The Importance of Co-teaching
Co-teaching happens when the TESOL teacher and the classroom teacher plan and teach the lesson together. Instead of one teacher leading and the other assisting, both teachers share responsibility for instruction and student support. Push-in support helps multilingual learners:
Stay included in grade-level instruction
Practice English in real academic situations
Feel more connected to their classroom community
Because of these benefits, many schools try to balance push-in support with small-group pull-out instruction so students receive both classroom inclusion and targeted language development. That is typically what I do.
Now, I am going to be completely honest here, my days of co-teaching with the general education teachers doesn't always look like that. Classroom teachers are busy and they don't always have the time to sit with me to plan all the lessons . I also have a lot of students on my roster, so it's hard for me to sit with every teacher to plan with them. Let me just share some general tips that I have used in the past and currently still use to do the best I can in co-teaching. .
Sometimes I push in into the classroom, listen to the lesson itself with the teacher, and then when it's time for the students to go back to their seats for writing I will then pull my ESL students who need the support at a separate table. I will say one thing, it is very helpful for me to sit and listen to the lesson itself from the teacher, listen to her language she uses, see the organizers she uses, then I know how to take that information and differentiate it for my ESL students. During this time when students are sitting whole group, I will sit on the floor with my ESL students . I am able to clarify things that they may be confused on that the teacher is talking about , translate when I can some of the information , provide visuals that could be helpful , basically whatever is helpful to them at that moment. Sometimes I'm sitting there just to keep their attention because it's very easy for ESL students to be distracted When they don't understand what is being said. Hearing the teacher give the lesson also gives me a chance to see how that general education teacher is supporting, not only English proficient students, but the ESL students. I may speak with her after the lesson and give some suggestions on visuals she should be using, sentence starters that would be helpful to the students, and maybe some more movement and physical visuals that would help ESL learners.
Another thing I do with many of the teachers, that is very helpful and very easy to do, is have them make notes about what things they are working on in the classroom posted outside of their classroom door. You could really do this many different ways but I put a blank sheet of paper inside a clear sleeve and stick it to the outside of their door with a dry erase marker. I ask the teachers to put on that paper what math lesson they are working on, what sight words they're working on that week, what writing they are working on that week (how to, opinion, etc.), any area that you want information on. This is extremely helpful when I'm not able to meet with the teachers and I have an idea of what is happening in the classroom. If I know what math lesson they're on or what sort of writing they are working on I can pre teach vocabulary and prepare them for what's happening in the classroom. This does take a little bit of time of the teachers but it's a quick note once a week just to keep me informed. And I think they appreciate the fact that this is something simple and it's not taking more of their time away from their own planning.