1.   --  In your blog, briefly (one or two sentences) describe a unit that you are likely to teach. Example: Next semester I am likely to be teaching a fourth grade unit on rocks and minerals.

I will be teaching High School mathematics and physics.  Geometry, algebra I and II, trigonometry, physics A, physics B, and so on.

2.     -- In your blog, describe four English language learners in your class, each one at a different stage of language acquisition.

There are four different types of English language learners: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  As a math teacher I have to be sensitive to each category.  Math is the “universal language,” but it is important that a student is not left behind simply because there are gaps in the explanation of English lead concepts.  For example, a student who is struggling with listening might miss key words as I describe each algebraic, trigonometric, or geometric concept.  A student who struggles with speaking might have trouble describing exactly where he is not grasping key concepts.  A student who struggles with reading will have no trouble with pictures and equations, but he might have trouble with the English words connecting their concepts.  Writing in mathematics is not a major issue, but one should be sensitive to how the English language learner connects mathematical ideas in the English language.

3.     -- In a blog, explain some specific strategies and steps you will use with each of the students in order to include them and support their active participation in learning activities and their acquisition of the unit's learning objectives.

A comprehensive strategy for teaching mathematics to English language learners is to constantly refer to visual demonstrations of mathematical concepts.  Math is a great English learning tool if taught the right way.  It allows the student to see universal concepts and then wrestle with them in the English language.  An ELL student is able to understand mathematics even if he is not able to understand English, so mathematics is an excellent tool for helping a student to practice his English listening, speaking, and reading (but not, necessarily, writing).

At a first grade level a student can visualize how “tens” go “up and down” on a hundred’s table.  As one counts down “10, 20, 30, 40. . .” and so on, the student integrates the concept of logical increments in the English language.  And he is able to differentiate this from “left to right” increments of “1, 2, 3, 4. . . “

As another example, at a 4^th grade level a student is tasked with understanding fractions in an English narrative.  The concept of a “fraction” is universal, but to learn this concept in the English language allows the student to truly understand, and practice, how the English words are properly used.

As a third example, at a middle school level, Algebra affords student with the opportunity of learning about algebraic concepts and assigning them English labels.  This re-enforces the students practice of English in a very decisive way, since the student continues to connect universal concepts in the context of English explanations.

Finally geometry.  Describing Geometric shapes and properties is something that can be done in any language.  As such, it can be used to facilitate, and re-enforce, an English language learner as they learn to grasp these higher orders of thinking in the English language.