an individual event by retelling a set of three poems revolving around the immigration story. One of the poems she wrote herself, which was also published in one of our school magazines, The Washington Literary Press. This year on speech team is only the start for Jennifer, as she has developed such a powerful, quiet confidence about her that nothing is going to hold her back.
In individual events, Amisi Swedi excelled at the review category where he gave a very entertaining review of the app Snapchat. In his review, he went back and forth between the student and teacher opinions of Snapchat. His strong performance was enough to earn him a 1 rating at district and then two 1’s and a 2 at state. Amisi gained so much confidence in this experience, he tried out for and received a role in CR Washington’s spring play. The future looks very bright for Amisi on the CR Washington speech team.
The most impactful portion of the speech season for the ELLs and myself was the choral reading that was written by two tenth grade students. Last year, after being inspired at the All State Large Group festival, Ethan Dix and Anna Boskin wrote a piece titled “The American Dream.” It is about the wave of immigrants that have come to the US during its history and the lack of support that these immigrant communities received at the time. It is an intensely emotional piece that both our native English student population and ELLs on the speech team were able to bond over. This was a very special piece, as it was not only written by students, but it was brought to life, experienced and lived by students who were involved in this piece.
The best thing about ELLs is that they do stick to their “pack” and travel with groups. And, with the success that these students had on our individual and large group teams, we will have many more ELLs joining speech next year, and there will be much more collaboration and work between our native English speaking students and ELL population. Mrs. Tinkham and I are truly excited for what is to come from the Cedar Rapids Washington Speech Team.
Zachary Smith is an ELL teacher at Cedar Rapids Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He can be contacted at zasmith001@gmail.com or on Twitter @zas85.
Editor’s Note:
View the Choral Reading entry from CR Washington here. This piece was written by students (Ethan Dix and Anna Boskin, both 10th graders) and received “1” rankings (the highest) from every judge it was performed in front of at both the district and state levels.
