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I think the most important steps a teacher can make to help their ELL students be more English language proficient is for them to have the time allowed to discuss the topics at hand.  My students almost always partner talk when I ask a question.  The students might not use "academic language" but their conversational language is getting stronger.  I think the most important steps a teacher can make to help their ELL students be more English proficient academically is by paraphrasing what the text is conveying, working with pictures to understand vocabulary, and visuals using the academic terms to enforce learning.

I think that visual tools are the most helpful.  In my classroom, we use a lot of anchor charts, modified graphic organizers to organize our thoughts, timelines, Discovery Education videos, reading text together that is projected on the ELMO.  In my classroom, I like to build an anchor chart together with the class at the end of a lesson.  For example, if we learned how to bundle using disks for addition, then, we will create an anchor chart with that in it.  I also like to keep my anchor charts hung up on the wall for as long as I can before I have to remove it to fit another one.

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the most important step in language acquisition and explain why.

In my opinion I wouldn't say that one stage is more important than the others. However, I do feel that the earliest stages are the most critical for language acquisition. It is well known that children first learn language by mimicking and copying others. It children do not hear anyone talking at an early age or do not have any one conversing with them, it makes it all the harder for them to learn correct grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. 

2. What should teachers do to build context rich instruction? Give an example of one way to use it in the classroom.

Teachers should present and teach lessons with multiple learning strategies in mind. Differentiation is a great tool to use to help this! 
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Andrea Narcisse 15h
1. I think that the silent/ receptive phase may be the most critical.  It helps the students gain experience determining meaning through syntax, intonation and word choice. I also think this as a person who struggled with acquiring receptive second language. I felt completely disconnected from people who tried to communicate with me and I never gained real understanding of the language's syntax. So, I believe this stage to be most important because it is the beginning stages of being able to communicate with others. 2. Teachers can employ a variety of strategies in order to build context rich instruction and I think that graphics and graphic organizers are some of the best. Students are able to connect prior knowledge to new knowledge with both strategies. 
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1. What do you think is the most important step in language acquisition and explain why.

In my opinion I wouldn't say that one stage is more important than the others. However, I do feel that the earliest stages are the most critical for language acquisition. It is well known that children first learn language by mimicking and copying others. It children do not hear anyone talking at an early age or do not have any one conversing with them, it makes it all the harder for them to learn correct grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary.

2. What should teachers do to build context rich instruction? Give an example of one way to use it in the classroom.

Teachers should present and teach lessons with multiple learning strategies in mind. Differentiation is a great tool to use to help this!

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Academic language is the language used in school for teaching and learning subjects. It is the language needed for reading, writing, and listening in content areas.

Conversational language is the language used to speak to friends and family; it is the language in which we verbally speak to one another.

Socioeconomic status plays a key role in learning language of any kind. If a student comes from a medium/high income family, they will learn double (possibly triple) amount of words. If a student is coming from a low income family, the maximum amount is 1000 words per year.

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BICS stands for Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills. This is more towards conversational language proficiency.

CALP stands for  Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. This is fully towards academic language.

What these terms both have in common is that the ideas and skills they learn in the native tongue are transferable to their new second language.

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1. Silent/Receptive (hours to few months)
learn simple vocabulary and how to pronounce words correctly
2. Early Production
(6 months)
form short sentences that might not be grammatically correct.
3. Speech Emergence-
EL knows roughly 3000 words. Starts to gain comprehension and reading/writing skills.
4. Intermediate fluency-
(lasts 1yr +)
start thinking in second language with more complex sentences.
5. Cont. Lang. Development &  Advance Fluency
(2yrs to learn / 10yrs to be fully proficient)
maintain consistency and practice.

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The data shows how ELLs learn and the way they learn vocabulary (based off 150 students).
The majority of the pie shows that 40% truly learn and understand vocabulary by reading, listening, and having audio tools.
When students learn the word and understand it, they are able to apply it. 28% of ELLs are able to do just that.
16% of ELLs are able to learn from educational games and videos.
Less than 14% can learn and apply the new vocabulary term but memorizing, reading dictionaries, and connecting the vocab word with a synonym.

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It takes one to three years for an English language learner to be proficient in conversational language. It takes five to seven years to be academically language proficient.

That is to say, if an EL is coming in and attending pre-kindergarten, they will be academically proficient by 5th grade. If a student is entering 1st grade, they will be fully proficient in 7th grade. What happens to those who enter in a later grade, maybe 6th or 10th grade? They will not make it in time to be academically proficient and will fall behind compared to their peers and not understand the content that needs to be learned.

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Individual, partner, small and whole group discussion is important for ELs to learn English. Academic language will grow through conversation. As speaking orally grows, so will their reading and writing and understanding of the language.

Context-rich instruction will build proficiency. The context should include multiple visuals, audio, and active learning to really have good application of the word.

Charts, graphic organizers, timelines all help students focus their listening by giving them something to look at. Visuals of any kind are beneficial along with videos.

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There is a huge debate on how long it takes to become academically fluent. Conversational becomes easy because the students are surrounded the English language for 8 hours of the day for a little over 9 months.

Academic language requires higher order thinking which is not done in conversation (unless it is an education-base debate). Students need to be able to analyze and explain answers to the questions that can have 3 parts for one question. The vocabulary is more technical base and need certain words to be understood to understand the main concept of a question.

The problem teachers face is when can they teach everything? When can a teacher teach the vocabulary needed to pass tests and state tests? When can they have enough time to teach every single question word and have full comprehension to know how to answer it?

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The solution to the problem is time -but with our profession, there is never enough time. Teachers run out of time and need to focus on everything that needs to be taught and still be able to teach academic vocabulary to build success.

There are tricky questions meant to have more than one correct answer, so students need to be able to analyze each choice to select the best answer. Not only will students need to be able to the vocabulary but the way a question is written, and how a sentence is structure, also needs to be learned for our ELs.

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After reading my padlet please take the exit ticket.

1. What do you think is the most important step in language acquisition and explain why.

2. What should teachers do to build context rich instruction? Give an example of one way to use it in the classroom.

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Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th Edition).
Clevedon, England, Buffalo, N.Y.: Multilingual Matters.

Carrier, K. (2005). Key Issues for Teaching English Language Learners in Academic Classrooms. No English Language Learner Left Behind, 4-9

Namnun, R. (2018). 4 Steps to Fluency and Mastery for ELLs. Professional Opinion. 75-76

Tamimi, S. (2018) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: What English Language Learners Perceive to be Effective and Ineffective Strategies. CEPS Journal, 8(1), 131-163.

Vander-Woude, E. (2016). Vocabulary Instruction for ELLs. Bridging Research and Practice, 48(2), 18-26