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Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

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Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

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Provides practical tips for home visits with ELLs, including steps to take before, during, and after the visit.

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Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.
- Paulo Freire (p. 72-73)

The Benefits of Home Visits

A home visit program can show that teachers, principals, and school staff are willing to "go more than halfway" to involve all parents in their children's education. These visits help teachers demonstrate their interest in students' families and they provide opportunities for teachers to understand their students better by seeing students in their home environments.

Home visits are not meant to replace parent-teacher conferences or to discuss children's progress. When done early, before any school problems might arise, home visits signal that teachers are eager to work with all families and avoid putting parents on the defensive. Teachers who have made home visits say they build stronger relationships with parents and their children and improve attendance and achievement. In this regard, Mary, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher who has been visiting the home of her students before the first day of school, writes:

...[H]ow I address my fear about the first day of school is to face it, as you suggest, I spend the week before the first day of school visiting my students' homes, meeting the students and their families. I can't wait for the first day of school, and so I go out and read the students in their neighborhoods, their homes, with their families. That way I know where my students are coming from, literally I know who their people are. I know the names their families call them. I know what they are proud of and what worries them, I begin to trust these families. My students and their families begin to trust me. (Nieto, 2009, p. 12)

Home visits are not a new concept. Head Start teachers have been using them for many years and in the last few years an increasing number of schools and districts have established successful home visit programs that have yielded many positive returns. Regardless of whether their schools have established a home visit program, many teachers of English language learners have been using home visits as a way to learn about their students and their home environments and to establish a much-needed connection with families and communities.

Several key components combine to create successful home visits: planning, arrival, departure, and post visit. These important aspects are explained below.

Planning

Prior to visiting students' homes, it is important to consider a few items. Remember that this might be an opportunity to help a parent such as Ms. Astorga feel more comfortable when visiting the school her children attend.

Este es mi cuarto año en los EE.UU. y sólo he ido a la escuela para matricular a mis hijos. No me siento a gusto en la escuela...tengo un poco de miedo de no hacer las cosas bien y de no entender lo que me dicen. Y mis hijos me dicen que mejor no vaya pues a lo mejor meto la pata.
This is my fourth year in the U.S. and I have only been to the school to register my kids. I don't feel at ease in the school-I am afraid of not doing the right thing or misunderstanding what they say. My kids tell me not to go because if I do I might make a mistake.

- Ms. Astorga, parent from Chile

Tips for success

Determine the purpose(s) of the visit such as learning more about students and exploring ways that the school and teachers can better serve families.

Schedule a home visit 7 to 10 days in advance.

Communicate the purpose of your visit and approximately how long the visit will last (30 to 45 minutes).

Follow up with a brief written note indicating the exact date and time of the meeting, preferably written in the family's home language.

If possible, learn the names of family members.

Learn a few words of the family's first language, even if they're only "hello" and "thank you." This shows you care enough to make an effort and may help break the ice.

Ask another adult to accompany you to your first home visits, preferably someone who speaks the home language of the families.

Consider that some parents may be familiar and comfortable with home visits, having experienced them in their countries of origin. Others may not be familiar or comfortable with the idea.

If parents have difficulty scheduling a time to meet with you, it may be because some parents work 2 or more jobs.

Begin making home visits prior to the start date of school. This may help lower the anxiety level of your students and will help you become aware of your students' English language proficiency levels.

Know where you are going (that is, have a map or GPS device).

Leave a schedule of home visits with the school staff.

If possible, bring a small gift, such as a little bag of cookies, a children's book, or a notebook as a token of appreciation.

If you will need the services of a translator/interpreter, consider asking fewer questions. Since questions and answers have to pass through the translator/interpreter, they will probably require twice the amount of time.

Arrival

Instantly when we rang the doorbell we were greeted by four bright smiling faces-dad, mom and Rocio and Laura (ages 8 and 10). Both parents came up to us and shook our hands, and the girls curtseyed and giggled in their beautiful fancy dresses. Though I was still a bit shy and awkward at first, my fears were dismissed as soon as I realized how kind and inviting the family truly was.
- Roxana, 3rd grade teacher

Tips for success

Be on time.

Dress appropriately - err on the side of formal attire.

Be aware of and look for cultural expectations in the home. For example, in some cultures it is expected that people entering the home will remove their shoes and walk about the home in socks or in special footwear provided by the host.

Introduce yourself and the adult accompanying you.

Begin by establishing rapport through small talk.

Conversation starters: "Tell me about your child." "What does your child like best about school?""What are schools like in _______ (country of origin)?" "Tell me about _______ (siblings or other family members)."

While you are encouraged to do more listening than talking, you could also talk about your school's routines, classroom curricula, or teacher expectations among other topics.

If you're nervous, remember, the family you are visiting is also probably nervous.

Bear in mind that in many cultures, teachers are more highly respected than in the U.S. It is a significant event to host a teacher in families' homes.

Don't be afraid to look foolish while trying to bridge the language gap. If necessary, try drawing pictures or acting out what you mean.

During the conversation, maintain eye contact with the family even if you are speaking through a translator/interpreter.

Avoid taking notes or recording the conversation when visiting the family. This can be perceived as rude or threatening.

Avoid talking about negative things.

While in a family's home, put on your anthropologist's lens. This means trying to view the host home from the perspective of those living there.

Show respect and empathy.

Smile. Be aware, however, that some Eastern European families may perceive smiling as a sign of insincerity. Observe the family and adjust your behavior accordingly.

Departure

I invited the family to come to the literacy night next week at the school and asked the dad if he would read a picture book in Spanish for the kids. He agreed. Wow, was I wrong in thinking that this family was not interested in the education of their kids!
- Geoffrey, 2nd Grade teacher

Tips for success

Lay the groundwork for future events, such as parent teacher conferences, upcoming fairs, or literacy nights.

Invite families to participate.

Provide families with information on how to contact you, including your telephone number, email address, and classroom or office hours.

Share information about community and school resources.

Post Visit

I learned tons from this visit. My "Russian" student is actually Ukrainian. The family moved from a part of the Ukraine where half the people speak Russian and half speak Ukrainian. Both parents grew up there, and both were educated in schools where a few classes were taught in Ukrainian.
- Katia, 6th Grade teacher

Tips for success

Take a few moments away from students' homes to write down a quick summary of the visit.

Educators who work with ELLs and immigrant families talk about the power of home visits in these videos.

Resources

Edutopia: This 6-minute video showcases how a struggling school in Sacramento improved student achievement and developed lasting partnerships with parents by establishing a home visit program.

About the Authors

Dr. Gisela Ernst-Slavit

Dr. Gisela Ernst-Slavit is a professor and associate dean in the College of Education at Washington State University Vancouver. She investigates second language development, academic language pedagogy, and language teacher education using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In addition to being the author of many research and practitioner articles, she is coauthor or coeditor of nine books. Her most recent work includes a 7-book series, Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms, co-edited with Margo Gottlieb and published by Corwin. Dr. Ernst-Slavit is a native of Peru who grew up speaking Spanish and German at home and English in school.

Michele R. Mason

Michele R. Mason obtained her Ph.D. Degree in Language, Literacy, and Technology with an emphasis on English language learners from Washington State University Vancouver. Her research interests were ESL pedagogy and the role of classroom discourse in L2 development. Sadly, Dr. Mason passed away in 2012.

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Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

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Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.- Paulo Freire (p.

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Home Visits: Getting to Know Families' Homes and Neighborhoods

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Home Visits: Getting to Know Families' Homes and Neighborhoods

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A testimonial from Christine Price, a middle school math teacher who made a difference in her student's school life by doing a home visit.

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Home Visits: Getting to Know Families' Homes and Neighborhoods

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Colorín Colorado is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of bilingual, research-based information, activities, and advice for educators and families of English language learners (ELLs). Colorín Colorado is an educational service of WETA, the flagship public broadcasting station in the nation's capital, and receives major funding from the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association.

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Assessment toolkit for gauging where an ELL is in terms of their language development. Contains language profiles of different children. Helps to "meet students where they're at."

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The language assessment tools provided for use on the Purdue ELL Language Portraits (Purdue ELLLPs) are proven formative assessments that effective teachers use to determine their ELL students' current level of ability, to understand their strengths, to identity areas in need of improvement, and to plan future instruction that will build upon and address these strengths and needs.

Student Oral Language Observation Matrix - Revised (SOLOM-R)

Overview

The Student Oral Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM) was first developed in the 1980s by bilingual teachers in California as a formative assessment to quickly gauge the listening and speaking ability of English language learners in English (and also the Spanish listening and speaking skills of English-proficient students in dual language bilingual education programs).

The SOLOM was revised by Wright in his book Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice (Brookes Publishing) (See Figure 1)

The Student Oral Language Observation Matrix-Revised (SOLOM-R) emphasizes what ELLs can do at each level of English proficiency and brings the original SOLOM up to date with current research on oral language development. The SOLOM-R helps teachers focus on five aspects of oral language:

1. Comprehension - Engage the student in an informal or formal oral language tasks (e.g., conversations, interactive pair or group work, oral presentation, story retelling, or other performance requiring listening and speaking)

2. Fluency - How well does the student speak? Are you able to have a conversation with him or her? Does the student's speech flow well but occasionally gets stuck as he or she searches for the correct word?

3. Vocabulary - How well does the student speak? Are you able to have a conversation with him or her? Does the student's speech flow well but occasionally gets stuck as he or she searches for the correct word?

4. Pronunciation - Are others able to understand what the student is saying? Do accent or intonation patterns sometimes lead to miscommunication?

5. Grammar - Are grammar errors so frequent it is hard to understand the student? Or do they only occasionally obscure the meaning he or she is trying to convey?

Source: Wright (2015, p. 176)
Instructions for Administration and Evaluation of the SOLOM-R

Engage the student in an informal or formal oral language tasks (e.g., conversations, interactive pair or group work, oral presentation, story retelling, or other performance requiring listening and speaking)

Scores the students in each of the five areas above on a scale of 1 to 5.

Add the scores to determine the student's overall evaluation of the student's oral language proficiency. The higher the score, the higher the student's level of proficiency.

Identify the student's strengths, areas in need of improvement, and instructional activities that would benefit the student's oral language development.

For the Purdue ELL Portraits, videos clips of student interviews and oral presentations are provided along with blank SOLOM-R forms.

Running Records

Overview

A running record is a tool for in-depth observation and analysis of a student's reading performance. It is essentially a visual recording of the student's reading word by word. It enables a teacher to identify the reading strategies the student may or may not be using and the types of errors the student makes while reading. As Wright (2015) explains, "These errors reveal what is going on in the students' mind as he or she attempts to make meaning from the text. Running records allow a teacher to quickly assess the students' strengths and areas in need of improvement" (p. 213). An example of completed Running Record is provided in Figure 2.

Instructions for Administration and Evaluation of a Running Record

1. Select a text you believe is at the student's instructional level

2. Prepare a running record form with a selection of text (no more than 100 words)

3. As the student reads the text from the original source (e.g., a picture book), record their reading using the following markings

Correct Reading - Write a check mark ✓above each word read correctly

Omission Error - Write a dash (-) above each word that was omitted (skipped) without any effort to read it

Substitution Error - Write the incorrect word the student said above the word the student read incorrectly

Insertion Error - Write an insertion mark (^) at the point of insertion and write the inserted word

Told Word Error (T) - If a student gets stuck on a word and appeals or help, or won't go on, tell the student the correct word. Write a T and circle the T above the word to indicate "told."

Try That Again (TTA) Error - if a students reads a sentence or long phrase with several errors, and you think the student is capable of reading more accurately, you can ask the student to "Try that again." Write TTA above the end of the sentence or phrase. Previous errors are discarded, but a TTA counts as 1 error (even if the student re-reads the sentence/phrase correctly)

Repetition - Write the letter R at the point of repetition and draw a line back to the beginning of the repeated text. Add tally marks as after the R to indicate the number of times the text was repeated. Repetition does not count as an error.

Self Corrections - If a student corrects an omission, insertion, or substitution error on his or her own, disregard the error and write (SC) above the point of self-correction

Long Pause - If the student makes a long pause before reading a word, write a double forward slash // before the word. Pauses do not count as an error.

Decoding attempts - If a student is audibly sounding out parts of the word as they attempt to decode, you may record these attempts above the word (e.g., sssss | aaaa | t |) Write a check mark if the student successfully reads the word (e.g., "sat"). Decoding attempts do not count as an error if the student is able to ultimately read the word correctly.

4. On the running record sheet, keep a tally of the number of errors and self-corrections per line.

5. Add up the total number of errors.

6. Determine the number of words read correctly by subtracting the number of errors from the total number of words.

7. Calculate the percentage of words read correctly by dividing the number of words read correctly by the total number of words.

8. Determine the level of difficulty of the text by using the percentage of words read correctly

95% + = Easy

90% - 94% = Instructional

Less than 90% = Frustration

9. Ask the student comprehension questions about the text and write down their answers.

10. Identify the students strengths, areas in need of improvement, and instructional activities that would benefit the student' reading development.

For the Purdue ELL Portraits, videos clips are provided of students reading selected texts, along with pre-prepared Running Record forms, and students' responses to comprehension questions.

Writing Evaluations

Overview

Student writing may be evaluated with a rubric designed to help teachers focus on different aspects of the student's writing. The Analytic Scoring Rubric for Writing used on this site (see Figure 3) was first developed by educators in Virginia in the 1990s, and was adapted by Wright (2015) for the 2nd edition of Foundation for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice (Caslon Publishing).

The rubric focuses on five areas:

Composing - Does the text have a central idea and relevant details. Is the text well-organized?

Style - Does the text have well-chosen vocabulary, good sentence variety, and an appealing tone?

Sentence Formation - Are the sentences well formed with standard word order and effective transitions? Is the text free of sentence fragments and run-on sentences?

Usage - Is there correct use of inflections (e.g., verb conjugations, plurals, prefixes, suffixes, adverbs, etc.), consistent use of tense, subject-verb agreement, and standard word meaning?

Mechanics - Is there correct usage of capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and formatting?

Instructions for Administration and Evaluation of the Analytic Scoring Rubric for Writing

Have students complete a piece of writing appropriate to their grade and English-proficiency level

Read the completed writing sample and score it in each of the 5 areas of the rubric on a scale of 1 - 4.

Identify the students strengths, areas in need of improvement, and instructional activities that would benefit the student' written language development.

For the Purdue ELL Portraits, writing samples are provided of students' unedited writing, along with blank Analytic Scoring Rubric for Writing Forms.

For the Purdue ELL Portraits, writing samples are provided of students' unedited writing, along with blank Analytic Scoring Rubric for Writing Forms.

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About Assessment Tools - Purdue University College of Education

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The language assessment tools provided for use on the Purdue ELL Language Portraits (Purdue ELLLPs) are proven formative assessments that effective teachers use to determine their ELL students' current level of ability, to understand their strengths, to identity areas in need of improvement, and to plan future instruction that will build upon and address these strengths and needs.

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Leaders of Their Own Learning: Student-Engaged Assessment Videos

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Leaders of Their Own Learning: Student-Engaged Assessment Videos

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Contains videos from EL Education, a nonprofit organization. This site contains videos on EL students in charge of their own learning and assessments that are fun and engaging.

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The History of Bilingual Education in Texas

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The History of Bilingual Education in Texas

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Contains a 33-minute long documentary detailing how bilingual education has transformed in Texas. Gets conversations started about ELL education and is very informational.

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The History of Bilingual Education in Texas

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Documentary film that details the Indian Boarding School system with personal interviews with historical background. Another conversation starter for educational history.

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Our Spirits Don’t Speak English | Kanopy

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2 Billion Voices: How to speak bad English perfectly

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2 Billion Voices: How to speak bad English perfectly

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A TedTalk from a global communication specialist about what "bad English" is considering that 2 billion of 2.4 billion English speakers learned English in the classroom.

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2 Billion Voices: How to speak bad English perfectly

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There are 2.4 Billion English speakers in the world, and 2 Billion of them learned the language in a classroom. Many say they speak “bad English,” but when 5 times more people speak “bad English” than “good,” how do we decide which language is best? In this talk, global communication specialist Heather Hansen takes a look at the other side of English, where 2 Billion voices have created a flexible, adaptable and accommodating space for global English communication. What can we learn from the 2 Billion voices when we really listen?

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International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA)

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International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA)

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Recordings, transcripts, and scholarly documentaries containing accents from every continent. Provides a rich resource for hearing English speakers from around the world with many kinds of participants.

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IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive | free dialect and accent recordings for the performing arts

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Welcome to IDEA. The International Dialects of English Archive was created in 1998 as the internet's first archive of primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world. With roughly 1,700 samples from 135 countries and territories, and more than 170 hours of recordings, IDEA is now the largest archive of its kind.

IDEA's recordings are principally in English, are of native speakers, and include both English-language dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages. (Many include brief demonstrations of the speaker's native language, too.) The archive also includes extensive Special Collections.

Paul Meier is IDEA's founder, director, and principal contributor, personally collecting nearly 20 percent of the archive. He established IDEA to provide actors the real-life models they need for their characters' accents and dialects; many actors use his Accents & Dialects for Stage and Screen in conjunction with IDEA. But IDEA has proved invaluable in many other fields too; for example, it's a favorite tool of international business, helping personnel become familiar with their customers' accents and dialects.

HOW IDEA WORKS

To find an example of an accent or dialect, use the Global Map, or the Dialects and Accents tab on the menu bar. The site is also fully searchable, not just by country, state, and province, but also by characteristics of each speaker, such as ethnicity, age, and occupation; even single phrases from transcriptions and phonetics can be searched online. You may conveniently listen to the streaming audio while reading the accompanying transcription and commentary. All samples have one-line descriptions (gender, age, year of birth, ethnicity, location). Submission of new samples by the editors and other contributors is done entirely online.

At the heart of IDEA are its Senior Editors and the Associate Editors, forming a global network of contributors. They record the subjects, transcribe the recordings, and, in many cases, write scholarly commentaries that often include phonetic and cultural analyses. Many editors are professors at major universities, or are members of The Voice and Speech Trainers Association ( VASTA).

Cameron Meier is IDEA's executive editor and chief sound and copy editor, and also vice president of Paul Meier Dialect Services.

New recordings, their accompanying transcriptions and scholarly commentaries are added frequently (see What's New). Each recording includes both a reading (Comma Gets a Cure, or, on our earliest recordings, The Rainbow Passage) and some unscripted speech - about four minutes in all.

The Global Map quickly reveals which countries/states/provinces have a representative sample, and those that still lack one. As you see, IDEA continues to grow, aspiring to provide a recording from every corner of the world. Please join us in this ambitious project by becoming an associate editor, or contributing your own voice to the archive.

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IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive

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Welcome to IDEA, the internet's best source for primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world.

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A Guide to Raising Bilingual Children (Blog)

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A Guide to Raising Bilingual Children (Blog)

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A parenting blog that answers frequently asked questions to raising a bilingual child. Could be a point of interest for some!

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How do you do it?
One Person, One Language: each parent or caregiver consistently speaks only one language to the child. For example, mother speaks only Mandarin to the child, father speaks only English. Or Grandma speaks only Russian while other family members use English with the child.

Family Language at Home (also called minority language at home): family members all speak their family language. The child will learn the community language later, as she goes out into the community, attending preschool, kindergarten and onward.

Foreign Language Child-Care: some families hire an au pair or nanny who speaks a different language from the family, others place the child in a child care setting where another language is spoken.

Exposure to Other Languages: some families dabble in languages, perhaps teaching the child how to count or name animals in another language. They may read books, watch videos, or sing songs in the other language, or use it in occasional conversation. They may seek out language based playgroups.
Does it work?
The key components that affect whether a child learns a language are exposure and need. Are they exposed to the language in multiple ways by multiple speakers? The greater the exposure to a language, the greater their chance of learning it. Do they need to use the language to interact with people they care about and to get what they want? This will increase the chance they will learn it

So, if you're just offering occasional exposure to other languages, where they don't need to use the language in return (for example, reading books or watching videos) they will likely have only a basic familiarity with the sounds of the language and the ability to say a few words.

If a child is exposed to several hours of engaged interaction each week, where they are motivated to communicate with the speaker, like at child care or via one-on-one care by a nanny or an extended family member, they may learn to carry on basic conversations.

If a child is immersed in a language for more than 30% of his waking hours, he is likely to become completely fluent in that language. Interacting with more than one person in that language will build his skills, so many parents seek out language-based playgroups, story times, and other activities so the child can interact with other adults and with other children in that language.

Some children observe closely to figure out what's the "important language" and focus on that. For example, if they notice that Grandma speaks Spanish to them most of the time, but speaks to other people in English, they realize they can speak English with her and get the interaction they want, so there's not a lot of need for them to learn to speak Spanish (though they may understand it well.)
Is it a good idea to start a second language early, or is it better to delay?
Parents worry that learning two languages at once (simultaneous bilingualism) will be confusing. They wonder if it's better to wait till a child knows one language well before starting the next (sequential). Most experts say it's fine to start from birth - it is as if the child has two "native languages."

Babies are born with billions of neurons (brain cells). They spend the first few years of life building trillions of synapses (connections) between those cells. For language especially, these first few years are the most "sensitive period" in their lives when they are primed to learn language. At 6 months, human babies are able to differentiate between any sounds that human beings make.

But as children age, they begin to "prune" some of the synapses they've built. Connections that are important get reinforced, but things which they aren't using in everyday life may get cut. So, by 11 months, a mono-lingual baby no longer hears differences that aren't important in his family's language. For example, a Japanese child can no longer hear the difference between ra and la, because it's irrelevant in the Japanese language.

If a child is raised bilingual, it extends the learning and pruning period: at 11 months they can still distinguish between all sounds. By 14 months, they recognize all the sounds that are important to both their languages, but don't distinguish other sounds.
Are there disadvantages to learning two languages early on?
If only the family language is spoken at home, and the child has minimal exposure to the community language before starting preschool or school, it's not unusual for her to struggle a little in the first few months of school, but usually within 6 - 9 months or so, she catches up to the native speakers.

If the family speaks multiple languages, the child will of course sometimes make mistakes, like asking "Where you are?" instead of "where are you?" or calling something by the wrong name. This is not much different than the mistakes a mono-lingual child makes, like calling a cow a sheep, or saying "I have one books." Children outgrow this. Bilingual children may also mix multiple languages into one sentence, especially when they know that the person they're speaking to knows both languages. When they're speaking to a mono-lingual person, they're more likely to stay in one language.

Bilingual children may seem to know fewer words, and be slower in language development (perhaps 3 - 6 months behind peers in either language). However, if you add together the words they know in both languages, the total is almost always higher than it is for those who speak one language.

If you're worried, here are a few red flags to watch out for: less than one new word per week (in either language) for 9 - 15 month old children; less than 20 words (in two languages combined) by 20 months; no word combinations (like 'red ball' or 'give cookie' or 'see doggie') by age 2 - 3 years.
Are there benefits to learning two languages early on?
Early childhood is the easiest time to learn multiple languages. Speaking the language of his heritage can help connect him to that history, and to his extended family. Knowing multiple languages can help your child in school and in her future career in our increasingly global society.

Multilingual children have been shown to be better at problem-solving - they are more flexible thinkers. They are also better at filtering out distractions and concentrating on the task at hand. Knowing multiple languages may help them feel at ease in different environments. Being aware of the need to adjust their language depending on whom they're speaking to may increase empathy overall.

Want to learn more about language development and how to encourage it? Look here.

Resources:

A Guide to Raising Bilingual Children. www.cnn.com/2012/11/28/living/parenting-bilingual-children/index.html

Raising Bilingual Children. www.linguisticsociety.org/files/Bilingual_Child.pdf

Multi-Lingual Children's Association, a comprehensive site with lots of resources: www.multilingualchildren.org/index.html

Video: interview about raising bilingual children:

photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc

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How do you do it? One Person, One Language: each parent or caregiver consistently speaks only one language to the child. For example, mother speaks only Mandarin to the child, father speaks only English. Or Grandma speaks only Russian while other family members use English with the child.

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A simple image that compiles second language acquisition theories. Good for review or going into depth with later research.