ah the life of an ESL teacher under a new supervisor

I thought I was going to teach fourth grade but I was moved to fifth, which I have never done before and kind of scared me. I didn’t know what to expect about the kids I’d get and if they’d be big and cynical or “too cool for school” or what. Fifth is the final grade at my school. All I knew was I had 20 students, mostly Spanish speakers and three Mandarin speakers. Well, on day one, yesterday, I got 5 new students who spoke Spanish, Bengali, Indonesian, and another Mandarin speaker. I would say that about 5% of my class speaks English well enough in that they can attempt a response to questions, can read, and write sentences. One of the Chinese students translates for the others, but so far even miming has only gone so far with the other students. I need to reformulate my “attack plan” for the year that let’s me do some basic ESL strategies and content so they aren’t stuck in another world,mentally, in my room. New challenges and I’m excited.

The thing that seems to be the real problem is now, for some reason, I’m not under the ESL supervisor, and my new one knows nothing about ELLs. When she came in to speak to the class, she said loudly,”watch my face. Watch my mouth”. Um… What the? Yeah. But I am hoping this may work to my advantage and she will think ANYTHING I do is amazing simply because I have the “patience for kids like that” (as I have been told). Craziness