ELL teacher makes sure students don’t get lost in translation

Teaching comes with a variety of challenges, some that change every day. English Language Learners teacher BreAnna Blankman not only has to take on those challenges, she is also tasked with bridging the language gap for the littlest students in Newton.

“My passion comes from the kids, they are really inspiring. They don’t give up. I could not imagine being in some of my kids’ shoes,” Blankman said. “They come to school everyday ready to learn with a big smile on their face, ready to take on whatever you hand to them. It is so cool.”

English Language Learners, or ELL, are students who come to the district with English as a secondary language. Blankman works with elementary aged kids to help them become proficient in the language at a variety of levels.

New to the Newton 2018-2019 school year, she took a long-term substitute position that turned in to a full-time job.

“We had one teacher that was K-12 and I had 11 kids that were in the elementary,” Blankman said. “Since then, I now have 35 in the elementary and it has been growing yearly.”

One person going between four schools is a difficult task but one that Blankman embraces. The district is working to group ELL students into two buildings: Thomas Jefferson Elementary and Emerson Hough Elementary. But if parents want their kids in their neighborhood school, they can remain there.

“We didn’t want to force families to change from their neighborhood schools. Some families were willing to change to get more services, but some wanted to stay at their neighborhood schools,” Blankman said.

Tuesday through Friday she works in small groups of one to seven students at Thomas Jefferson and Emerson Hough for about 30 minutes each day on the four language domains: reading, writing, speaking and listening. She also supports the work in the classroom. Mondays are spent at the other elementary schools working with those students.

Most students who move into the district are bilingual, typically at an intermediate level. She said a lot of them have very good conversational English, but they may struggle more with reading and writing skills.

“Spanish is our biggest (ELL) population in Newton, Arabic is second and then we have some Asian languages, Chinese and Vietnamese and African tribal languages sprinkled throughout, too,” Blankman said. “Usually it is misunderstood that if they have a strong home language it will be harder for them to learn English, but it is opposite. A strong literacy in their first language helps transfer a lot easier.

“Kindergarteners, first graders, when I get them early, they take off right away and are pretty proficient. When I get third, fourth graders to come in, it takes a lot longer for them to acquire because I only see them 30 minutes a day. They are sitting in their classrooms trying to learn grade-level content and getting sprinklings of English, it is just a lot longer and harder for them to pick it up.”

While in school herself, Blankman knew ELL was an interest of hers but she didn’t think she was quite ready to jump into the role. After meeting a very influential professor, her thoughts began to evolve.

“I met an amazing professor, Dr. Roslyn Billy, and she had just moved to Iowa from Massachusetts. At that time, 2015-2016 we were having an influx of students to the metro and she came to support that,” Blankman said. “She had a passion that I loved and she saw that I had that passion in my classes as I was taking them, and she said, ‘This is something you need to do.’ I’m not really confident in it, it seems like a very specialized area, maybe I could go teach for a little and get that part down. That is not how life happened, not what the universe wanted for me.”

After graduating, Blankman worked as a substitute teacher in the Des Moines areas until an opening in Newton caught the interest of her advisor.

“My advisor knew there was a position coming open ... and said, ‘Do you want it?’ I said yep. I just jumped in head first without looking and found out we didn’t have a conclusive program for our students,” Blankman said. “I have been really excited to come in and create a program for the district that is comprehensive, that goes from just tutoring and supporting our English language learnings to actually teaching language acquisition.”

Since taking over the program, Blankman has set goals for the district including having communications from the schools translated for families. Currently, any emails or information online is only in English.

“My goal has been to translate our registration because that is all done online,” Blankman said. “We don’t have people in all of our buildings that are bilingual. We don’t have the resources to translate and interpret for our families. It is one of my goals to make sure all of our families feel seen and heard, welcomed, recognized, celebrated and like they are important in our district. I think that cultural diversity is incredible. It brings so much to the community.”

Like most jobs, teaching has its struggles but Blankman has daily “little victories” to help push her to continue her specialized work.

“I can see their progress happen every single day. They are picking it up, learning new things, using something they learned yesterday today. In a classroom of 16 to 20, those small moments can get lost a lot,” Blankman said. “I pick up the kids in their classrooms so on our way to my room we have conversations about a lot of personal things, their life, what they did the night before and I know so much about them because they don’t realize that I am making them practice speaking and listening but they are just talking to me like I am one of their friends. I love the connections that I get to make with my students.”

Since moving to the community in 2020, Blankman has felt nothing but welcomed. She is excited to see where Newton moves in the future and how she can be a part of it.

“This is somewhere I see raising my family. This is just the perfect growing community. What I get to see for the future here is amazing. I have been very well-received. People have reached out with positive comments about the program,” Blankman said. “It has been really awesome.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com