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ELL Placement

In my adolescent development class, we were assigned a weekly placement in a neighboring school. Different students in the class have different roles in each of the schools they visit. I have been paired up with a 16-year-old girl named Binsa from Nepal (note that I have changed her name for privacy and confidentiality). Binsa came to the United States in 2015 and is in the beginning levels for speaking, listening, reading, and writing English.


Nepal is a Himalayan country in South Asia landlocked between China and India with the rough population of 27,474,000. The official language is Nepali and it's spoken by 44.6% of the population. Hindu is the predominant religion in Nepal with 81.3% of the population practicing. Nepal was closed to the outside world until the 1950s. It is one of the world's poorest countries with the bulk of the economy relying on tourism and aid from other countries. In April of 2015, a devastating earthquake hit, killing thousands of people, destroying villages, and ruining heritage sites. This could have been a potential cause for Binsa's moving to the U.S.; however, it is unknown to me for certain. 

This semester I'm excited to work with Binsa in order to learn how to adjust to the differing needs of my future students. I think it's important for developing teachers to spend time with ELL students and understand the difficulties that they face. I will continue to update my blog as I continue to work with Binsa. I hope you enjoy my findings!
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  1. mbFebruary 16, 2018 at 10:51 AM

    Kayla, this is an interesting post. I appreciate your connection between the earthquake and B's move to the US as potentially being connected. It will be interesting to learn about the educational system in Nepal for boys and girls.

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