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Checklist for Academic Language Awareness

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Checklist for Academic Language Awareness

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From SupportEd (getsupported.net)

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Teaching Tolerance Best Practices for ELs and Families

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Strategies for Supporting SIFE with Developing Literacy

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Strategies for Supporting SIFE with Developing Literacy

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Who are SIFE with Developing Literacy?

Students with Interrupted/Inconsistent Education (SIFE) face many challenges when they arrive in U.S. secondary schools. They don't have the academic knowledge and literacy that their peers have acquired through years of consistent education in the home language and they are new to English. SIFE need to make impressive progress in an unfamiliar language just to participate at grade level.

SIFE with Developing Literacy (SDL) are a subset of SIFE. They face an additional hurdle because they're in middle and high school classes, but read at a third grade level or below in the home language.

What is Bridges to Academic Success?

Bridges to Academic Success is a program that provides educational services to newcomer students who enter schools in the United States with limited academic skills, including low levels of literacy in their home languages. Bridges offers two courses for SDL: Integrated ENL/ELA and Stand-Alone ENL (English as a new language). Both courses are designed in tandem to maximize learning, build independence, and increase access to grade-level academic content knowledge and skills.

Gradual release of responsibility, independent practice, and resources that support learning are highlighted across the two Bridges courses in this four-part video series.

Gradual Release of Responsibility for SIFE with Developing Literacy

Gradual Release of Responsibility is a powerful instructional method for SIFE and other ELLs that shows Integrated ENL/ELA in action. It transfers responsibility from the teacher to students so they feel ownership over their learning. In the Integrated class at Newtown High School, SDL are apprenticed into reading and writing as they engage with "stretch" texts above their English reading level that explore universal concepts through essential questions.

Teachers must scaffold to make input accessible, differentiate instruction, and model academic ways of thinking. Teachers also set high expectations because even though SDL face many challenges in school, they can learn and will progress towards their goals.

Walls That Talk

Walls That Talk is a strategy video that guides viewers through a Bridges Integrated ENL/ELA classroom. It highlights the various ways the teacher sets up and interacts with the physical space as a print-rich resource to support student learning.

Literacy Centers for Multilingual Students

This video focuses on the rotating centers design of the Bridges Stand-Alone ENL class at Newtown High School. Here we see how SDL can learn early reading and writing skills while working in leveled English texts at targeted language and literacy centers.

The teacher leads a small group guided reading lesson on inferencing, as the rest of the class rotates through three student-directed centers: independent reading, independent writing, and foundational skills, which includes sight words and phonics. A protocol guides students through the tasks at each center, which integrate oral language and literacy.

A 3-Step Protocol for SIFE

The final video in the series highlights gradual release of responsibility and student independence through a simple and powerful protocol used in both Bridges Integrated and Stand-Alone classes. Students engage in the three-step protocol (retell, organize ideas into a thinking map, and speak and write) to develop academic thinking, language, and literacy using whole class "stretch" texts in Integrated and leveled texts in Stand-Alone.

As you watch the four videos in this series, think about the following:

How can you adapt your lesson structure to meet the needs of ELLs with lower language and literacy proficiency?

How can you promote collaboration in your classroom so students can engage in concepts and interact with peers, stretching to use English and academic language? Ask yourself, "Do my walls talk?" And if not, try adapting one approach to using the classroom walls as a resource.

How can a centers-based classroom, with small group targeted instruction, accelerate the academic thinking, language, and literacy development of your students?

We'd love to hear how you're meeting the needs of SIFE and other ELLs. Share your ideas in the comments below. Virginia Skrelja & Suzanna McNamara are Senior Instructional Coaches on the Bridges team who develop curriculum, coach teachers in person and remotely, and develop and lead professional development. They taught ELLs, SIFE, and SDL for many rewarding years before Bridges.

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Content, Language, & Literacy Instruction for SIFE with Developing Literacy

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Students with Interrupted/Inconsistent Education (SIFE) face many challenges when they arrive in U.S. secondary schools. They don't have the academic knowledge and literacy that their peers have acquired through years of consistent education in the home language and they are new to English.

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UDL Principles and guidelines translation

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English Language Learners and strategies to help teach specific needs of these students in the mainstream classroom.

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Special Education and English Language Learners

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Learn more about how schools and families can collaborate to ensure that ELLs, including those with special needs, have the appropriate support and services to meet their unique needs.

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These articles and videos provide a profile of students with interrupted formal education (SIFEs) and their needs, recommendations of best practices, and examples of the kinds of quality support that will accelerate their academic achievement.

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Students with Interrupted Formal Education

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These articles and videos provide a profile of students with interrupted formal education (SIFEs) and their needs, recommendations of best practices, and examples of the kinds of quality support that will accelerate their academic achievement.

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ELLs, Reading Intervention, and SPED Strategies

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English Language Learners and strategies to help teach specific needs of these students in the mainstream classroom.

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NYU Steinhardt

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Some free, some $$ webinars, online classes, books, articles, etc. for all teachers of ELs

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TESOL Guide to Using Microsoft Learning Accelerators With Multilingual Learners of English

TESOL partnered with Microsoft to create awareness of their category of tools called Learning Accelerators, specifically Immersive Reader, Reading Progress, and Reading Coach in Microsoft Teams. Learning Accelerators are learning tools included in Microsoft 365 for Education, at no cost to educators, that help teachers' professional practice and strengthen student independence in their English language development.

This guide outlines multiple ways teachers can use the Microsoft literacy tools as an autonomous classroom resource to boost language and literacy development in tandem. It provides concrete, practical classroom activities across a range of contexts and student proficiency levels for use in classrooms with multilingual learners of English (MLEs).

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Resource Center | TESOL | International Association

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The TESOL Resource Center offers lesson plans, teaching tips, activities, assessment tools, and other valuable tools to help you plan your classes.

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Later this month, this blog will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary! Last August, I re-started a series I tried to do in the past called "A Look Back." Each week, I've been posting a few of my favorite posts from the past ten years. Here are some compilations from past years: A Look Back: Best Posts From 2007 To 2009 A Look Back: 2010's Best Posts From This Blog A Look Back: 2011's Best Posts From This Blog A Look Back: 2012's Best Posts From This Blog A Look Back: 2013's Best Posts From This Blog A Look Back: 2014's Best Posts From This Blog A Look Back: 2015's Best Posts From This Blog This post originally appeared in 2016:
In addition to teaching full-time in high school during the day, I'm on the adjunct faculty in the teacher education programs at California State University, Sacramento and the University of California, Davis. I'm finding an important question keeps on cropping up:
How do I teach a newcomer, with next-to-zero English proficiency, who is placed in my mainstream classroom without any additional outside support being provided?
Unfortunately, I suspect that this is a very common issue for teachers across the United States - a newcomer is "parachuted" into their classes and they're just told to "integrate" the student into their instruction.

Here are some suggestions - from readers and from me:

MY NUMBER ONE PIECE OF ADVICE: Remember, your newcomer student is as intelligent as any native-English speaker you have in your classroom. He/she is just new to the English language. Start off by reading this piece that Katie Hull and I have written: Do's & Don'ts for Teaching English-Language Learners. And, please, don't make the mistakes of speaking loudly in English to them or giving them a seat at the very back of the room.
PROVIDE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
* Learn their story - why their family came here, what their interests are, goals they might have for their life. If you cannot speak their home language and/or can't find another staffperson or student who can, using Google Translate is a very viable option. Using the audio translation mode, it will automatically provide verbal interpretation. It's not perfect by any means, but you should be able to have a basic conversation. Just last month, Google announced a breakthrough in improving their Translate tool for some languages and expects to apply a similar tech upgrade to all of them.

Start with continued kindness, from teacher and all students classmates... https://t.co/1bb52KDfcX

- KMDartandarch (@KMDartandarch) November 16, 2016

PROVIDE ACADEMIC SUPPORT
* Provide access to a computer or tablet (I often will let a student use my "teacher" computer). If a student has zero or next-to-zero English, the best help any teacher - no matter what subject they are teaching - can provide is support to students in developing basic English communication skills. Duolingo, LingoHut, USA Learns and English Central are the four best online tools for that kind of support (here are other language-learning sites, too). Doing this - for a short time, at least - can help them begin to develop self-confidence, get them familiar with online tools they can also use at home (if they have Internet access there) and give you some time to develop a longer-term plan on how you are going to teach them your content matter and pull together needed resources.

* If the newcomer is literate in his/her home language, you can also provide access to online materials in their language that are comparable to what you are teaching in English to the rest of your students. Many such resources can be found at The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science.

*If you are fortunate enough to speak your newcomer's language, using the Preview, View and Review method is an option (preview the lesson in the home language, then the main lesson in English, and then review it in the home language). I've also used the bilingual resources listed in the previous suggestion in the same way - previewing and reviewing with those materials.

*There are many sites that provide similar high-quality materials on multiple subjects using different "levels" of text. For example, an article on the Electoral College might be edited for three or four different reading levels. Using a high English level version of one for most of your students and a simplified version for your newcomer is a fairly easy way to make content accessible. In fact, there are tools that let you do the same for any text you copy and paste into them. You can find links to all these options at The Best Places To Get The "Same" Text Written For Different "Levels."

*There are a number of content-specific books that are designed to be particularly accessible to ELLs - you can see a list of a few of them at The Best Books For Teaching & Learning ESL/EFL. I use some of the books listed in my history and English classes (note that, though the book titles are all accurate, the links where to purchase them might be out-of-date). You can find other content-specific books at The Best Places To Buy ESL/EFL Books. Software & Multimedia. Providing these textbook alternatives, which likely cover similar subjects to the ones you use with the majority of your students, could be a useful scaffold.

*At the very least, make sure you have a bilingual dictionary in your newcomer's student language.

*At our high school, seniors often get a class period when they are T.A.'s (teaching assistants) or "Peer Tutors." With support and minimal training from me, a student who doesn't even speak the newcomer's home language can provide invaluable support to them. In addition, having the title "peer tutor" can look better on a senior's transcript when applying to college.

*Inductive teaching emphasizes pattern-seeking, which is a skill found to be particularly important to those learning a new language (and it's important for everybody else, too!). If you presently employ inductive methods in your instruction, creating more simple versions for your newcomer should be fairly easy, though would take a little extra time. If you are not using them now, I'd encourage you to consider experimenting with it. You can learn more at The Best Resources About Inductive Learning & Teaching. In particular, you might want to read how I use it: Get Organized Around Assets and The Picture Word Inductive Model.

*If your newcomer does not have Internet access at home (or even if he/she does), providing him/her with accessible books they can read at home can be a big help - plenty of research documents the importance of home libraries. Our local Friends of the Library has provided hundreds of free books for our newcomer students, and you can also print out many online (see The Best Sources For Free & Accessible Printable Books).

*If your school has a specialized class where the newcomer is learning English, regularly talk with their teacher to learn more about the student and to both listen to - and offer - ideas how you can both support the student in their classes.
Karen MacKenzie: Prioritize - choose two or three concepts from the unit you are teacher and work hard to get those across to your newcomers. Trying to ensure the student understands every little last thing will be overwhelming for you both. PROVIDE SOCIAL SUPPORT
*Provide a peer mentor to your newcomer - ideally, someone who speaks their home language. At our school, peer mentors leave one of their classes for fifteen minutes each week and chats with their "mentee." You can read more about what we do at Here Are The Instructions I Give Mentors To Our ELLs - Help Me Make Them Better.

* Talk privately to individual students who have demonstrated empathy in the past about their reaching out to your newcomer. Perhaps share with them this story:

Must read: Girl Uses #GoogleTranslate to ask classmate to sit with her https://t.co/zgbxds2qDf #ELLs #WIDA #education #language #caring pic.twitter.com/q8OhIw7fbb

- WIDA™ (@WIDAConsortium) November 7, 2016

What do you think is missing from this list?

ADDENDUM:

Since I originally published this post, I realized I forgot to include a few other strategies:

Though I discus Google Translate, I forgot to mention its relatively new ability to "read" text, including print textbooks and PowerPoint slides, by using its camera function (see Video: "How Google Translate Makes Signs Instantly Readable").

In fact, Google just published this video that highlights that feature and the features I mentioned in the earlier post:

In addition, I neglected to mention the obvious strategy of showing English subtitled with any videos you show.

Finally, this was an idea suggested by one of the credential candidates at my California State University, Sacramento, course: if you are teaching whole novels in your class, why not get a version of it in your ELL's home language, if available?

Also, see The Best Online Resources For Teachers of Pre-Literate ELL's & Those Not Literate In Their Home Language.

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A Look Back: "Ways A Mainstream Teacher Can Support An ELL Newcomer In Class"

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Later this month, this blog will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary! Last August, I re-started a series I tried to do in the past called "A Look Back." Each week, I've been posting a few of my...

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This is an excerpt from the new book "The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students." And it turns out that many of these ideas work for teachers of mainstream students, as well.

The book was written by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski. Ferlazzo has taught English and social studies to English-language learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento for 15 years. He has written numerous books on education, writes a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and has his own popular resource-sharing blog. Sypnieski has worked with English-language learners at the secondary level for 21 years in the Sacramento City Unified School District.

This excerpt explains what culturally responsive teaching is, how to do it and why it is important to the growing numbers of English-language learners in public schools.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the percentage of ELL public school students in the United States was higher during the 2014-2015 school year (9.4 percent, or an estimated 4.6 million students) than in 2004-2005 (9.1 percent, or an estimated 4.3 million students) and 2013-2014 (9.3 percent, or an estimated 4.5 million students).

In 2014-2015, the percentage of public school students who were ELLs was 10 percent or more in the District of Columbia and seven states. These states, most of which are located in the West, were Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. California reported the highest percentage of ELLs among its public school students, at 22.4 percent, followed by Nevada at 17 percent. The percentage of public school students who were ELLs increased between 2004-2005 and 2014-2015 in all but 15 states, with the largest percentage-point increase occurring in Maryland (4.4 percentage points) and the largest percentage-point decrease occurring in Arizona (13.8 percentage points).
Here's the excerpt:
Culturally Responsive Teaching in the ELL Classroom

Looking at English Language Learners through the lens of assets and not deficits guides what we do in the classroom and the choices we make about how to do it. Instruction that is culturally responsive and sustaining explicitly challenges the "deficit" perspective. Rather, students are viewed as possessing valuable linguistic, cultural, and literacy tools. Recognizing, validating, and using these tools - in our experience - ultimately provides the best learning environment for our students and ourselves.

What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

While the majority of students in U.S. schools are students of color from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds, the vast majority of educators who teach them are white. Two of the most common philosophies guiding how teachers of all races can be better teachers to students of color are "culturally responsive teaching" and "culturally sustaining pedagogy."

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT), also known as culturally relevant teaching, was initially popularized by Gloria Ladson-Billings. CRT isn't a strategy or even a set of strategies; rather it is a mindset that underlies and guides everyday classroom practices. Its focus is on validating the cultural learning tools that diverse learners bring to the classroom and leveraging them to affect positive learning outcomes for all students.

Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) is an emerging perspective which builds on the tenets of culturally responsive teaching. This educational stance was first proposed by professor Django Paris who defines it as a pedagogy that "seeks to perpetuate and foster- to sustain - linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling." In other words, making sure our educational practices not only respond to the diversity of languages and cultures in our classroom, but that they aim to sustain these elements at the center of teaching and learning.

Substantial research supports its effectiveness with both ELLs and English-proficient students.

What Does It Look Like in the ELL Classroom?

For us, it is an awareness that we try to bring to everything we do. It is a process we are constantly working on as we learn from our students and their experiences. Have we made mistakes along the way? Many. However, like we tell our students, mistakes are opportunities for learning, and we try our best to model this mindset.

Here are several critical questions we ask ourselves when considering how our work with ELLs can be more culturally responsive and sustaining:

How Well Do I Know My Students?

In order to build upon the rich linguistic and cultural experiences of our students, we must get to know them! This doesn't mean doing interrogations on the first day of school, however. It means building positive relationships with our students so they feel safe sharing their experiences with us. It involves daily interactions with students to learn about their struggles, their joys, and their goals.

It means taking the time to gather information that the school may possess about our students - their English proficiency levels, assessment results, home language surveys, health information, transcripts from previous schooling, etc. It can also be making time to learn about students' home countries, the conflicts that may be going on there, the cities or towns they come from, and the languages they speak.

Of course, a key factor in knowing our students is getting to know their families, as well.

Do My Words Reflect a Culturally Responsive Mindset When I am Talking to My Students and About My Students?

One of the simplest ways to honor students' cultural backgrounds and identities is to correctly pronounce their names. Mispronouncing a student's name and not making any attempt to get it right can cause them to feel embarrassed and can heighten their anxiety. Correctly pronouncing a student's name signals respect and a validation of who they are. It is a critical first step in building strong, trusting relationships with students.

As teachers we also need to be mindful of the words we are using when discussing cultural experiences with students. Characterizing our students' beliefs as "right" or "wrong," through our words or our facial expressions, may sometimes not only be inaccurate, but removes students from the center of the teaching and learning process. We want students to feel comfortable sharing with each other and to build a community of learners where all experiences are valued. As teachers, we can be far more effective in raising questions than in making judgments. At the same time, it is also our job to teach U.S. cultural norms and laws (e.g. equal treatment of women and LGBTQ individuals) and create a classroom environment where everyone feels safe and respected. We can do this teaching in a way that is cognizant of our students' home cultures which may or may not promote different perspectives.

For those of us who work in schools located in high-poverty areas, we can often be asked questions by well-meaning people like, "How do you do it?" "Aren't you afraid working in that neighborhood?" "How can the students learn when their lives are so crazy?" In these situations, one can feel any number of emotions including anger, frustration, or hopelessness. It can be tempting to tell the "stories" of our students (the challenges or trauma they have faced) in an attempt to demonstrate their resilience. Unfortunately, sharing these details can often do more to perpetuate stereotypes than to shatter them. Instead, sharing with others about the rich cultural and linguistic contributions our students make to our school and to the community promotes culturally sustaining pedagogy.

Not only must we be intentional with our words and actions, we must educate ourselves so we truly believe in what we are saying and doing. If we don't, students will see right through us, and we speak from direct experience.

How Are My Instructional Practices Culturally Responsive?

Many of us have tried to engage our students by "dropping" a cultural reference into a lesson (mentioning an important person or event from our student's culture). While it usually gets students' attention, it isn't an instructional practice that can maximize student learning, and it isn't a culturally responsive instructional practice.

Educators, on the other hand, can increase learning outcomes by teaching in ways that build on the cultural and linguistic experiences of their students. These methods, in turn, lead to increased engagement. Zaretta Hammond, educator and author of the book "Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain" explains this when she states:

"The most common cultural tools for processing information utilize the brain's memory systems - music, repetition, metaphor, recitation, physical manipulation of content, and ritual. The teacher is 'responsive' when she is able to mirror these ways of learning in her instruction, using similar strategies to scaffold learning."

A specific example comes from our experience working with Hmong refugees. While in refugee camps, many Hmong women created "story cloths" (embroidery that told stories about their lives). In a series of lessons, our Hmong students created their own hand-drawn versions of story cloths and helped the non-Hmong students to do the same. We then used their creations as springboards to learn the English words needed to talk and write about these stories. Students were more engaged in this language-learning activity because it mirrored, valued, and respected an important part of their home culture.

We have used the process of building on cultural experiences to create language learning opportunities in many other lessons. These include ones where students have made presentations about their home cultures and done language learning activities related to both their favorite contemporary music and ancient cultural music. In addition, when learning about the elements of feudalism, students questioned the textbook authors' claim that it ended hundreds of years ago when, in fact, their families recently experienced it in their own lives. This connection led to high-interest studying of the socio-economic conditions of various countries as well as direct student communication with textbook authors.

Culturally responsive instruction is ultimately student-centered. It requires the teacher to help students build upon their prior knowledge and cultural and linguistic experiences as they are challenged to read, write, speak, and think at high levels. For ELLs, in particular, it means using best practices like modeling, instructional scaffolding, and collaborative learning, just to name a few, to build the language, academic, and critical thinking skills they need to be successful lifelong learners.

How Is the Curriculum I am Using Culturally Responsive?

We, like most teachers, want to have an idea of what we will be teaching before we actually start teaching it! However, culturally responsive teachers must be flexible with their curriculum and allow for modifications based on students' interests and experiences. Curriculum that is culturally responsive doesn't mean having to incorporate texts and information about every student's culture into every lesson. It also doesn't mean having a token "multicultural" day once a year to "celebrate" different cultures.

In our experience, culturally responsive curriculum involves the following:

- trying our best to choose materials that represent diverse cultures and perspectives

- encouraging students to share their cultural and linguistic knowledge with each other

- allowing students to choose books they want to read from a diverse classroom library

- valuing literacy in both the home language and English

- inviting family and community members to the classroom to share cultural knowledge

- using digital content to instantly connect students to cultural and linguistic resources

- creating lessons on issues directly impacting students' lives, including ones related to current political dynamics that might affect their immigration status and/or the situation in their countries. Student-driven lessons in our classes have included organizing a neighborhood-wide jobs fair with twenty job-training providers and 300 people in attendance, creating a neighborhood campaign to complete U.S. Census Forms, and writing letters to public officials about government immigration policy.

- facilitating open classroom dialogue about the role of race, racism, and religious prejudice (e.g. Islamophobia) in our students' daily lives, including at school.

How Does My Physical Classroom Reflect Diversity?

When students enter our classrooms each day they receive critical messages about the learning environment and their place in it. Students feel more safe, supported, and valued, when they see themselves reflected in the classroom - Do the posters on the walls reflect multiple cultures and languages? Is student work displayed? Are the books in the classroom library written by diverse authors? Do students have access to bilingual dictionaries and books in their home languages? How are the seats arranged? Can students easily move into groups? Considering these questions and others is an important step toward creating a learning environment that values student diversity.

A Note of Caution

We are not martyrs, nor are we saviors. If you think you are, perhaps you should consider seeking a different profession. We still remember the time one of our former colleagues who lived in a predominantly white, middle class suburb of Sacramento spoke to students at a school pep rally. He exhorted the students to work hard in class. He continued "People ask me why I drive all the way down from Roseville to this neighborhood to teach you. It's because I want to help you!" This is not a culturally responsive mindset. However, it is a mindset that we have probably had during different times of our career. The important thing is to be aware of our biases, work towards overcoming them, and be open to having them pointed out to us.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to help our students; that's why we are teachers.

What is wrong is when we educators believe that students need to be fixed and that only we can fix them because we are already fixed.

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Analysis | How teachers of all races can better support students of color

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Book excerpt: What is culturally responsive teaching, and why is it important to the growing numbers of English-language learners in public schools?

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The Importance of ELL Strategies - Immersion (Moises in Math Class)

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It is resolution season! In January we reflect on past joys and concerns from the previous year, and take the opportunity to make a resolution that will improve our lives in the New Year. Of course, we all know that resolutions are hard to keep and can often be unrealistic. The expert advice I've received on resolutions (mostly advice from women's magazines) states that you are more likely to be successful if your goal is specific and measurable. So, instead of saying, "I want to save more money" you might say, "I want to save enough money each month so that I can buy a new computer in August."

Teachers are always looking for ways to improve in the classroom; to assist with any of your New Year's resolutions that relate to instruction, I will recommend five specific and measurable actions you can implement to assist English language learners in the classroom. To increase the likelihood of success and continuity, I suggest teachers pick one item and stick to it for the rest of the year. It is better to do one thing consistently and do it well than to try to do all five and possibly lose focus and motivation, becoming a Jack of all trades and master of none. I also suggest teachers employ the "support group" method to ensure success and use the chosen strategy as a topic for a professional learning community. Sharing successes and challenges with colleagues will help you all grow professionally, and more students will benefit academically.

All of the following strategies have been featured on the Colorín Colorado website, and the Hotlinks section has links to helpful articles and websites for further support. When choosing an instructional strategy, frame it as a specific and measurable goal and display it next to your desk to remind you of what you want to accomplish.

Strategies for the New Year

1. Increase ELL students' English language production and peer interaction.
Specific and measurable goal: ELL students will verbally demonstrate their English speaking abilities in classroom work at least three times a week.
There are two key items ELLs need in order to improve their English - time and practice. There is nothing teachers can do to rush English acquisition, but there are many ways to provide opportunities to practice English in the classroom. If activities are structured to support student-to-student or group interaction, ELLs are required to use English to explain concepts and contribute to the work. This gives teachers an opportunity to gauge what the student has learned, and it demonstrates student progress in English language development.

Teachers can also informally assess for correct use of language structures and academic vocabulary. If ELLs are having difficulty with phrases or vocabulary, the teacher will be able to offer guidance or further instruction to support language development. See the Hotlinks section for links to ideas on interactive learning activities.

2. Explicitly teach English language vocabulary and structures.
Specific and measurable resolution: I will identify, teach, and post key academic vocabulary and structures for one content lesson each day.
In, "What Teachers Need to Know about Language" by Lily Wong Fillmore and Catherine Snow, the authors state that:

Teachers play a critical role in supporting language development. Beyond teaching children to read and write in school, they need to help children learn and use aspects of language associated with the academic discourse of the various school subjects. They need to help them become more aware of how language functions in various modes of communication across the curriculum. They need to understand how language works well enough to select materials that will help expand their students' linguistic horizons and to plan instructional activities that give students opportunities to use the new forms and modes of expression to which they are being exposed. Teachers need to understand how to design the classroom language environment so as to optimize language and literacy learning and to avoid linguistic obstacles to content area learning (Wong Fillmore & Snow, p. 7).

The need to understand English language structures and language acquisition theory is increasingly important as the number of ELLs increases in classrooms. However, very few teachers have had the formal training required to be prepared to identify and teach the English vocabulary and structures found in specific content areas. When I first started teaching ESL, my students knew way more about grammar than I did. I joked with them, "I don't know English; I just speak it."

Content teachers can begin by reviewing a content area lesson and identifying not just the vocabulary that every student needs to know, but other vocabulary words and grammar structures that ELL students may not be familiar with. See the Hotlinks section for resources on how to provide explicit instruction on English vocabulary and structures.

3. Build on ELLs' Background Knowledge to Increase Comprehension
Specific and measurable goal: I will elicit background knowledge from ELLs in one content area through a variety of activities, including questioning and graphic organizers.
Learning something new is like stacking building blocks. The more you have, the higher you can go. It is not always apparent what building blocks ELLs come with due to language barriers, and sometimes ELL students don't connect their previous experience with the lesson currently being taught. That is where the teacher's skill at drawing on background knowledge becomes so important.

Teachers can work creatively to elicit background knowledge from students on content topics in order to increase comprehension of the material. This may be as simple as taking the time to do a "K/W/L" (Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart, or as individualized as asking questions about the topic: "Has anyone ever visited the jungle? A jungle is like a rainforest. What do you see in a jungle?" Students can share their knowledge and see how it is connected to new academic information. See the Hotlinks section for more resources on strategies to increase connections with student background knowledge.

4. Increase ELL Parent Involvement
Specific and measurable goal: Teacher will contact one ELL parent each week to share information on his/her student or to inform the parent of a school event.
No matter what language you or your students' parents speak, parental support is a big key to academic success. ELL families are often at a disadvantage when it comes to supporting their child because of language and cultural barriers. It can be easy to interpret ELL parent "no shows" as a lack of interest in education; however, very often ELL parents want their children to succeed as much as any other parent but are unable to participate to the same extent that other parents participate due to these barriers or their work schedules.

Regular, open and friendly communication from the teacher can make a big difference in ELL parent participation. It can feel daunting for an English speaking teacher to call a non-English speaking parent, but usually there is someone in the family who speaks enough English to interpret the message for the parent, or the parent speaks enough English to understand a simple message. It may also be possible to get help from a bilingual school staff member to assist in making a quick phone call. ELL parents will be very pleased and excited to hear positive news about their child and will feel more comfortable asking questions and visiting the school in the future. The more informed the parents are, the more likely it is that the student will get support at home and parents will have the information they need to help their child be successful. See the Hotlinks section for links to further resources with specific ideas for ELL family outreach.

5. Increase Writing Opportunities
Specific and measurable goal: Students will engage in a weekly writing activity that will focus on developing a certain skill such as creative vocabulary use, the correct format of an essay or the peer editing process.
The ability to write effectively and accurately to convey a message is a very important skill for a college student and in most careers. However, it often seems as if the curriculum is largely focused on developing reading and math skills. Of course, these are very important too, but students need to have many positive opportunities to develop writing skills in a variety of formats in order to strengthen their communication skills. For ELLs this is particularly important. Depending on their writing skill level in their first language and their English language abilities, writing may be frustrating. Students need to engage in a variety of writing to develop an understanding of different types of writing and to identify their strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

I want to underscore the importance of interacting with writing in a positive way by examining creativity and word usage, in addition to the mechanics of writing. Many ELLs will focus negatively on problems with mechanics and miss the strengths they display in their writing. We write the way we think and speak, and by analyzing our writing we begin to analyze our thoughts and speech as well. When students discuss their writing they are able to see their thoughts and statements from someone else's perspective and they gain awareness of their own language development. In this age of technology where a lot of communication is done electronically, it is more important than ever that students develop the ability to state their thoughts clearly and accurately in writing - as well as to know the difference between texting a message to buddies and sending an email to the boss. See the Hotlinks section for links to instructional resources for writing.

I hope that this list of "Five Things" will be helpful as you set academic goals for the rest of the year. You may find, of course, that if you create your own they will be more meaningful, and you're more likely to stick with your plan. I hope you will be able to pick at least one thing and give it a try. The other thing I have learned from the resolution experts at women's magazines is that baby steps are better than no steps at all. So give it a try and go easy on yourself if it doesn't go as well as planned or if you get busy and don't keep up as well as you'd like. The most important thing is that you explore an instructional area that you know will improve the academic achievement of ELLs, and commit yourself to continued improvement in 2009. Happy Teaching in the New Year!

Note: For more recommended online resources, take a look at the Hotlinks that follow each of these articles and webcasts.

Increase Interaction

Explicitly Teach Academic English Structures

Build on Background Knowledge

Increase ELL Parent Involvement

Writing

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Five Things Teachers Can Do to Improve Learning for ELLs in the New Year

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It is resolution season! In January we reflect on past joys and concerns from the previous year, and take the opportunity to make a resolution that will improve our lives in the New Year. Of course, we all know that resolutions are hard to keep and can often be unrealistic.

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English Language Learners (ELLs) can have a wide variety of needs in their reading and writing instruction. Some students may read and write fluently in their native language while others will enter the classroom with little or no prior literacy instruction. This resource section covers many topics, including grade-level strategies and ideas for teaching more advanced reading and writing skills such as those required by the Common Core State Standards. With the right supports and opportunities for engagement, ELLs can become successful, life-long readers as seen in this section.

What You'll Find in This Section

For English language learners (ELLs) in upper grades, reading needs may vary greatly. Some students will read fluently in their native language, while others may come in with very limited literacy skills and will require creative approaches for teachers and literacy coaches. These resources include ideas for creating a safe, comfortable setting where adolescent ELLs can begin to catch up and increase confidence over time. For additional ideas, visit our sister site about adolescent literacy, AdLit.org.

What does it take to help English language learners (ELLs) become successful writers? This section offers a number of ideas and resources from veteran educators and researchers for students of all ages and proficiency levels. For examples of student writing projects, see our Student Voices section.

For English language learners (ELLs) in upper grades, reading needs may vary greatly. Some students will read fluently in their native language, while others may come in with very limited literacy skills and will require creative approaches for teachers and literacy coaches. These resources include ideas for creating a safe, comfortable setting where adolescent ELLs can begin to catch up and increase confidence over time. For additional ideas, visit our sister site about adolescent literacy, AdLit.org.

What does it take to help English language learners (ELLs) become successful writers? This section offers a number of ideas and resources from veteran educators and researchers for students of all ages and proficiency levels. For examples of student writing projects, see our Student Voices section.

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English Language Learners (ELLs) can have a wide variety of needs in their reading and writing instruction. Some students may read and write fluently in their native language while others will enter the classroom with little or no prior literacy instruction.

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There are a number of ways to support, or scaffold, instruction for English language learners, even if they are at beginning levels of English proficiency. These ideas from veteran educators can help make content more accessible and provide students with an opportunity to participate in all classroom activities.

For more great strategies, see our popular Bright Ideas section.

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There are a number of ways to support, or scaffold, instruction for English language learners, even if they are at beginning levels of English proficiency. These ideas from veteran educators can help make content more accessible and provide students with an opportunity to participate in all classroom activities.

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Teaching language arts and literature to English language learners (ELLs) provides rich opportunities for language and literacy development. These resources offer ideas for helping ELLs succeed with grade-level texts and work towards the rigorous demands of the Common Core and other language arts standards. Resources also include ideas for language arts in ELLs' native languages, such as Spanish.

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Teaching language arts and literature to English language learners (ELLs) provides rich opportunities for language and literacy development. These resources offer ideas for helping ELLs succeed with grade-level texts and work towards the rigorous demands of the Common Core and other language arts standards.

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Colorín Colorado is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of bilingual, research-based information, activities, and advice for educators and families of English language learners (ELLs). Colorín Colorado is an educational service of WETA, the flagship public broadcasting station in the nation’s capital, and receives major funding from our founding partner, the AFT, and the National Education Association. © Copyright 2023 WETA Public Broadcasting.

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Credit to Carla Byas

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SPANISH VERSION

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ENGLISH VERSION

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Question/Sentence Stems by Bloom's Levels

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Question/Sentence Stems by Bloom's Levels

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Second Language Acquisition

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10 Ways to Help ELLs Succeed in Math _ Scholastic

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Grades 6-8