One day I had the privilege to spend the morning in a colleague’s classroom (let’s call her “Nara”, for anonymity), where her main focus is supporting students in English Literacy Development (ELD) programs. Students in this program have missed 2+ years of learning and may have significant gaps in numeracy and literacy. Because those years of school may be a result of coming from a country where there is political conflict, social unrest, or environmental disasters, these students may have experienced significant trauma.
Nara’s support classroom is cozy and neat, with literacy resources organized carefully on the shelves. As students walk into the room to receive support, they are full of excitement and smiles. It is clear she has built a strong sense of community in her learning space.
One student walks in and sits down quietly. Nara senses his mood and gives him some space to adjust to his surroundings. As the students introduce themselves to me, the visitor in the room, my colleague uses Google translate to let the student know he does not have to participate in the introduction. He still introduces himself to me, and it’s wonderful to hear him use the English he is learning.
At one point during the lesson, the student gets up and moves toward chart the teacher has on the board. The chart is laminated and has “Check-In” written at the top, and below it, “I’m Great”, “I’m Meh”, “I’m Struggling”, “I’m having a tough time and wouldn’t mind a check in”, and “I’m Not Doing Great”. There are hand-drawn emojis that add meaning to each phrase.
Beside the chart are magnets are student name tags and students can place their name tag to show how they are feeling. The student places his name beside “I’m Meh”. The bell rings and the other students exit the room. The teacher brings out the translator and starts “checking in” with the student.
I observe Nara ask some simple questions: did something happen today? Are you feeling well? Do you feel ready to go to your class? Do you want some time alone here?
As the translated conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that he was experiencing difficulty focusing and self-regulating that day. Though he had only been in the school for a short while, his complex family background was known to staff thanks to a detailed report from the board’s Welcome Centre and ongoing conversations with the family. The student had an incredibly traumatic and eventful journey to Canada, and was living with relatives while his mother was in the hospital. School staff and administrators understood that he expressed his emotions through outbursts and aggressive behaviour.
Working with students that come from complex, traumatic backgrounds is a major challenge for educators. Elise White Diaz, writer of Discover, Connect, Respond, provides a useful framework for educators working with students that, as she describes, “come from a hard place”. Nara, who expertly brought the student from a place of distress to a calmer mood uses some of Diaz’s strategies to create a trauma-informed practice that supports students in the ELD classroom. As the book’s title suggests, discovering is the first step: having an emotions chart or a “check in” system where emergent speakers of English can self-advocate is one way to do this. It can be frustrating for students to not be able to communicate their emotions as clearly as they would in their home language, so having a simple chart like hers can help educators to discover exactly what is going on when a student is having a bad day.
The next step, connect, is intuitive and easily facilitated with a translation tool on hand. With a few easy clicks, you can provide students with the opportunity to communicate without a language barrier. If the student is not literate in their home language, use the voice tool to translate or choose an app that has voice-to-voice translation, like Microsoft Translate.
And finally – respond. In this case, the student ended up wanting to return to class as lunch was happening soon. Knowing that the student was having a tough day, the teacher called the classroom teacher and administrator to let them know what had transpired so they could be prepared for a potentially sensitive situation.
Moments like this remind us that supporting MLLs is about far more than language acquisition or academic recovery. It is about noticing, listening, and responding with care, patience, and intention. For students who have come from hard places, these moments of understanding are not extras; they are essential conditions for learning.
