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God speaks to us in WORDS

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Also posted in BlackBoard. To view and listen, open in Google Slides.

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Weathering with You - Hokada transcribing interviews

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Weathering with You - Hokada transcribing interviews

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Lesson Plan 1 - Language Structures/Acquisition

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Lesson Plan 1 - Language Structures/Acquisition

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Modeled Talk/Scaffolded Instruction

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Realia

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https://learninginakinderworld.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/teaching-strategy-for-english-learners-realia-illustrations-and-photos/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW4DtZGxjq0

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Close Reading

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Listening - Level 2 Differentiation

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Lesson Plan 6 - Reading + Vocabulary Acquisition 

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Lesson Plan 6 - Reading + Vocabulary Acquisition 

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1. Padlet - https://padlet.com/dashboard
2. Kahoot! - https://kahoot.com/
3. VoiceThread - https://voicethread.com/
4. Learning Chocolate - https://www.learningchocolate.com/category/grammar
5. Read & Write for Chrome (will read text aloud) - https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/read-write/
6. Blogger - https://www.blogger.com/about/?r=1-null_user
7. BrainPOP ELL - https://ell.brainpop.com/
8. Newsela - https://newsela.com/
9. EdPuzzle - https://edpuzzle.com/
10. Buncee - https://app.edu.buncee.com/
EXTRAS!
11. Learn Around the World - http://www.learnaroundtheworld.com/
12. NearPod - https://nearpod.com/
OTHERS: https://blog.ozobot.com/teaching-strategies/26-tech-tools-teachers-can-use-inspire-classroom-creativity/

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https://www.understood.org/search-results/v1/search?query=dyslexia

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Understood - For Learning and Thinking Differences

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Understood.org is the resource that helps the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences anticipate the challenges, barriers, or opportunities in life and confidently reach their potential.

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What is dyslexia? - Kelli Sandman-Hurley

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4 Challenges of English Language Learners Who Learn and Think Differently

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4 Challenges of English Language Learners Who Learn and Think Differently

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Challenge #1: Your child has undiagnosed learning and thinking differences.

It can be hard for schools to tell whether a child's challenges are related to language and cultural differences or to learning and thinking differences. Because of this, it might take awhile for your child's school to recommend an evaluation for special education services.

Solution: Talk or email regularly with your child's teachers. (Here are sentence starters you can use.) Getting to know your child's English as a Second Language (ESL) or bilingual teacher can help you feel comfortable discussing your child's issues with the team at school that determines whether he qualifies for services.

To learn more, watch as an expert talks about the challenge of diagnosing dyslexia in ELLs:

Challenge #2: Your child's IEP is difficult to understand.

The world of education is full of acronyms. And many of these acronyms change from year to year. It can be particularly tough for parents to follow along when these acronyms don't match up with the translated terms in their native language. If your child qualifies for an Individualized Education Program (IEP), it will contain many of these acronyms. These terms will also be used during your child's IEP meetings.

Solution: The school has to take steps to help you understand what's happening at your child's IEP meetings. That includes providing an interpreter who speaks your preferred language. If you need the IEP to be translated, ask the school if it can do this for you. Many schools are given money for translation services, so your child's school may be able to have the IEP translated.

Before you leave each meeting, be sure you understand all the acronyms in your child's IEP. This includes the description of your child's classification as well as all the services he'll be receiving.

Challenge #3: Your child isn't receiving services in the right language.

Many schools don't have bilingual service providers. This means your child might end up receiving services in English even if the school psychologist determines that your child is more fluent in another language.

Solution: Learn more about your child's rights. Schools must take steps to ensure that ELLs can understand and participate meaningfully in educational programs. These steps are sometimes called "Lau remedies."

This term refers to Lau v. Nichols. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in this case that school districts must comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal funding.

Lau remedies might include hiring a contractor to provide services in another language. Some schools may leave it up to parents to call or take other proactive steps to start receiving these services at another facility or, in some limited cases, in their home. The most important thing is for you to be persistent. Regardless of where the services are provided, make sure each service is provided in whichever language is listed in the IEP for that service.

Challenge #4: Your child is frequently pulled out of class to receive services.

Scheduling can be a big challenge. Because ESL instruction and other services are provided during the school day, it's likely that your child will miss part of his regular classroom instruction. This can make it harder for him to keep up with his peers.

Solution: Ask your child's teachers for a detailed copy of his schedule. Make sure you understand which subjects, if any, he's missing during the day. Discuss whether it's possible for some of his services to be provided in his regular classroom. These are referred to as " push-in services " and can help keep your child from missing out on core instruction.

Remember that you are your child's No. 1 advocate. But there are many educators out there who will fight for your child, too. Being the parent of an ELL with learning and thinking differences can be challenging at times. But there are ways to face these challenges and get your child the services and support he needs to succeed.

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4 Challenges of English Language Learners Who Learn and Think Differently

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Challenge #1: Your child has undiagnosed learning and thinking differences. It can be hard for schools to tell whether a child's challenges are related to language and cultural differences or to learning and thinking differences. Because of this, it might take awhile for your child's school to recommend an evaluation for special education services.

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Percy Jackson: The Learning-Disabled Hero

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Percy Jackson: The Learning-Disabled Hero

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How my son's struggle with ADHD and dyslexia inspired a fantasy novel about a regular kid with not-so-regular problems.
By Rick Riordan
I remember the first time I took my son to the psychologist.

His teacher had recommended testing. Well . . . not just testing, a full "psycho-educational battery," which sounded to me like some sort of ground assault with number two pencils.
As with most things, my son was fine with it. I was a wreck.

'Your teacher just wants to find out how you learn best,' I assured him. 'It doesn't mean there's anything wrong.'

'I know, Dad.'

My son Haley was seven. He was playing his Gameboy as we drove very slowly to the appointment. His brown bangs fell over his eyes. I wasn't sure if he was listening to me or not.

'Everybody has strengths and weaknesses,' I told him. 'The testing will find out how you learn best. Teachers are really very good people.'

'Dad, you're a teacher.'

'Well, yes, but . . .'

But it's different when my son is the one being tested, when I'm on the other side of the parent conference table, listening to the teacher catalogue my child's deficiencies in class.

'Do you have any questions?' I asked my son.

'Uh-huh,' Haley said. 'Can we get out of the car now?'

I realized we were idling in the psychologist's driveway.

As we walked to the front door, I held my son's hand. Usually, he didn't like doing this if it meant putting up his Gameboy, but today he didn't complain. I guess he knew Dad needed the hand-holding.

*

A few weeks earlier, Haley's teacher had been very nice at the conference. Very professional. She started with positive comments about what a sweet boy he was, how articulate, how good in math.

'But he has trouble paying attention,' she added regretfully. 'And his reading and writing . . .' She paused. 'You know, I told him, "Your father is an author and a teacher, you should love reading and writing." '

I managed a smile, but I was dying inside. There was nothing Haley hated more than being told he should love reading and writing because his dad taught English and wrote novels. Haley liked reading and writing about as much as needles at the doctor's office. In the evenings I would sit with him as he did his homework. Every word he managed to get on paper was a hard-fought victory. Every page he tried to read was a minefield.

He would cry. He would get silly. He would try every diversionary tactic he could think of - sharpening his pencil ten times, hiding under the table, developing a sudden interest in feeding the cat. At school, things weren't much better. The teachers still talked about the day in kindergarten when Haley had an anxiety attack and his teacher had to latch the door to keep him from running away.

'I think we should look at testing,' his teacher summed up, 'to figure out what's going on. He's such a bright boy, but . . .'

I got her meaning. That but was pretty huge.

*

Several months later, we got the results of Haley's testing. He was beginning second grade and we called a conference with his new teachers.

The diagnosis: borderline dyslexia, enough to qualify Haley for the Scottish Rite program with the school's reading specialist. The psychologist had been more hesitant about labeling Haley with ADHD. He had attention problems, yes, but ADHD is a very subjective diagnosis. The psychologist wasn't ready to go there.

His second grade teachers didn't share these reservations. They already knew Haley was ADHD. They learned very quickly that they couldn't play music in the classroom during journal time. Haley would get distracted and start humming along. They couldn't put him by the window. He found the birds in the live oak tree much more fascinating than his lessons. The actual diagnosis of ADHD, and Haley's first experience with Ritalin, would not come for three more years, but that didn't make the problem any less real in second grade.

At the time, I tried to console myself with the fact that we weren't the only family dealing with these issues. In the United States, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that two million American children have ADHD. In every classroom of 25-30 children, there will be at least one ADHD child. The ADHD UK Alliance puts the number of British children with ADHD at 7%, but adds that many children with the condition, especially girls, go undiagnosed.

The number of children struggling with dyslexia is even higher. According to the International Dyslexia Association, 15%-20% of the population has some sort of language-based learning disability like dyslexia. 70-80% of those children with learning disabilities have a deficit in reading. Most interestingly, up to 50% of all children diagnosed with a learning disability also have ADHD.

Still, statistics are one thing. My own child, my own guilt and anxiety and desire for him to do well - that is quite another.

As a teacher, I had worked with many ADHD and dyslexic children over the years, but I'd never seen what school was like from their point-of-view. Now I understood just how hard it had been for them every time I assigned written homework, or gave a spelling test, or asked them to read a chapter in a novel. I understood how a bright, articulate child could fail to write a complete sentence. It did not necessarily mean that the child was lazy.

*

As Haley struggled through second grade, his saving grace was Greek mythology. He loved those old stories. He would actually read them willingly in class. He knew I'd taught Greek myths for years in the middle school, and so every night he would ask me to tell him a bedtime story about the Olympians.

One night, as we were lying in bed for story time, I realized I'd run out of myths. We'd done all the gods, the heroes, the monsters. I was fresh out of Minotaurs.

'Well, make something up!' Haley said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

I thought about that.

I thought about Haley's struggle with ADHD and dyslexia. I imagined the faces of all the students I'd taught who had these same conditions. I felt the need to honor them, to let them know that being different wasn't a bad thing. Intelligence wasn't always measurable with a piece of paper and a number two pencil. Talent didn't come in only one flavor.

Then I thought about the heroes in the old myths - sons and daughters of gods and humans - and all the troubles they'd had to overcome because of their mixed heritage. Off the top of head, I began a story about a 12-year-old boy named Percy Jackson, the modern-day son of the Greek god Poseidon, who among his many other problems has ADHD and dyslexia. He struggles in school. He's constantly being labeled a lazy troublemaker. Yet Percy finds that his learning disabilities are actually indicators of Olympian blood. He is a hero - a child of the gods.

I took me three nights to tell of Percy's epic quest across the United States to retrieve a lightning bolt stolen from Zeus. When I was done, Haley told me I should write the story down.
I took him seriously. I spent a year on the manuscript, not sure anyone except Haley would ever want to read it.

I was wrong. The story seems to have struck a chord.

To date, The Lightning Thief is being published in seven languages and the film version is underway. I've gotten a flood of appreciative emails from readers, many of them ADHD/dyslexic kids who usually dislike reading. It's tremendously gratifying, and yet the book remains a very personal story from a father to a son. Like the Greek stories of old, The Lightning Thief is an attempt to explain a natural phenomenon - a myth to help my son make sense of who he is.

And what about all the attention the book has brought our family? As usual, my son is fine with it. As for Dad . . . well, as Haley will be the first to tell you, Dad still needs a little hand-holding from time to time.

On-line parent/teacher resources for ADHD & Dyslexia:

ADHD UK Alliance
www.adhdalliance.org.uk
Hyperactive Children's Support Group
www.hacsg.org.uk
CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)
www.chadd.org
ADDA (National Attention Deficit Disorder Association)
www.add.org
The Dyslexia Institute
www.dyslexia-inst.org.uk

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How my son's struggle with ADHD and dyslexia inspired a fantasy novel about a regular kid with not-so-regular problems.By Rick Riordan I remember the first time I took my son to the psychologist. His teacher had recommended testing. Well . . .

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Dyslexia is a language-based learning disorder. It causes its hosts to have difficulty decoding words and putting sounds of words together to make sense, although there is a lot more to it as well. It makes reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension very difficult. It can appear as just a difficulty, although, there are cases known when words flicker, lines of words merge together or separate, or words fly or fall off the page, which still makes reading and comprehending difficult. This is not in just the Percy Jackson world; ADHD is connected to dyslexia, and is often associated with a lot of other Learning Disabilities (LDs).

Description

Those who suffer from dyslexia are often unable to decode words properly. This results in below grade reading and spelling skills. It has nothing to do with them seeing the letters wrong. It is a complexity with their brains being unable to recognize words and their sounds. In mortals, dyslexics have a dominant right brain, which makes it hard for the brain itself to interpret words because the right brain is used for mental images and more creative thinking. Because their left side of the brain does not work as persistently as the right, language takes longer voyages in order to be understood.

However, through the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and beyond, Percy Jackson, along with other demigods, suffer from dyslexia. This is explained to Percy by Annabeth Chase, who informs him that their dyslexia is a result of demigods' brains being "hard-wired" to interpret Ancient Greek, not English. It is usually coupled with ADHD. Demigod dyslexia makes English a difficult language to interpret.

While in actual terms, dyslexia covers both reading and writing, in technical/medical terms, it is limited to reading. The related written learning disorder is dysgraphia. Similar learning disorders include dyscalculia (affecting mathematics skills), and dyspraxia (affecting motor skills).

Unlike most demigods, Frank Zhang is not dyslexic and has competed in his school's spelling competitions.

Rick Riordan's own son, Haley Riordan, has dyslexia, and this is one of the main reasons he made this a main characteristic of demigods.

In the 1930's teachers called children who had dyslexia, lazy, according to The Son of Neptune.

It is unknown if all minor demigods have dyslexia.

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Dyslexia is a language-based learning disorder. It causes its hosts to have difficulty decoding words and putting sounds of words together to make sense, although there is a lot more to it as well. It makes reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension very difficult.

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Dyslexia and the English Learner Dilemma

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Dyslexia and the English Learner Dilemma

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The American educational system has a difficult time understanding dyslexia and an even harder time identifying children with dyslexia in order to provide the correct intervention for students who are native English speakers. When a school has the added challenge of identifying struggling English language learners (ELLs), the task becomes an even more complicated process, and often, these kids are completely missed. But that does not have to be the case. Children who are learning English are just as likely to have dyslexia as their native-English-speaking counterparts, and there is a way to identify dyslexia in these children. The difference is that dyslexia might appear in the native language quite as vividly as it will when they attempt to learn English.

But before we can begin the conversation about how dyslexia affects those students who are English language learners, we have to agree that dyslexia is real and that it really affects up to 20% of the population of those who read English; that's one in five people (Shaywitz, 2005). However, Snowling (2000) suggested that when the language is more transparent than English, such as Spanish, Finnish, and German, that number decreases to about 5%. Therefore, when we broaden the discussion to include the ELL, we must remember that dyslexia is a human condition that is not bound by country, it has no language borders, and it can affect anyone attempting to decode a printed alphabetic language (and probably a logographic language as well). It is still worth establishing that dyslexia is not a result of laziness, lack of motivation, or socioeconomic advantage or disadvantage. Contrary to popular belief and the rampant misinformation distributed, dyslexia is not a visual problem, even though it may present itself that way when students appear to be transposing letters like b, d, p, and q. The fact is that students with dyslexia see letters and words the same way those of us without dyslexia do. This brings us to the definition of dyslexia. The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) publish the following definition:

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge (2002).

Ask the average person on the street what dyslexia is, and you will get a plethora of incorrect and absurd responses. In order to begin to understand what it might be like to have dyslexia, take a moment to read the following sentence:

The bottob line it thit it doet exitt, no bitter whit nibe teotle give it (i.e. ttecific leirning ditibility, etc). In fict, iccording to Tilly Thiywitz (2003) itt trevilence it ictuilly one in five children, which it twenty tercent.

How was that? Frustrating? Slow? What were those two sentences about? Don't know? Why not? Did your difficulty understanding that sentence have anything to do with your intelligence? When most people think of dyslexia, they think of people seeing letters and words backwards; like seeing b as d and d as b. But despite a great amount of effort and intellectual capability, dyslexic people experience the slow, laborious pace you just experienced, yet they experience it every time they read. They are not only highly motivated, but very adept at adapting and accommodating their dyslexia in brilliant ways. Dyslexia is a phonological processing problem that is neurobiological and makes it difficult to decode words accurately and fluently, as well as making spelling very difficult. Dyslexia is highly genetic and occurs on a continuum from mild to severe. People with dyslexia have the ability to learn to read, they just need to be taught the way they learn, and they require accommodations to succeed via other learning modalities, such as the audio presentation of information.

Dyslexia affects humans, not English readers, and this means that students in classrooms who are struggling to learn English may be at risk for dyslexia. More often than not, these students may be missed, because it is assumed that because the English language is complicated and opaque, the student is having difficulty learning it but will eventually get it. This is erroneous. While English is not as transparent as Spanish or German, it is not the language that is causing the struggle. It is the dyslexia. There are ways to determine if the student is having difficulty due to dyslexia.

The answer lies in the students' abilities in their native languages and the investigation should begin there. The first step is to determine if dyslexia is a possibility, so the students' ability to verbally manipulate the sounds in their native languages, otherwise known as phonemic awareness, must be assessed. Brown (2008) suggested that students with below-average phonemic awareness in their native languages will have difficulty learning a new language. If the student is not literate in his native language, he can still be tested for phonemic awareness. Secondly, the reading fluency and spelling of those students whose native languages are a transparent languages, such as Spanish, need to be assessed. Fluency and orthography issues are red flags for dyslexia. This is in contrast to those native English speakers who are usually identified by their difficulty in decoding new and unfamiliar words, but this difficulty is a better predictor of reading difficulties in English, because it is an opaque language. So those students who have transparent native languages will have less difficulty sounding out words, because the languages are predictable; therefore, when the fluency is low in the native language, there is a problem with reading. Third, rapid automatic naming or RAN is a predictor of reading difficulties in ELLs (Frith, Wimmer, & Landeri, 1998) and should be part of the assessment. RAN tests the students' ability to rapidly name items, letters, or numbers that are presented to them visually. Lastly, dyslexia is highly genetic, so, if possible and relevant, the family's history of reading success should be surveyed.

This is the neat and tidy version of how to determine if an ELL student has dyslexia. Of course, identification of dyslexia in an ELL is a complicated procedure. Many factors need to be ruled out. For example, the lack of opportunity to learn in native languages or the lack of home support in learning English needs to be investigated. Also, does the child have the intellectual capability to learn to read at the same rate as her peers? Although it can be tricky to identify dyslexia in the ELL children, the intervention they should receive has the potential to help any child who is struggling with reading.

Ortiz et al (2002) reported that ELL students who are struggling to learn English and have some foundation in reading in their native language should receive direct instruction that includes speech perception, phoneme awareness, and sound-symbol connections. This is very similar to the Orton-Gillingham approach that is recommended as the intervention for English readers who have dyslexia. Literacy in the students' initial language is really the key to helping them attain English, especially with dyslexia present. This might be seen as an insurmountable burden to a school system in which children speak a multitude of languages, but it is the most appropriate way to remediate the reading issue. However, in districts where there is a high concentration of one language, this is a very plausible solution. This strong foundation in their native language will translate into their English learning. McCardle et al (2005) reported that ELLs with reading disabilities were identified far later than their English-only peers, and this greatly impacts their ability to achieve their potential.

Dyslexia and the ELL student is a very complex topic and creates a conundrum for educators. While the best way to identify and intervene seems completely financially and logistically implausible, simply on the basis of the number of languages spoken in any single school district, it is how to help the ELL who is dyslexic. The good news is that once a students master their native language, they will be able to achieve literacy in English, but we can't fail to see that those who are struggling with English might have a legitimate learning disability, like dyslexia, and might need an appropriate remediation in order to give them a fair chance. It is far too easy to allow these kids in particular to fall through the cracks.

Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley, co-founder of the Dyslexia Training Institute, received her doctorate in literacy with a specialization in reading and dyslexia from San Diego State University and the University of San Diego. She is a trained special education advocate assisting families through the Individual Education Plan (IEP) and 504 Plan process. An adjunct professor of reading, she is also past president of the San Diego branch of the International Dyslexia Association.

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Dyslexia and the English Learner Dilemma - Language Magazine

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Kelli Sandman-Hurley recommends using the mother tongue to diagnose dyslexia The American educational system has a difficult time understanding dyslexia and an even harder time identifying children with dyslexia in order to provide the correct intervention for students who are native English speakers. When a school has the added challenge of identifying struggling English language ...

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Video: How Does Dyslexia Play Out in Different Languages?

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Video: How Does Dyslexia Play Out in Different Languages?

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Is dyslexia the same in different countries and cultures? Would a child with dyslexia struggle with Chinese the same way she might with English or Spanish? Hear from Fumiko Hoeft, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at UCSF, about how dyslexia affects children who speak different languages.

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Video: How Does Dyslexia Play Out in Different Languages?

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Is dyslexia the same in different countries and cultures? Would a child with dyslexia struggle with Chinese the same way she might with English or Spanish? Hear from Fumiko Hoeft, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at UCSF, about how dyslexia affects children who speak different languages.

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Teaching Strategies for the Dyslexia-Friendly ESL Classroom

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Teaching Strategies for the Dyslexia-Friendly ESL Classroom

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Dyslexia, just like ADD, is no longer a dirty word in the English-language classroom. Educational professionals and ESL teachers are beginning to realize that there are more students with reading and spelling problems than we think.

We as teachers should not see dyslexia as a deficit. We should not be making students feel bad because they have this disorder.

We need to show empathy, understanding, and good classroom technique. In this post, I am going to show that good teaching and learning techniques for dyslexic students are good practices for all students.

Dyslexia and the multi-sensory approach

I will share background information on dyslexia and define briefly dyslexia. Then, I will look at some facts about the disorder.

I will also explain why English-language learners find English so difficult.

I will describe some of the best teaching strategies to employ with learners who have dyslexia.

Finally, I will show how my online writing course, Introduction to Academic Writing, employs many of effective teaching strategies in its multi-sensory approach.

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a neurological disorder. Language learners have a hard time consciously isolating and manipulating the sounds of the language and relating them to the written symbols.

In simple terms, dyslexic students read and write slower in English. They spell words as they sound. They reverse letters and symbols. And they don't like reading-far from being helpful for academic success.

Dyslexia can also be related to poor motor coordination, mental calculation, and personal organization.

Up 20% of the US population may have dyslexia. At my own college-Cegep de Saint-Laurent in Montreal-10% of the students have been diagnosed with this disorder.

Dyslexia quiz

1. Gorillas have dyslexia too.

2. There are more boys than girls with dyslexia.

3. A lot of reading practice can cure dyslexia.

4. The main problem in dyslexia is reading.

5. Students with dyslexia have lower IQs.

6. Students with dyslexia should sit in front of the class.

7. Dyslexia is not inherited.

8. All experts agree on the definition of dyslexia.

9. Asking dyslexic students surprise literacy tasks keeps them on their toes.

10. It's best to place dyslexic learners in low achieving groups.

You might have guessed it. All these statements are false, including the tongue-in-cheek first statement.

Why is English so difficult for non-native speakers

English has multiple mappings between letters and sounds. In other words, spelling patterns are not regular. Spanish has a much closer relationship between spelling and sounds.

Words don't necessarily follow the sounds of the language. My wife is a native Spanish speaker and this aspect of English drives her crazy.

For example the letter c in cup /k/ and in pencil /s/ are pronounced differently.

In English, the past tense morpheme is indicated by the suffix -ed added to regular verbs. In reality, this past tense morpheme has three phonetically conditioned variants or allomorphs [t], [d], and [id].

It means that the morpheme {-ed} can be pronounced [t], [d] or [id] depending on the final phone of the base attached by this morpheme. The following are the examples of the irregular verbs which contain the suffix -ed.

Dyslexia-friendly classroom tips

This excellent graphic created by Professor Martha Youman shows different teaching strategies for English-language learners with and without dyslexia.

The best strategies for students with dyslexia include:

word processing technology

books having tape-recorded text

one-on-one instruction in a help centre

multisensory activities

graphics and visual representations combined with text

different colours for different points made

It is helpful for students to:

see the "big picture" - giving students the end-point, where they are going, having them take small steps

have plenty of reinforcement, recapitulation, positive feedback

tie old learning to new learning.

In other words, the dyslexia-friendly classroom should:

use a highly structured approach with a linear pattern, if possible,

use individualized measures & methods

be sequential and cumulative

combine visual and auditory channels to allow students to hear and see how words are pronounced.

ESL learners thus benefit in three ways. It motivates them to want to learn. It stimulates learning. It Increases their chances for success

Features of Introduction to Academic Writing (AWC)

My writing course, the AWC, incorporates many of the features and benefits of the dyslexia-friendly online classroom.

Here are some of main features of the AWC:

High quality design

Clear presentation

User friendliness

Consistency to lectures

Nick Walker of Ahuntsic College loved the design of the course.

"It's well designed, interactive, multimedia rich. . ."

The graphic shows how the multimedia experience addresses different learning styles.

We learn what the lecture is about-in this case an introduction to literary analysis.

There is a talking head giving the presentation-adding some life to the page.

There is the actual text of the lecture at the bottom of the graphic. The left menu bar shows students exactly where they are in the course.

In one testimonial, one of my students commented how useful it is to have both video and text.

Other features of the AWC include:

Frequent formative feedback

Quizzes for reinforcement and review

Self-assessments to check their knowledge

In another testimonial, a student loved having access to it all the time "perfect for my exams and homework."

Main benefits of the AWC multi-sensory approach

Makes it easier for student to follow a lecture with its combination of visual and auditory

Lets students work at their own pace

Builds writing skills with lots of examples

Gives students security with its highly structured approach

Improves learning with frequent repetition and reinforcement

There are three different ways to use the AWC. Teachers can use it in class. Students can use it at home. An institution can make it available in the library or help centre.

Further reading

Nijakowska, Joanna. Dyslexia in the foreign language classroom. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2010. Web.

Pavey, Margaret et al. The Dyslexia-Friendly Teacher's Toolkit: Strategies for Teaching Students 3-18 1st Edition. 1st ed. London: Sage, 2013. Web.

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Teaching Strategies for the Dyslexia-Friendly ESL Classroom

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Dyslexia, just like ADD, is no longer a dirty word in the English-language classroom. Educational professionals and ESL teachers are beginning to realize that there are more students with reading and spelling problems than we think. We as teachers should not see dyslexia as a deficit.

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Welsh is what little Iona Weighton speaks at school, chats with friends to and even dreams in. But despite this, the youngster cannot take a vital test to see how bad her dyslexia is in her mother tongue - because it's only available in English.

And the Ysgol Pen y Garth pupil could be forced to wait until she's 11 before she can be properly assessed - despite experts saying that early intervention is important.

Her mum Haf and dad Russell say the situation is utterly ridiculous - and their daughter's doctor agrees too.

Dr Rhiannon Packer, who tested and diagnosed Iona's dyslexia, said: "This is going to become more of a problem because more children are going to Welsh medium schools and we need training on this for teachers in Welsh medium schools."

The British Dyslexia Association estimates one in 10 children, or three in every average class, have dyslexia - some diagnosed and some not.

Iona's mum Haf said concerns were first flagged up about her daughter about a year ago.

"When Iona was five and in reception the school told me they thought she might have dyslexia but to see how it goes.

"At the end of that year they said again they thought she was dyslexic but they could not do any tests.

"I contacted Dyslexia Action Wales and when she was six I took her out of school for a dyslexia screening test in English because there is none in Welsh.

"Having early assessment in the language you learn in is really important. Children are losing out. Not all parents can fund tests and there are less resources in Welsh."

Iona, a pupil at Ysgol Pen y Garth in Penarth, speaks Welsh to her mum and English to her dad Russell at home. All her learning is in Welsh.

"Iona loves books but as a parent I am shocked by the impact of dyslexia in terms of self esteem. She goes through phases of not being able to cope with going to school," said former art teacher Haf.

She said her daughter's school has been as supportive as it can, but they system isn't fair for Welsh medium pupils with dyslexia.

A screening test to see whether a child may have dyslexia, before a diagnostic test is considered, is available in Welsh.

But that's only available at age six and a half - rather than four and a half for the English version.

If that tests indicates dyslexia, Welsh medium pupils generally take the English language diagnostic test later than English peers at age nine, 10, or 11. That's because Welsh medium pupils don't start formally learning English until age seven and that could affect test results in that language.

Dr Packer from Cardiff Metropolitan University warned lack of early dyslexia screening tests or any diagnostic tests at all in the Welsh language is leaving children affected without the vital early help and support they need.

She added: "The end result is that they may fail exams because they have not had appropriate support. They may not get exams they need because they have not had the support. The research says early diagnosis is best because learning can then be tailored.

"If you have dyslexia diagnosis you can apply for extra support. If diagnosis is delayed there are delays to that process and support. This impacts on learning and self esteem.

"Full diagnostic assessment can be done from age eight in English, but for Welsh children in Welsh medium schools wait unto they are nine, 10 or 11 to do that as they don't start formally learning English at school until they are seven.

"When I speak to special educational needs co-ordinators in schools they say they feel that because there's no early screening test in Welsh it's harder to identify needs."

Iona's primary allows her out for one day a week to attend Cardiff's private specialist dyslexia school, Tomorrow's Generation, in Lisvane.

Her specialist Welsh language dyslexia teacher there, Carol Bradley, said: "There is a lack of assessment materials for dyslexia in the Welsh language.

"We have a screening test from age six and a half in Welsh and age four and a half in English. That screening tells you whether there is a high, moderate or no level of dyslexia.

"A full diagnostic test can be taken but that's not available in Welsh at all. That means some children are being assessed later and not in their language of learning and, in some cases, not in their mother tongue.

"This can be quite a significant problem. Some children are not having a full diagnosis or not having it in their first learning language.

"I think parents and schools are aware of dyslexia. We have quite a few Welsh speaking parents contacting us here.

"There is definitely a need for these assessments to be available in Welsh. I imagine it's a matter of funding."

Because dyslexia is not a "statemented" special need, schools do not have to pay for tests and the cost often falls to parents. Many may not be able to afford the hundreds of pounds they cost, but in some cases the local education authority will fund testing via local educational psychologists.

Some research claims that children learning to read in Welsh have an easier start because the written words follow consistent pronunciation rules and it is more phonetic language than English.

A Welsh government spokesman said: "The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice for Wales makes it clear that both the Welsh and English language should be treated equally across lesson delivery and all services covered by the code should be available in the child's preferred language of Welsh or English, or bilingually where appropriate.

"We have also published guidance to help ensure a more inclusive education for learners with dyslexia and enable practitioners to better understand the difficulties those learners face.

"Local Authorities have a legal duty to provide suitable education for all learners, including those who have special educational needs. We will be providing an additional £8m next year to support local authorities and colleges in Wales in delivering education for young people with additional learning needs."

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'My dyslexic daughter can't get help now because she's a Welsh speaker'

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Welsh is what little Iona Weighton speaks at school, chats with friends to and even dreams in. But despite this, the youngster cannot take a vital test to see how bad her dyslexia is in her mother tongue - because it's only available in English.

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How to Recognize Dyslexia in Children, Including English Language Learners

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How to Recognize Dyslexia in Children, Including English Language Learners

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For example, when Dr. Martha Youman first began her career as a second grade teacher, she knew that some of her students simply couldn't read but she didn't know what to do about it: "I kept them busy. Truly, there were interventions they needed, I just didn't know how to help them," says Youman, who now treats kids with dyslexia. "I had a master's in teaching, and didn't know how to deal with these students."

Often the diagnosis of dyslexia comes after months or years of exhausting frustration and failure for students, parents, and teachers. It's common for dyslexic children to avoid reading and become angry or upset in class or when it's time to do homework or read aloud in front of others. Sometimes these students are seen as smart but lacking motivation or not working hard enough. To make things more complicated, dyslexic children often have another developmental disorder like ADHD alongside their reading challenges.

The key to preventing reading failure is early detection.

WHAT DOES DYSLEXIA LOOK LIKE?

Though dyslexia can take on many forms, two common areas where differences can be clearly seen and heard are slow reading and difficulty with handwriting and spelling.

Also, in some cases, certain speech patterns can be an early indicator of dyslexia, like mispronouncing familiar words or using "baby talk."

In the following video, a fourth grader with dyslexia reads from Rosie Revere, Engineer, and then writes what she's looking forward to when she gets to fifth grade (see picture below). At the time when this video was taken, she had already had 1.5 years of targeted Wilson dyslexia tutoring, and her reading had improved significantly.

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO READ WITH DYSLEXIA?

For kids who are entering school, according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, signs of dyslexia in kindergarten and elementary school children include:

* Difficulty sounding out simple words like cap, map, nap
* Difficulty associating letters with sounds, and can't break words apart
* Talks about how hard reading is and/or resists reading
* Family history of reading difficulties
* Difficulty speaking In second grade and up, signs of dyslexia might include:
* Avoids reading out loud
* Exhibits slow and awkward reading, and difficulty in acquiring new reading skills
* Makes wild guesses when sounding out a word
* Has no strategy for sounding out unfamiliar words
* Relies on vague language when searching for a word, like "things" or "stuff"
* Mispronounces long or unfamiliar words
* Uses lots of pauses, hesitation, and "umm's" when speaking
* Seems to need extra time to answer questions
* Has extreme difficulty learning a foreign language
* Has messy handwriting

For more signs of dyslexia in younger children and adults, including particular dyslexic strengths, visit the Yale Center's Signs of Dyslexia page.

DYSLEXIA IN ENGLISH LEARNERS: EXTRA HURDLES

According to Pew Research Center, there are about 5 million English Language learners in American public schools, or nearly 10 percent of the school population. While the vast majority (77 percent) of American English learners' first language is Spanish, the top five are rounded out by Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese and Somali. Among states, California has the highest number of English learners, with more than 20 percent of school children speaking a different language at home.

For schools, teachers and parents, diagnosing dyslexia in English learners can present an extra set of hurdles.

Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley, co-founder of the Dyslexia Training Institute in San Diego, California, says dyslexics learning English can sometimes be overlooked for two reasons: first, there's not a lot of research on the topic and often educators don't know what to look for, and second, reading difficulties can often be attributed to learning a new language.

ENGLISH LEARNERS AND RECOGNIZING DYSLEXIA: INSIGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS FROM TWO EXPERTS

According to Sandman-Hurley, students who have trouble with phonemic awareness in their first language will also find learning letters and sounds in English difficult. But if it's not possible to screen kids' phonemic awareness in their first language, educators can look for other clues that children are struggling.

Sandman-Hurley says it's often important to check and see if English learners are having trouble in other subjects-that is, if a child learns math quickly and relatively easily, then a reading disability might be at play.

Sandman-Hurley makes two recommendations to educators trying to spot reading difficulties in English learners:

1. If possible, provide screening in the child's native language

2. Dig into what's going on at home-since dyslexia tends to run in families, find out if other family members also had difficulties with reading, or if children had displayed some of the early warning signs, like an inability to rhyme words or learn the alphabet.

Speech-language pathologist Dr. Elsa Cardenas-Hagan has spent 25 years working with biliterate and bilingual students at the Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas, and says that educators should look to see if the English learner has trouble learning the English alphabet or has trouble with writing. Even if they're still learning English as a new language, those should be considered warning signs.

"We want to give English learners plenty of listening, speaking, reading and writing opportunities. To do any writing you have to be aware of sounds, so if a child is having trouble being able to sound out a word and write it, that should be a red flag."

Cardenas-Hagan also agrees that looking into family history can help teachers who don't speak the child's first language. Because dyslexia tends to run in families, asking if anyone else in the family had troubles with reading and writing when they were growing up might provide indicators.

She says it's also helpful to ask about when the child developed language. "Did the child speak on time? Did they start using words on time, did they produce the words with clarity and precision? We watch those kids very carefully, because if you have trouble hearing and speaking sounds in whatever language you learned, you're going to have that same trouble reading and writing," she says.

DETECTION/ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Universal Screening. Requirements vary wildly between states and even between districts. Beginning in kindergarten many schools use universal screeners like the RAN/RAS (Rapid Automatized Naming) test and the PAR (Predictive Assessment of Reading/Rapid Alternating Stimulus) to assess children's knowledge of phonemes, letter recognition, and vocabulary.

However, not all screeners are created equal and often do not provide a complete picture of a child's talents and deficiencies, according to Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide at Dyslexic Advantage. For a more complete picture, students whoaren't reading at grade level most often need a full evaluation by a school psychologist in order for parents and the school to implement the proper intervention.

Find out each state's approved reading assessment tools, courtesy of Dyslexic Advantage.

To learn more about screening standards and what to look for in high-quality assessments and screeners, read Literate Nation's white paper on how to select screening instruments.

RTI-Response to Intervention. Another way for teachers to recognize reading trouble is through the Response to Intervention (RTI), a multi-tier reading program designed in the 1990s to determine whether a child has a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) like dyslexia. RTI has been mandated in 14 states and is widely used among others. The program aims to identify who is at risk for reading failure and to provide targeted instruction to those students through different tiers:

* Tier 1 interventions involve a blend of high-quality classroom instruction, adequate screening and group interventions that typically last around 8 weeks.

* Tier 2 Students who don't make adequate progress in Tier 1 move to Tier 2, where intervention is more targeted and intensive, where instruction can last up to a grading period.

* Tier 3 When students don't progress in Tier 2 they are moved to Tier 3, where they receive one-on-one targeted and intensive instruction and often a full evaluation to determine whether they qualify for special education services.

Curriculum and instruction aren't uniform but designed by schools or districts individually.

Due to the varying quality of programs, response to RTI has been mixed. A comprehensive 2015 RTI evaluation by the National Center of Education Evaluation found that first graders who participated in the RTI program did worse than those who didn't receive any targeted assistance.

"RTI is thoughtful, logical, well-designed program. It has only one flaw: it has to be implemented in real-world environments that are often inhospitable," Seidenberg writes in Language at the Speed of Sight that "How well the RTI program works depends on how well it's implemented, which is left to the school districts or system to decide."

Full Evaluation. Even when schools provide universal screeners and assessments to identify at-risk students, if reading doesn't progress, students need more complete evaluations to determine the cause of the reading failure and then a way forward. In most cases, that means an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for special reading services.

THE CHALLENGE OF ASSESSMENT: DYSLEXIA TERMINOLOGY

Most schools offer an evaluation through the school psychologist, but these evaluations can be complicated for several reasons.

First, school psychologists are often overworked and backlogged, so testing and a full evaluation can often involve long wait times. This is often why families with the financial means to do so will take their child to a private psychologist to be evaluated and speed up intervention.

Next, complete evaluations can be complicated and difficult to understand, because different states, districts and psychologists use more than one term to describe reading difficulties. Terms like 'Specific Learning Disability' (SLD), 'reading deficit,' or 'language learning deficit' are often used interchangeably with other terms, like 'dyslexia.'

But according to dyslexia expert Nancy Mather, professor emeritus in the Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona, the different labels create undue confusion for parents and students, since more than 80 percent of reading disabilities are in fact dyslexia.

"It creates confusion," she says. "The parents are told their child has an 'SLD' but they don't realize their child has dyslexia."

But using the right terminology means that the student is much more likely to get the right kind of help, because dyslexics need a very specific kind of reading intervention and a specially trained teacher in order to read.

For that reason, some families have their children evaluated outside the school, like a university or private testing center, where the cost of testing can be very high. Universities sometimes offer free or low-cost testing, but families might spend six to nine months on a waitlist.

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How to Recognize Dyslexia in Children, Including English Language Learners - MindShift

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For example, when Dr. Martha Youman first began her career as a second grade teacher, she knew that some of her students simply couldn't read but she didn't know what to do about it: "I kept them busy. Truly, there were interventions they needed, I just didn't know how to help them," says Youman, who now treats kids with dyslexia.

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Every Child Deserves to Be Taught to Read

Photo: Read to Fly - by Arcadio Esquivel, La Prensa, Panama, www.caglecartoons.com

I entered my first-grade classroom speaking only Dutch. Despite my unfamiliarity with English, the nuns at St. Joseph's School in Mendham, NJ, were determined that I would learn to read write and spell, just like every other student in the class. To add to my reading challenges, like 20 percent of the population, I was - and remain - dyslexic.

Those nuns were well-schooled in the art of teaching reading. They understood the importance of, explicit instruction in phonics, the sounds of letters and combinations; they even taught Latin to every student, providing invaluable insight into decoding the English language. In short, they artfully taught me like they taught all the other students, using scientific principles of reading instruction.

With its emphasis on a systematic, multisensory, sequential and direct approach to reading instruction, it was time-consuming, challenging and effective. I went on to study at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, an outstanding, rigorous educational institution known for immersing students in the Great Books.

Because my son is also dyslexic, I have spent an inordinate amount of time learning about reading instruction and how the brain learns to read. Like my parents, I had to resort to enrolling my child in private school for him to learn how to read using the science-based approach, because it is simply not taught in our local public schools.

I have studied the so-called "Reading Wars" between proponents of "balanced literacy" and "the science of reading." As long ago as 2000, the National Reading Panel reported on the superiority of the researched, science-based structured approach to reading over what was then called, "whole language," now rebranded as "balanced literacy."

When I read the recent article "Birth of a Bookworm," I was alarmed at the glowing description of "balanced literacy" and the Lucy Calkins approach to reading instruction that has been purchased and adopted for use in the Santa Barbara Unified School District. It's wonderful that some children have become readers, but the approach fails far too many. Test results reveal only 46 percent of the district's fourth-graders students are proficient readers. Indeed, at Cleveland only 13 percent of its fourth-graders scored as proficient; no school in the district scored over 49 percent.

Less than 50 percent proficiency is failing by any measure. It's time to reevaluate and our approach. We can and we must.

This "balanced literacy" approach has come under scrutiny by researchers, educators and members of the national media. Emily Hanford, a reporter for American Public Media has examined the causes of low literacy levels across the nation in a comprehensive series of reports and found "balanced literacy" as a major culprit. https://www.apmreports.org/emily-hanford

In November, Lucy Calkins herself wrote a lengthy defense of her approach; since then it has been widely criticized by researchers and educators alike. The International Dyslexia Association has posted Calkins' argument and several rebuttals, available here.

The state of Arkansas, which was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Education for $38 million to improve student literacy, recently banned the use of the "balanced literacy" approach in its public schools, in favor of the research-based approach. The state has developed four main goals, including: Strengthen literacy instruction; access to educational excellence; collaboration among community stakeholders; build a culture of reading.

Our local school districts should adopt these goals to ensure reading proficiency by third grade. Students who do not read by third grade are too often left behind-and unable to catch up with their peers - academically, emotionally, even financially, for the rest of their lives. I often meet with individuals who share their lifelong shame and humiliation because they were never taught how to read. Inflicting this damage on children is unnecessary, and cannot continue.

Reading truly is fundamental, but it is not natural. If we truly want to address the school-to-prison-pipeline and the ever-present achievement gap, we can learn from other districts that have documented their successful changeover from "balanced literacy" to the science-based approach. Let us be willing to make the necessary changes our children deserve.

As a dyslexic English Language Learner, I was one of the lucky ones: I never fell behind my peers because of the way I was taught to read from Day One. Every child deserves the same chance to reach their full potential. Science matters - even the nuns in my grade school acknowledged that.
Monie de Wit, a graduate of Brooks Institute and owner of Monie Photography and Airship Rental Studio, is grateful to live in Santa Barbara, doing what she loves and raising her two sons. She is a passionate advocate for literacy rights for all, especially those in poverty and those who are incarcerated.
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Every Child Deserves to Be Taught to Read I entered my first-grade classroom speaking only Dutch. Despite my unfamiliarity with English, the nuns at St. Joseph's School in Mendham, NJ, were determined that I would learn to read write and spell, just like every other student in the class.

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Chapters 1-6

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Chapters 7-10

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COMPLETED VIDEO EDU 536 Video Reflection Notes

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EDU 536 POSITION PAPER ELD PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

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COMPLETED Professional Leadership Book Review

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EDU 536 COMPLETED LEADERSHIP MODEL PAPER

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EDU 536 COMPLETED ELD Teacher Interview Questions

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EDU 536 COMPLETED EL STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

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ELL Program Planning

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A bilingual site for educators and families of English language learners

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Find Definitions & Meanings of Words | Britannica Dictionary

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Clear and simple definitions in American English from Britannica's language experts. More usage examples than any other dictionary.

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Peanut butter and jelly, not jelly and peanut butter!

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Recommended by Robin Scarcella

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As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

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LISTENING & UNDERSTANDING in 3 Easy Steps

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A Field Guide For Parents Of Children With Dyslexia

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Cheri Rae wrote "DyslexiaLand" to help parents journey through the stressful and irrational land of school district policy and practices, and she accomplishes everything she set out to do. I highly recommend this well-written, accurate, and informative book!

Faith Borkowsky Author, Certified Dyslexia Pracitioner

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Dyslexialand - Help for kids and adults with dyslexia by author Cheri Rae

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Cheri Rae wrote "DyslexiaLand" to help parents journey through the stressful and irrational land of school district policy and practices, and she accomplishes everything she set out to do. I highly recommend this well-written, accurate, and informative book! Faith Borkowsky Author, Certified Dyslexia Pracitioner

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Theories on Reading & Language Acquisition 

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Theories on Reading & Language Acquisition 

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The traditional view The cognitive view The metacognitive view Conclusion

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What?

Generating Interactions between Schemata and Texts (GIST) is a summarization procedure that helps students digest complex texts by requiring contextual word learning. GIST explicitly combines the most important words with reading and writing to comprehend complex texts.

Before, during and after reading

The skills required for GIST are the core of reading for understanding. This strategy provides all students with the opportunity to deeply understand and gain access to rigorous and complex texts.

1. Select a central text.

2. Highlight a passage that either explains an important concept, including difficult vocabulary, or promotes discussion about a central topic or theme. These might include social justice, social action, racial or cultural discrimination, or linguistic diversity. Do not consider reading level when selecting the passage.

3. Project a copy of the text in a visible location.

4. Read the text aloud and then direct students to read a section aloud using choral reading.

5. Revisit your targeted vocabulary words you selected during Word Work.

6. Ask students what words or concepts they consider most important to understanding the text. Highlight both the vocabulary words you selected and the words the students choose. Add them to the GIST Worksheet.

7. As a group, fill out the "5Ws and H" (who, what, where, when, why and how) in the GIST organizer worksheet template.

8. Check for student understanding of key vocabulary using the context of the central text.

9. Have students think aloud and write a one-sentence summary of the text using as many of the listed vocabulary words and concepts as possible.

10. Repeat the process through subsequent sections of the text.

11. Create a topic sentence to precede the summary sentences; students can edit the end result into a summary paragraph.

English language learners

The GIST strategy is effective because it encourages the use of simple answers (who, what, where, when, why and how) to craft a more detailed answer. By working with smaller chunks of information at a time, English language learners are better able to process the information and ultimately arrive at a more detailed summary. Collaborating and partnering throughout the task also benefits English language learners. Whether an English language learner completes the larger summary sentence or not, by engaging in GIST he will definitely be able to answer some of the 5Ws and H questions.

Connection to anti-bias education

The GIST strategy is effective for building an inclusive classroom. It allows all students to approach a complex text on equal footing because classmates help each other access difficult vocabulary and develop summarizing skills. The structure of the strategy allows all students the opportunity to be successful regardless of vocabulary limitations.

For more information on the GIST strategy, click here.

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

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7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

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by Claudia Pesce 317,775 views

If you're an ESL teacher like me, you're always on the lookout for new listening material.

If you're an ESL teacher like me, you feel the CD that comes with the coursebook is not enough to really boost students' listening comprehension. If you're an ESL teacher like me, you're gonna love these seven websites. They offer audio and video that you can use in the classroom or recommend to students so they can work on improving listening comprehension in their own study time.

7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

1. ESL Cyber Listening Lab

ESL teacher Randall Davis put together a very impressive site, filled with listening quizzes. One of the things you'll notice about the ESL Cyber Listening Lab at first glance is that the quizzes are divided into Easy, Medium and Difficult. Each quiz comes with a pre-listening activity, a multiple-choice quiz based on the listening and post-listening activities that include vocabulary exercises. These are wonderful ready-to-use listening activities for any level.

2. Newsy

Newsy features short news segments across a variety of topics from business to entertainment, international to US news. One of the best things about Newsy is that each video is posted with a transcript of the news report, giving ESL students the choice of just listening, or listening and reading. It's a great site for students who need something a bit more challenging. The added bonus? The site offers an app for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry - perfect for students on the go!

3. Voice of America

Voice of America is a multimedia platform that delivers news to English learners across the globe. The site features MP3 audio and video that are public domain, which means you may not only use the files in the classroom but also download them through VOA Direct. Each video is less than three minutes long and comes with subtitles. They may be downloaded in video format or as MP3 files students can listen to anywhere. VOA also has a handy little app for iPhone and Android, a Mobile Wordbook that teaches students how to say and use a word in a sentence.

4. Talk English

Talk English has listening lessons for Basic, Intermediate and Advanced students. Students have the possibility to listen to a conversation, complete a multiple choice quiz and read a script of the audio. Teachers and students can use the website online free of charge or pay a small one-time fee for unlimited downloads - we're talking hundreds of dialogues in different levels. Additionally, there is an app for iPhone and Android.

5. ESL Fast

ESL Fast offers 365 short stories with audio and text for intermediate students. The best thing about this site is the sheer number of stories available. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a vocabulary list for each listening, plus a variety of exercises, including dictations. The site also offers easy conversations for beginner ESL students who have the unique opportunity to listen to short conversations on a variety of topics and speak to Mike, a "robot" that replies to questions and statements students type in a dialogue box, thus creating an actual, virtual "dialogue".

6. Easy Listening for Kids

This website has short and easy listening audio tracks that are tailored to young learners. Each audio track comes with the text for reading, a vocabulary list, and exercises your young learners won't have any trouble completing. There's a second website with additional listening exercises for children.
Special Note: While the listening exercises are great, the sites are filled with ads, so be sure to monitor browsing for content that may be inappropriate for children.

7. Elllo.org

Elllo provides a wealth of listening exercises in video or audio format. You can sort search results by level, topic, country or media; the last option allows you choose from:

* Games
* Audio
* Video

All of the exercises come with vocabulary lists, additional exercises or quizzes, as well as download links. Unlike the other websites, this one includes audio with English speakers of different nationalities, thus effectively exposing students to a variety of English accents like Australian, Scottish, South African, and others.

No matter which site you choose, you'll be giving your students ample opportunity to fine tune their listening and hone those skills that may be a little rusty.

Don't forget to encourage them to try as many listening activities as they can in their free time. The awesome thing about these sites is that they offer scripts, vocabulary lists and plenty of other resources that won't leave your students navigating alone in a sea of English listening exercises. Most of these sites are tailored specifically to English learners and the audio is high quality, with conversations spoken by native speakers. What more can you ask for?
Have you ever tried any of these websites for listening practice? Which of these are completely new to you? Any others to recommend? Share below!
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

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If you're an ESL teacher like me, you're always on the lookout for new listening material. If you're an ESL teacher like me, you feel the CD that comes with the coursebook

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Oracy develops students' confidence, articulacy and capacity to learn. That’s why Voice 21 supports teachers and schools to provide a high quality oracy education which empowers students, regardless of their background, to find their voice for success in school and in life.

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Voice 21 - The national oracy education charity

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Nicky Pear

Cubitt Town Junior School

The training has been consistently excellent and has given me the tools and confidence to lead oracy across my school. We also worked with Voice 21 for a full academic year at school, and they tailored their input and training to our specific needs. Again, all of this was well planned, thorough and helpful.

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Oracy develops students' confidence, articulacy and capacity to learn. That's why we support teachers and schools to provide a high quality oracy education which empowers students to find their voice for success in school and in life.

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ESL Writing Exercises: Activities, Worksheets, and Ideas!

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ESL Writing Exercises: Activities, Worksheets, and Ideas!

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We have several free ESL writing lessons on this page, including sample essays, sentence patterns, writing assignments, and more! If you like these lessons, consider buying our ESL writing textbooks to get even more content just like this!

Beginner Writing Lessons

The four units below are all taken from our book Write Right: 9 Beginner ESL Writing Lessons, available for instant download!

UNIT 1

Sample Essay: "My Hobby" - Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Start/stop verb+ing - Practice adding "ing" to verbs after "start/stop/quit/begin"

Grammar: Past Tense - Simple introduction to past tense verbs

Error Correction Worksheet - Correct the errors in this sample "My Hobby" essay

Assignment: "My Hobby" - Use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 1 to write an essay titled "My Hobby"

UNIT 2

Sample Essay: "A Funny Story" - Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Past Tense Error Correction Worksheet - Review of past tense; rewrite the paragraph and correct the past tense errors

Indention and Quotations - Teaches students to indent new paragraphs and use quotation marks correctly

Indentions and Quotations: Error Correction Worksheet - Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

Writing Assignment: "A Funny Story" - Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 2 to write an essay titled "A Funny Story"

UNIT 3

Sample Essay: "My Favorite Place" - Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Although / Even though - Introduction to "although" and "even though", with sample sentences and practice exercises

Sentence Pattern: not...at all - Introduction to the sentence pattern "(not)...at all", with sample sentences and practice exercises

Error Correction Worksheet - Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

Writing Assignment: "My Favorite Place" - Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 3 to write an essay titled "My Favorite Place"

Intermediate/Advanced Writing Lessons

The writing lessons and worksheets below are taken from our book Write Right: Transitions, available for instant download!

Writing a Formal Paragraph

Topic Sentences (Introduction) - Introduction to topic sentences and their function in a formal paragraph

Introduction to Similes and Metaphors - Using similes and metaphors to write interesting topic sentences

Similes and Metaphors Review - Practice describing people and things using similes and metaphors

Topic Sentences (Review) - Practice writing topic sentences

The Body of a Paragraph (Introduction) - Introduction to the body of a paragraph and the information that should be contained therein

The Body of a Paragraph (Review) - Practice thinking of information to use in the body of a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Introduction) - Introduction to concluding sentences and their function in a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Review) - Practice writing concluding sentences

Punctuation and Conjunctions

Sentence Fragments and Complete Sentences - Introduction to sentence fragments and a review exercise to practice identifying them

Run-on Sentences - Worksheet to practice correcting run-on sentences

Comma Splices and Conjunctions - Worksheet to practice using conjunctions correctly to fix comma splices

Commas and Conjunctions ("and") - Explanation of how to correctly use commas with the conjunction "and"

Semi-colons - Introduction to this often baffling piece of punctuation, with a review exercise

Transitions and Connectors

Listing Things in Order - Practice listing items or events in order using words like "First", "Next", "After that", "Finally", etc.

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / ...as well - Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / ...as well - Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so - Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so - Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason - Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason - Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Review of these Transitions and Connectors - Review worksheet to practice using all of the transition words above

More Transitions and Connectors

Although / Even though - Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences and review exercises

Though - Introduction to "though" and it's various uses in a sentence

Despite / In spite of - Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with sample sentences

Despite / In spite of - Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these words

Despite vs. Although - Explanation of how to use these similar transition words, with several sample sentences

Despite vs. Although - Review worksheet to practice using "despite" and "although" correctly

Because vs. Because of - Explanation of how to use these similar transition words correctly, with several sample sentences

Because vs. Although - Explanation of the difference between these two words, with several examples and a review exercise

Because of vs. Despite - Worksheet to practice using these transitions, which have nearly opposite meanings

Regardless of - Introduction to this commonly used transition, with several sample sentences

Regardless of / No matter - Review worksheet to practice using these transitions correctly, including an explanation of "embedded questions".

Review of Transitions and Connectors

Transitions and Punctuation - Explanation of how to correctly punctuate transitions using commas, periods, and semi-colons. Also includes a review worksheet.

Transitions and Punctuation (2) - Students rewrite a short essay, adding punctuation around transition words as needed.

Review of Above Transitions and Connectors - Fill in the blanks with an appropriate transition word to complete the essay

Additional Review of Transitions and Connectors - Review of several transition words/phrases (For this reason / Despite the fact that / No matter / Due to / Consequently / As a result / In spite of / Regardless of / Owing to)

Additional FREE ESL/EFL Writing Worksheets, Activities, and Ideas:

Useful Phrases and Sentence Patterns

These handouts and worksheets contain clear explanations of complex English phrases and sentence patterns, plus review worksheets. Great supplements for intermediate or advanced ESL classes.

Writing Activities

Putting pen to paper doesn't always have to be boring. Here are some activities and game-like things to make writing a bit more enjoyable.

Interactive Stories - Students collaborate to write each others' stories.

The Lying Game - Guess which statements are true and which statements are lies!

Idiom Worksheets - Give advice using idioms. Less a "game" than an "assignment," though the idioms tend to make things a little more interesting.

Explain the Idiom - Try to guess what the idioms mean, and use them in a dialogue.

Writing Scenarios

The Homestay - You're living in another country with a host family. What happens when you start to adapt to life in a new culture? (10-part writing assignment)

Life as a Pet - This story is connected with "The Homestay." You are the family's pet. What was your life like before the family adopted you? What is it like living with this family in this strange, new place? (6-part writing assignment)

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ESL Writing Exercises: Activities, Worksheets, and Ideas! -

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We have several free ESL writing lessons on this page, including sample essays, sentence patterns, writing assignments, and more! If you like these lessons, consider buying our ESL writing textbooks to get even more content just like this! The four units below are all taken from our book Write Right: 9 Beginner ESL Writing Lessons, available for instant download!

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Email scams and storytelling

In the ESL writing class, I try to make lessons that help students develop practical skills.
Read moreReal life editing exercise

ESL teachers sometimes need donuts. They also need writing lessons that students can finish in 20-30 minutes. Here are two activities.
Read moreTwo Short Writing Activities

Here is a high beginner+ ESL classroom activity that blends reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
Read moreESL Activity: Conversations and Note-Taking about Inventions

This 45-minute (or less) drill helps students learn to write 4 kinds of sentences.
Read moreESL Writing Drill: 4 Key Sentences

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In the ESL writing class, I try to make lessons that help students develop practical skills. Read moreReal life editing exercise ESL teachers sometimes need donuts. They also need writing lessons that students can finish in 20-30 minutes. Here are two activities.

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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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Who Are Generation 1.5?

Generation 1.5 refers to students who are U.S. residents or citizens but whose first or home language was not English, although for some of these students, English does, in fact, function as the primary language. Generation 1.5 is extremely diverse and difficult to categorize. Their language needs range from extensive to minimal. Only a small proportion of ESL research focuses on Generation 1.5 learners partly because of the diversity of 1.5 experiences and because this group of learners is difficult to even quantify.

Challenges

While it can be difficult to make generalizations, Generation 1.5 learners who demonstrate a need for additional language support often face these challenges that separate them from most native-speakers:

1. They are still acquiring language.

2. They have less familiarity with grammar rules than either international students or native speakers.

3. They have less experience reading and writing in English which makes the transition to academic writing difficult.

4. They are less familiar with the metalanguage of academic writing.

Strengths

It is important to note that Generation 1.5 also brings significant strengths to the classroom, even though these strengths are often overlooked. As Linda Harklau, Meryl Siegel, and Kay Losey point out, "efforts of native English-speaking monolinguals to acquire a foreign language in foreign language and comparative literature departments are accorded the status of major disciplines, while at the same time bilingual students' considerably more sophisticated skills in two or more languages are often defined only in terms of perceived deficiencies in English" (11). Generation 1.5 learners have these advantages in developing writing skills:

1. As multilingual learners, they have more sophisticated linguistic skill than most native-speakers.

2. They have a greater understanding of the cultural underpinnings of the English language than most international students.

3. Their (typical) oral fluency gives them the advantage of being able to "speak into writing" and verbalize their writing process.

Language, Culture, and Identity

Generation 1.5 resists easy categorization, and to simply label students as "ESL" can inadequately capture the students' skills; it can also flatten their complex identities and even culturally marginalize them. Across research, it has been demonstrated that Generation 1.5 learners do not want to be classified as ESL and are not interested in enrolling in ESL writing courses. According to one study, the more proficient a student sees him/ herself in English, the less interested he/ she is in enrolling in a non-mainstream writing course (Matsuda 69).

Multilingual U.S. residents and citizens' relationship to writing is informed by the complex interplay of language, culture, and identity. A study by Yuet-Sim Chiang and Mary Schmida of UC Berkeley composition courses, the students of which can be presumed to be similar to Stanford students, reveals insights about Generation 1.5's language identity. Chiang and Schmida found:

1. Students defined a bilingual individual as someone who identifies with a "heritage" language other than English, regardless of how that individual uses the heritage language.

2. Students felt conflicted about their relationship to English and the heritage language. Often, they felt they had incomplete knowledge of both. As Chiang and Schmida argue, "They are faced with the double whammy of having a cultural home language in which they have the culture but not the full linguistic ability, and with English (for many a home and school language) in which they have the linguistic ability (however varying it is) but not the culture that, according to the students, means mainstream culture" (88).

3. While not students' first language, English is, in fact, many students' primary language of use. That is, students think in English and actually have more extensive knowledge of English than the cultural home language.

4. At the same time, students had a deep emotional connection to the heritage language, although they often had imprecise knowledge of it.

Facilely labeling a student as "ESL" runs the danger of misconstruing students' real language usage, denying their complex experiences, and excluding them from mainstream American culture. As Linda Blanton cautions, grouping Generation 1.5 learners with international students challenges their membership in the community and ignores their status as citizens or residents (125). In addition, students often internalize the expectation that they will make conventional linguistic errors associated with the term "ESL," ultimately undermining their confidence in their writing (Chiang and Schiamada 93).

Oral Proficiency and "Ear learning"

Several scholars identify Generation 1.5 learners as primarily "ear learners." Ear learners acquire language through "trial and error" in real communicative contexts (Ritter 95). That is, they learn most by listening and speaking in informal English immersive settings. One common challenge is that ear learners write like they speak, which can lead to academic prose that is overly colloquial and grammatically imprecise. International students, on the other hand, are characterized as "eye learners." They learn English through the study of formal rules in an academic setting, with primary practice in reading and writing. Many international students, in fact, are better-versed in the formal rules of English than Generation 1.5 students and native speakers generally.

Jennifer Ritter and Trygve Sandvik identify these common errors of ear-learners (94):

1. Errors based on oral English. An ear-learner might write in English as it is spoken, or as the student has mis-heard spoken English. For example, a student might write "think on," instead of "think of," because he/she has heard it spoken like that or because the preposition "of" is not emphasized orally in this phrase and is therefore easily misheard.

2. Phonetically-based spelling mistakes

3. Punctuation and other features that are not present orally

4. Run-on sentences

Strategies for working with Generation 1.5

While this group is vastly diverse and defies easy characterization, in general, it can be said that Generation 1.5 learners possess considerable potential for self-editing (Ferris 152). Non-directive feedback, then, works particularly well with this group. Moreover, their oral proficiency and familiarity with American cultural norms can be significant assets in the development of their writing skills. The best strategies for working with these learners is to harness their facility for oral communication and their potential for self-editing.

Some tips for working with Generation 1.5 learners include:

1. Ask students to share their academic writing experience to assess their familiarity with the metalanguage of writing and critical analysis (Johns 170). You can then tailor your feedback to this level of experience.

2. Ritter and Sandvik advocate the use of "indirect guidance and corrective feedback." Instead of directly pointing out an issue, they suggest the tutor/ instructor use a "quizzical" tone to read aloud a particular error. Then, the tutor asks the student about his/ her intent in writing this passage (97).

3. Connect to a student's oral proficiency by using oral-based language, for example, saying that something doesn't "sound right."

4. Use intuitive "manageable" rather than complex grammatical language (Ritter and Sandvik 98).

5. When working on a passage that "sounds" wrong, if a student does not suggest a correction, use "corrective feedback"-ask questions that lead the student to be able to identify the particular error and then brainstorm strategies for revision.

6. Ritter and Sandvik suggest a particular strategy for modeling academic writing in writing center tutorials: The tutor first asks students to verbally explain the assignment prompt and the essay. In talking through the text, the tutor regularly overtly refers back to the prompt in order to model how to effectively respond to assignments (99). Throughout the session, the tutor pays particular attention to referring to key features of academic writing (eg. thesis, topic sentence).

References

Chiang, Yuet-Sim D. and Mary Schmida. "Language Identity and Language Ownership: Linguistic Conflicts of First-Year University Writing Students." Generation 1.5 Meets College Composition : Issues in the Teaching of Writing to U.S.-Educated Learners of ESL. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 45-60.

Ferris, Dana R. "One Size Does Not Fit All: Response and Revision Issues for Immigrant Student Writers." Generation 1.5 Meets College Composition : Issues in the Teaching of Writing to U.S.-Educated Learners of ESL. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 143-157.

Harklau, Linda; Meryl Siegel; and Kay Losey. "Linguistically Diverse Students and College Writing: What is Equitable and Appropriate?" Generation 1.5 Meets College Composition : Issues in the Teaching of Writing to U.S.-Educated Learners of ESL. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 1-14.

Johns, Ann M. "Opening Our Doors: Applying Socioliterate Approaches (SA) to Language Minority Classrooms." Generation 1.5 Meets College Composition: Issues in the Teaching of Writing to U.S.-Educated Learners of ESL. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 159-171.

Matsuda, Paul Kei; Tanita Saenkhum; and Steven Accardi. "Writing teachers' perceptions of the presence and needs of second language writers: An Institutional Case Study." Journal of Second Language Writing 22 (2013): 68-86.

Ritter, Jennifer J. and Trygve Sandvik. "Meeting in the Middle: Bridging the Construction of meaning with Generation 1.5 Learners." ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2 nd ed. Ed. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton Cook, 2009. 91-104.

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Generation 1.5 refers to students who are U.S. residents or citizens but whose first or home language was not English, although for some of these students, English does, in fact, function as the primary language. Generation 1.5 is extremely diverse and difficult to categorize. Their language needs range from extensive to minimal.

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Over 10 percent of students in the United States-more than 4.8 million kids-are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs-and best practices for addressing them-I interviewed a range of educators and observers, including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs.

The group emphasized that the strategies listed here, which include both big-picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

1. Cultivate Relationships and Be Culturally Responsive

No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks. That requires intentional planning and consistent messaging by the teacher.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to "embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are" and to consider their acquisition of a new culture and language "not as subtractive, but as additive." To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration-based trauma, Francis emphasizes that little things make a big difference. "The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?" she says. "Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?"

But creating a supportive environment is also about cultivating an appreciation of diversity-it's critical that both the curriculum and the classroom environment honor and reflect the lives of the students. For instance, Francis makes certain that her classroom library is reflective of her students' diverse backgrounds and identities.

ESL teacher Katie Toppel, who teaches near Portland, Oregon, champions the value of home visits to get to know students' families and takes care to incorporate the particulars of students' lives, such as pets' names and favorite sports, into lessons. Students are most engaged when they feel a personal connection to a lesson or unit, a connection that's created in part by a teacher's investment in culturally competent relationships.

2. Teach Language Skills Across the Curriculum

English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.

"It is key that in mainstream classrooms, teachers understand their role as language teachers," says Valentina Gonzalez, a district leader in Katy, Texas, suggesting that all teachers should be aware of the specialized idiom they work within. "If we teach math, then we teach the language of mathematics. If we teach science, then we teach the language of science." Math teachers, in other words, should take the time to teach the unfamiliar vocabulary of mathematics- add, subtract, calculator, solve -concurrently with the teaching of math skills.

3. Emphasize Productive Language

The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills-hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing-should be front and center from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

Beginning ELLs often develop receptive language skills like listening and reading first. Educators who are unaware of the typical path to fluency may believe that students who can follow verbal or written directions will be able to produce oral or written language, but that's usually not the case.

To support reluctant speakers, Tan Huynh, an educator who blogs at Empowering ELLs, suggests using sentence frames. "For example, when a science teacher wants ELLs to produce a hypothesis, they might offer the sentence, 'If _____ was added, then _____ because _____.' This sentence frame provides clues that empower ELLs to sound and think like scientists," Huynh says.

Andrea Honigsfeld, a professor of education at Molloy College in Rockville, New York, suggests that all lessons touch on every letter of the acronym SWIRL, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, Listen. The approach intentionally privileges productive language skills "from the beginning," she says.

4. Speak Slowly-and Increase Your Wait Time

Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.

"Adding in an extra three to five seconds after we pose a question offers all students time to think," explains Gonzalez. "However, for English learners, it also gives time to translate, process their thinking, translate back into English, and develop the courage to answer. If we call on students too quickly, many of our students will stop thinking about the answers-or trying to answer at all."

That means undoing some of our own habits, according to Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ESL teacher in Sacramento, California. "Researchers have found that typically most teachers give one to two seconds between asking a question and expecting a student response," he says. "The same researchers have shown that if you wait three to five seconds, the quality of responses is astronomically greater."

5. Differentiate-and Use Multiple Modalities

All kids learn better when they engage with material in multiple ways: Lessons that involve writing, speaking, drawing, and listening, for example, give students four opportunities to deepen their understanding of the work. For ELLs, those additional engagements also provide a little breathing room so they can work through the language barrier.

Helen Thorpe, a journalist who spent a year observing Eddie Williams's classroom in Denver in order to write a book about immigrants called The Newcomers, marveled at Williams's method of differentiation. "Eddie would enunciate very clearly in English multiple times, he would write it on the board, and he would go to the projector to give a visual. And, finally, he'd be asking the kids to verbalize aspects of the lesson themselves," she says, tracing Williams's efforts to move his students from receptive to productive language fluency.

Toppel uses a strategy called QSSSA to scaffold classroom discussions with ELLs. The letters stand for Question (the teacher poses a question, then gives ample think time); Signal (a designated motion like a thumbs-up, a finger on the nose-something that lets students indicate that they're ready to answer); Stem (the teacher provides a sentence starter for the question-for example, for "What is your favorite place to read a book?" the stem might be, "My favorite place to read a book is _____"); Share; and Assess.

6. Incorporate Students' Native Languages-and Don't Be Afraid of Technology

Bilingualism is the goal, of course, not replacement.

Ferlazzo uses a strategy called "preview, view, review," which leverages a student's native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. He introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language (often using multilingual videos and other online resources); he then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language.

Ferlazzo also encourages teachers to embrace technologies that students find helpful, like Google Translate. He stresses that the app can be a useful way for students to translate words quickly-but warns that it can quickly "become a dependency" if it's used as more than a handy dictionary.

Thorpe agrees that Translate can take pressure off teachers, who sometimes find that they "just stand at the front of the room and say things over and over. And if the kids didn't know what those words are, they're out of luck." Translation technology means you can say it once (or twice) and let the students use the technology to translate key words and phrases.

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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We interviewed educators with decades of experience in teaching ELLs and tapped a network of experts and observers to find the strategies that work.