Dana Omer_Lit Review_PE and ELL 1

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
TED 690: Capstone
Literature Review
Dana Omer
04/25/2019
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The amount of ELL students enrolling in school in the United States is increasing every

year. Sometimes this can pose new challenges to teachers who have not had adequate training.

It seems that public education has put a lot of focus on how to differentiate instruction for ELL

students in the core subjects like math and language arts, but what about the other subjects who

have an equally challenging time communicating and instructing? A recent article in the journal,

Education and Urban Society, discusses the views on teaching English Language Learners held

by 6 elementary physical education teachers in the United States. The article focuses on two

essential questions: How do PE teachers position themselves in teaching ELLs in elementary

schools, and what are PE teachers’ experiences in teaching ELL’s in elementary schools?

The first question, how do PE teachers position themselves in teaching ELLs in

elementary schools, is grounded in the positioning theory. Positioning theory is a theory of

social behavior that explains the fluid patterns of dynamic and changing assignments of rights

and duties among groups of social actors (Sato, Hodge, 2014). Positioning theory allows us to

understand the general position that PE teachers are in when it comes to teaching and choosing

how to plan lessons and activities for all their students. In other words, it tells us what PE

teachers might and might not do based on their own experiences.

The two types of positioning discussed are reflexive positioning and interactive

positioning. Reflective positioning allows teachers to be reflective with ELL students. One

strategy may be to have ELL students write a journal reflection of their experiences in PE. This

is very eye-opening to PE teachers because, according to the study, many PE teachers felt they

were doing a great job of being inclusive and teaching their students, when in reality, they were

subconsciously putting these students on the sidelines or in less important positions because it

was too difficult to communicate rules and expectations. By having an open dialogue with the
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students, teachers are able to reflect on their lessons and teaching styles and adjust them

accordingly in order to include all students, especially ELL’s. Interactive positioning refers to

how one person positions another and involves conflicting values or norms. The article states

that some teachers are not aware of how to make accommodations for ELLs because the things

they can say and do are restricted due to their cultural differences.

The second question, what are teachers’ experiences in teaching ELL’s in elementary

school, was addressed through a descriptive-qualitative interview process. In the interview

process, 10 teachers were asked 15 questions, all based on their personal experiences of teaching

ELL’s in their respective schools. The results of the questionnaire indicated that there were four

main themes. Teachers were experiencing pedagogical challenges, were traumatized by having

to teach ELL’s, experiencing irritations and frustrations, and experiencing cultural dissonance.

For instance, one teacher explained that when teaching a Middle Eastern student how to skip, to

test his fine-motor skills, the challenge arises in the fact that skipping is not culturally important

to this child, so therefore, the child does not have the motivation to try or even participate.

Similarly, one teacher explained that teaching her ELL student was traumatizing because the

student stepped on mining cluster bomb in his home country that blew off his leg. He was

terrified of loud, expressive noises, and anything that echoed, like a bouncing basketball. It was

extremely challenging to teach this student in PE when PE involves a plethora of loud noises and

echoes.

What I take away from this article is that not only is it challenging to translate technical

PE terms to English learners, but there are many other challenges associated with ELL’s like

cultural value differences and cultural experience differences. I believe that the first, and

probably most practical step, would be for PE teachers to learn the technical terms used in PE in
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more than one language so they are at least prepared to communicate with their ELL’s.

Secondly, school districts should honor the cultural value differences of students and research

other ways to assess a student’s motor skills with activities that are relevant to their culture.

Lastly, with students that come from traumatic war experiences in other countries, teachers

should be able to have access to this information so that they may accommodate and at least be

aware of the trauma. Being aware of the trauma and looking for places to eliminate as many

triggering noises as possible (i.e., play basketball outside rather than a gym to decrease echo)

could really benefit the student and help them relax in PE class.
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Reference

Sato, T., & Hodge, S. (2016). Elementary Physical Education Teachers’ Experiences in Teaching

English Language Learners. Education and Urban Society, 48(3), 262–287.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124514529327