Podcast Reflection #10: The ELL Bill of Rights- An Interview with Ruslana Westerlund

            For this week’s podcast reflection I choose to check out Wesley Fryer’s website and podcasts, Moving at the Speed of Creativity.  To find the list of his podcast on his website click on the iTunes icon under Stay Updates on the right side of his homepage.  The podcast that I listened to was number 364: The ELL Bill of Rights- An Interview with Ruslana Westerlund.  I choose to listen to this podcast because my concentration is ESL.  I am interested in helping students that come to the United States learn English to be successful. 

            Ruslana Westerlund is an immigrant from Ukraine.  She has experiences ESL classrooms and has worked with ESL students.  In the podcast before Wesley Fryer interviewed Ruslana, he read a poem that she wrote about how ELL students fell as they enter a new American school.    This poem was very powerful to me.  It really made me think about how an ELL student feels.  It is hard enough being a new student, but being a new student that does not speak the language that other students do would be even harder.  

            In Wesley’s interview with Ruslana, he asked her about her business.  She said that the ELL Bill of Rights T-shirts and website were an outlet for her passion of helping ELL students.  She said that communities need a visual to help them be more aware of what English learners and their parents go through.  Ruslana said that she created the ELL Bill of Rights to inform ELL teachers, students, and parents of their rights.  They need to be aware that there is not equality of treatment by just providing the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum as other students because students that do not understand English are denied a meaningful education. 

            Ruslana went on to say that one of biggest misconceptions about ELL students is that if they are fluent in conversational English they should be fluent in academic English.  This is simply not true.  It takes a deeper understanding of English and different vocabulary to succeed in different disciplines.  Fluency with conversational English does not equate to fluency in academic English.  Ruslana’s goal is to help all teachers in all disciplines to become language teachers.   

            I really admire what Ruslana is doing.  I think, especially in this day in age, it is so important to learn how to teacher ESL students.  There are more and more immigrants coming to the United States and they are our future.  We have to be there to support and help them succeed.