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English Language Proficiency Standards

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Proficiency Level Descriptors

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Education Week - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo

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The new "question-of-the-week" is:
What are the best instructional strategies for working with ELLs who have special needs?
Adequately supporting English Language Learners is often a challenge for many schools, and accurately identifying and supporting ELLs with special needs can be an even greater challenge. When is it a language issue and when is it an issue related to special needs?Today, Maria Montalvo, Beverly Maxwell, Jennie Farnell, Ann Wilson, share their suggestions. You can listen to a ten-minute conversation the five of us had on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in a previous post in this blog, Assisting Students With Special Needs.
Response From Maria Montalvo & Beverly Maxwell

Maria Montalvo is the ELL Director at the Metropolitan Regional Educational Service Agency (Metro RESA) in Georgia and a member of the ASCD Faculty, where she works with schools and districts to implement customized, research-based curricula and instructional strategies. Beverly Maxwell is a program specialist with Metro RESA, focusing on special education:
My first year of teaching pedagogical tool box was nowhere near full. As a special education teacher, I was curious about my student's brains, devoted to adapting my instruction to match their deficits and compassionate towards the cognitive load they were experiencing. These practices would have been enough, had I had a class of culturally and linguistically homogenous students--which I didn't. With school being close to the community where many refugees settled, I had the opportunity to serve students who qualified for both EL and IEP services. I struggled with understanding the difference between Language Acquisition and Cognitive Disabilities. I wasn't sure if there was an overlap in the specialized instruction techniques for dually certified students. Are there commonalities in the best practices for EL students with special needs? Absolutely. Before instructional planning begins, it is important to make sure the best practices in EL align to the processing disorder. For example, my former EL student was identified as having a Learning Disability. Visual Processing and Long-term Memory Storage were her deficits. Thinking her EL needs required the heavy use of visuals; I consistently used pictures to represent concepts. Catch my mistake? My instructional intervention targeted her cognitive deficit--adding to her already overloaded processing. Knowing your students level of language proficiency in both their native language, as well as the new language being learned, is the first step in understanding where to start with a child who has been identified with a special need. However, the same premise that applies to all students learning in a second language applies to students with special needs. All students must have opportunities to practice using the language in context with appropriate support in various modalities. Some key strategies might include:

video, digital books, audio, data displays, simulations and concept maps.

students with low vision: visual display options such as screen magnification, the ability to adjust font size and contrast values of text to background.

students with reading disabilities, including dyslexia, often experience difficulty reading large amounts of text. Supports such as: audio textbooks, video, text-to-speech technology and additional time to complete assignments.

linguistic and non-linguistic methods to represent key vocabulary, labels, symbols and icons to support comprehension of concepts.

identify key ideas and critical information with tools such as graphic organizers, outlines and concept maps.

Scaffolding: beginning instruction at a student's current level of understanding and providing teacher support to assist the student in reaching the next level of mastery.

Response From Jennie Farnell
Jennie Farnell is assistant director of The English Language Institute at the University of Bridgeport. She has been teaching ESL/EFL since 1998 to all levels and ages of students:
A few years ago, I found myself teaching English as a Foreign Language in a school where many students had undiagnosed learning disabilities (LDs). Even as an experienced ESL teacher, I was way out of my depth when it came to dealing with students with LDs. Having no choice, I soldiered on, made many mistakes, and learned an enormous amount. I can credit my LD students for teaching me how to be a much better teacher in general, regardless of subsequent student populations. There is extensive research available to both parents and teachers regarding effective coping / learning strategies for LD learners. I have chosen to focus on the LDs (or suspected LDs) that I have found most common or easiest to observe in my ESL students. These are: attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and persuasive development disorders (PDD, of which autism is the most well-known condition). While LDs are far too complex and varied to be able to provide a one-size-fits- all approach, there are some general techniques which can support all students with LDs. These techniques fall into three general areas: classroom management, materials presentation, and assessment. Good classroom management is the foundation of any successful class. For LD students in particular, meeting classroom behavior expectations can be extremely challenging. Many of the standard behaviors we as teachers take for granted are uncomfortable, unfathomable, or illogical in LD learners' worldview. For example, ADHD students often learn better when in motion; sitting still actually distracts them from the content (Rapport et al., 2008). Many PDD students are very logical and find the emotions associated with peer engagement baffling and uncomfortable. PDD students can also be hypersensitive to background stimulation, such as florescent lights or electronic noise (Grandin, 2011). Research has found techniques that many teachers already employ in their instruction can be particularly useful for both ESL and LD learners. Scaffolding materials by using visuals such as graphic organizers, pictures, and diagrams can be very helpful to students with auditory processing problems or PDD. Think, pair, share and small group discussions work well for ADD/ADHD students as well as ESL learners (Carr & Bertrando, n.d.). Additionally, outside the context of a content-specific lesson, multiple methods of material presentation help all students meet broad Common Core standards. Adaptions in classroom management will set the stage for LD learners to more successfully master Common Core expectations. Using charts, graphs, and diagrams not only helps support LD learners but also meets Common Core Reading Anchor Standards. Readability software and leveled readings also support Reading Anchor standards for literature, drama, and poetry. Speaking and Listening Anchor Standards place a heavy emphasis on collaborative discussions and presentation of ideas through multiple media choices, including digital. What follows is not an exhaustive list of LD support suggestions, but rather some simple, easy to implement strategies. Many teachers are probably already using these approaches in some fashion. However, knowing that these can all be effective in supporting LD students may provide reassurance that, as teachers, you are doing well in supporting your LD learners or may encourage you to implement more of them in your classrooms.

Provide a stable routine. Regardless of the LD, having a classroom routine diminishes anxiety by providing a stable environment where LD students clearly know what's expected of them.

Use a bell ringer. It might sound antiquated, but it gives LD students in particular a chance to adjust to the changed expectations of your classroom from the last. They may not complete the task as fast as other students do, if at all. Make it low-risk but meaningful, with no penalties for non-completion.

Make sure you have all students' attention before transitioning between tasks. Task transition is one of the greatest challenges many LD learners face. For example, students who are PDD are often reluctant to end a task and begin a new one if they haven't finished their previous task to their satisfaction. It won't matter if you're satisfied, if they're not, you'll face considerable resistance to moving forward. ADD/ADHD students can be overwhelmed by what may seem like simple requests to you - put away this work, take out this work, look at this page. The very act of looking inside a backpack can bring all types of distractions! Make sure all students are prepared to start before moving forward.

Provide directions through multiple forms of input. If you have LD students in your classroom, you'll find you end up repeating the directions multiple times, driving yourself to distraction. The ADD student may have floated away halfway through your instructions. The PDD student might be overwhelmed by too much information. Students with audio processing problems will be puzzling out the first step when you're on your third. Give directions verbally, write them on the board or worksheet, and have students clarify them before you begin. Even better, break instructions down into step-by-step directions. If you're working in groups, have one group member summarize your directions back to you. Make it a point to walk around the classroom and check with each student or individual group to be sure they're all on-track.
Material presentation:

Use multiple modes of input. Don't rely solely on verbal input or written input. Use videos, manipulatives, and written and oral input to communicate your information. It's not as repetitive as it may seem to you.

Use sentence frames to scaffold writing or oral production. ELLs normally internalize the frames and cease to need them. ELLs with LDs may continue to need the frames as a way of organizing their thoughts.

Scaffold materials, taking into consideration factors other than difficulty levels. Dyslexic students may need a different font or contrasting colors. ADHD students may need their project broken down into clearly defined steps, each listed on a separate sheet of paper.

Allow students to use technology to supplement their areas of difficulties. Use readability websites or multi-level materials to provide accessibility for all students. Use audio books and videos for dyslexic students. Let students dictate their first draft or outline of a writing assignment. Typing is often much easier for dyslexic and dyspraxic students than handwriting.

Keep your goals in sight. Your priority as a teacher is that your students understand the materials, not that they master the input approach. Whatever adaptations students need to use to comprehend the concepts are probably ok to use.

Have multiple methods of assessment. For example, don't rely solely on a written essay or a spoken presentation to determine skill mastery.

Allow for choice in assessment. If you're doing a project, provide various options for demonstrating mastery. For example, students could write a paper, create a video, give a speech, etc.

Focus on the goals of the assignment, rather than the actual method of assessment. For example, if you're working on organizing information, keep in mind that the skills used for organizing a 5 paragraph essay resemble the skills used in organizing a well-prepared presentation.

Keep the end result in mind. It's not about how students get there (usually), it's that they get there. Your ADD student may flip his pencil through your entire lecture. If at the end he knows what you said, the flipping doesn't really matter.

Educate yourself. There's a plethora of information available online. You don't have to become an expert, but understanding some of the general traits of common LDs helps enormously, especially in maintaining patience.

Be flexible. If you have ADHD students, there will be times you turn around to find your students under the desk, across the room, etc. Before you lose it, ask yourself if it's really problematic or just annoying to you. Maybe all of your student would enjoy a lesson from underneath their desks here and there.

Maintain a sense of humor and enjoy the ride. Your LD students can provide you some of the richest experiences you ever have. If you let them, they will teach you entirely new ways of perceiving the world, and you'll be better for it.
Grandin, Temple. (2011) The Way I See It | A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's. Retrieved January 03, 2015, from fhautism.com/the-way-i-see-it-dr-temple-grandin.html Rapport, Mark D., Bolden, Jennifer, Kofler, Michael J., Sarver, Dustin E., Raiker, Joseph S., Anderson, R. Matt. (2008) Hyperactivity in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Ubiquitous Core Symptom or Manifestation of Working Memory Deficits? - Springer. Retrieved January 03, 2015, from link.springer.com.libproxy.bridgeport.edu/article/10.1007/s10802-008-9287-8/fulltext.html Carr, John & Bertrando, Sharen. (n.d.) Language Magazine " When English Doesn't Come Easy. Retrieved January 03, 2015, from languagemagazine.com/?page_id=5602 Additional resources: There are many excellent online resources for teachers. Below are suggestions for a place to start, but the list is by no means comprehensive. Additionally, I'd be remiss if I didn't include Temple Grandin's excellent book The Way I See It | A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's. British Council: Creating an inclusive learning experience for English language learners with specific needs Colorado State University: Access Project Language Magazine: When Language and Learning Get Tough Learning Disabilities Association of America Response From Ann Wilson
Ann Wilson is a Special Education Coordinator/Teacher who has been teaching for 12 years in a variety of settings including Oyster-Adams Bilingual School and The Lab School in Washington DC. She currently teaches at Pine Spring Elementary, a Title 1 school in VA:
So there you are, a capable ELL teacher with a well-planned lesson and still, Jonny doesn't get it. In fact, he hardly seems to be listening. Your frustration rises as you wonder what to do next. While I am not an ELL teacher, I will share with you some of the strategies that have worked for me in teaching Special Education for the past twelve years. First, try to read the student's psycho-educational testing results. The report will tell you about the student's processing deficits (auditory, visual, etc.), and this will help you design great lesson plans. If you learn that the student is a strong visual learner, you may want to have them draw vocabulary words. If they struggle with auditory processing, do not rely on lecture style to get your point across. I always start with the assumption that a child is bringing the best they have got 'to the table.' If you start with this assumption, it will change the kinds of questions you ask. (For instance, instead of asking, "Why is he trying to drive me crazy?" you will find yourself asking, "What can't he control and how can I work around it?") Reward, reward, reward! Yelling simply does not work. I recommend a glass jar with glass pebbles as a group reward, and a small box or plastic cup for individual student tokens (positive and negative). I reward the group with extra break when they fill the jar, and the students trade in their tokens for prizes weekly. Kids with Learning Disabilities often struggle with abstract concepts so it helps to teach an abstract concept by starting with something concrete, or with the student's own experience. For instance, teach inference by describing a parent yelling the student's name in an angry voice and asking what that would mean. It helps the student realize that they already know something about inference. Give students with ADHD short breaks, especially movement breaks. In the classroom, place an extra desk facing the wall, and offer it as an 'office' --a place where students with ADHD can go to focus. This should not be a punishment, but a privilege. Build a student's vocabulary by reading aloud text that is on their grade level. Most students with Learning Disabilities are far behind in reading, so reading aloud is critical to build vocabulary. Games, songs, and passwords are helpful to review core concepts that you are teaching. For instance, my students say a password (with hand gestures) to get into my classroom. The current password for my 2nd graders is "Ice is a solid; water is a liquid; air is a gas." Finally, take good care of yourself. Sally Smith, Founder of The Lab School, used to say that you need to stay balanced so that you don't 'catch' the emotions of frustration and anger that often accompany Special Education students. Keep your balance so that you react in a level way. Sleep, exercise, have a life, enjoy!
Thanks to Maria, Beverly, Ann, and Jennie for their contributions!
Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] .When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

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Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog -- along with new material -- in an ebook form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.
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Look for Part Two in a few days.....

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Response: Ways to Support ELLs With Special Needs

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The new "question-of-the-week" is: What are the best instructional strategies for working with ELLs who have special needs? Adequately supporting English Language Learners is often a challenge for many schools, and accurately identifying and supporting ELLs with special needs can be an even greater challenge.

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Special Needs and Language Learning

Your English Language Learner (ELL) students who need special education typically lag behind their peers in developing English language skills. Not only does this frustrate these students, but you may feel challenged if you are not prepared to deal with special needs. However, you can do many things to help these students using your knowledge of teaching strategies in English as a second language.

To begin, you should know for a fact that a specific student is in the special education program at your school. Never assume that a student needs special education because of low achievement. Next, you need to gather information from the special education team about the exact disability and how it affects academic performance. Once you have this information, you can target the language skill you need to determine an instructional strategy to help the student.

For example, Jean is an ELL teacher who has just learned that her ELL student Olesya has dysgraphia. This disability causes Olesya to have difficulty with handwriting, spelling, and organizing ideas, so her English writing skills are very poor. The good news is that now that Jean knows the writing skills affected by the disability, she can prepare activities to target these skills. Jean includes easy spelling activities in her lesson plans and assists Olesya while she works. Also, Jean shows students several ways to organize their ideas before writing, such as brainstorming, making a map, and drawing a story line.

Now let's look at some ideas that you can use to help ELL students who have common special needs.

Target the Skill

As you've seen, the key to determining an instructional strategy for ELLs with special needs is to target the language skills affected by their disability. Your instructional strategy may include activities using a variety of tools that can be visual, auditory, or that promote hands-on work with language.

Remember that special needs are broad. This table includes just some of the most common special needs, how they affect English skills, and teaching strategies you may choose to address them.

Note that any adjustment you make for a student with special needs should work out for the entire class. This way, you do not disrupt others or change lesson plans at the last minute.

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instructional strategies for ell students with special education needs | study.com

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Instructional Strategies for ELL Students with Special Education Needs | Study.com

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Your English Language Learner (ELL) students who need special education typically lag behind their peers in developing English language skills. Not only does this frustrate these students, but you may feel challenged if you are not prepared to deal with special needs.

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Meaningful Classroom Talk: Supporting English Learners' Oral Language Development
This post was written by WestEd's Aída Walqui, Director of Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) and Margaret Heritage, WestEd Senior Scientist.
Consider this interaction between a teacher and his students, most of them English language learners, in a ninth-grade English language arts class:

Teacher: Who wrote The Pearl, Carmen?

Carmen: Steinbeck wrote The Pearl.

Teacher: Very good. And Rosa, who is the main character in this novella?

Rosa: I guess the main character is Kino, although his wife, Juana, is also important.

Teacher: That's right. And why do we say The Pearl is a novella? Jim?

Now contrast it with the interaction other ninth-graders had in their English language arts/English language development class:

Teacher: As we begin to explore this short story, "The Necklace," written by a French author from the 19th century, Guy de Maupassant, I am inviting you to read the first four paragraphs with your partner using types of "Question-Answer Relationships."* We have practiced this process several times, so unless we require some explanation-[students signal they do not]-then, please get started. As you engage in reading and discussing, I would like you to focus on the character Mathilde and think about what kind of person she is. We will then focus on the problem she faces.

Rodrigo (after reading the first paragraph of "The Necklace" aloud to his partner, Martha): OK, I am going to ask you a "think and search" question. Did Mathilde grow up in a rich family?

Martha: I am not sure. I think no, because the paragraph says she could not marry a "rich and distinguished man" and had to marry a little clerk. Is that an employee? [Rodrigo nods his assent.] I guess it is because she is not rich. But she was very pretty and charming, right?

So now I am going to read the second paragraph. [She proceeds to read aloud to Rodrigo, then pauses and thinks.] I am confused, so I guess I will ask you a think and search question. The text says "with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth." Is the author saying that for women, money does not matter? Why did she marry a clerk then?

Rodrigo: Yeah, I agree. I don't fully understand. You said she was pretty but not rich. Now the second paragraph says that's in place of family and birth, so does that mean richness? Does it not matter if women are pretty? Does it matter or doesn't it matter? [Both students decide to raise these questions later during the whole-class discussion. Then Rodrigo proceeds to read the third paragraph to Martha.]

We have all observed classes resembling the first example, where the teacher already knows the answers to the questions being asked, as do most students. The exchange is just an exercise in reiterating the known using complete sentences. In contrast, students in the second example must actively consider the possibilities related to the text, by asking and responding to questions that reveal their understanding.

How do we ensure that all English learners have opportunities to productively use oral language in academic settings? And how do we ensure that teachers leverage the power of classroom interactions to simultaneously foster language development, content knowledge, and analytical practices? In this article, we offer answers to these questions-and clarify common misconceptions-by presenting guidelines supported by both research and classroom practice.

A Framework for Oral Language

If English language learners (ELLs) are going to productively engage in classroom discourse and express their thinking related to content learning goals, teachers must create a trusting classroom culture in which students feel that whatever level of language they can produce, their contributions will be valued by their teacher and peers and will never be subject to ridicule, sanctions, or negative comparisons. ² Establishing classroom norms such as close listening to understand the ideas ELLs are conveying and showing respect to each other during their interactions (learning, of course, from the models their teachers provide) is essential for successful oral language use. Students need to know that interrupting their peers as they are formulating ideas and finishing their sentences for them are not desirable classroom norms.

As teachers plan to engage students in oral interactions, the framework shown in Figure 1 below can help guide their support for their students' work and language development. The framework comprises six interconnected levels.

(click image for larger view)

First, teachers need to ensure that students clearly understand the purpose of the interaction they are being asked to undertake. For example, are they supposed to read a text and elaborate their thinking, highlighting what they understand and what they don't? Are they engaged in describing a scene to somebody who has not seen it? Are they being asked to make a prediction after observing phenomena they will later investigate?

Second, teachers need to make sure students have ideas upon which they will elaborate. For example, have they noticed the most important aspects of the scene (the background, main character(s) presented, what they are doing, other relevant details) on which they will center their description?

Third, teachers need to help students organize their thoughts and ensure their language follows specific patterns. For example, descriptions of a scene from a text cannot begin with sentences such as, "He kicks it, it breaks." Students need to first indicate the setting of the scene, then introduce the characters, describe them, and explain what they are doing. This sequence is essential to help participants engaged in a conversation paint pictures in their minds. Organization is marked by phrases that can be provided to students as formulaic expressions (which we discuss later in this article) to use: ³ "The picture we have shows a..." "We can see a..." "Our scene takes place in a..." "Based on my observation..." "The two historical contexts are..."

Fourth, teachers need to consider the types of sentences students produce and judiciously highlight how they may be combined and expanded to produce more complex language. Increasing complexity can be accomplished with the use of connectors and conjunctions, such as "besides," "furthermore," "additionally," "however," etc.

Fifth, teachers must pay attention to the words students use. Is one word repeated several times in an interaction? If so, teachers can take the opportunity to introduce a synonym. Do students incorrectly or imprecisely use a term? Teachers can take a moment to clarify usage and meaning.

Finally, when students are ready to present their work to others, teachers can focus on the pronunciation of carefully selected elements-only those that interrupt understanding. Traditionally, many educators have been taught to focus on correcting student utterances by zeroing in on form and not on meaning. As a result, our framework may initially feel counterintuitive, but the more educators rely on it, the more it will assist them in supporting students' language growth.

Productive Talk

As a general pattern, we educators often talk too much, no doubt influenced by our "apprenticeship of observation" that began when we were students ourselves. ⁴ However, given the centrality of talk in learning, this pattern needs to change. By some estimates, ELLs spend less than 2 percent of their school day in oral interaction. ⁵ Teachers must find ways to provide students learning opportunities that engage them in productive talk and then listen carefully to the language they use in order to support their continued growth.

By productive talk, we mean speech that has the following characteristics:

Has depth: the specific idea being discussed is central to the theme of the lesson, is presented in interconnected ways, and engages students' analytical thinking.

Is sustained: one student's statement is followed by another student's response, which extends, refutes, or questions what was first said.

Is student controlled: students control what they say, not the teacher. But teachers set up parameters for the interactions, sometimes framing questions that start the conversation. These questions are intended to communicate new related ideas, propose counter ideas or examples, and in general enhance the theme at work.⁶

Now consider these characteristics in an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class, which comprises students with varied levels of English competence. ⁷ "Language" is the theme of the students' exploration, and this was the third class on the topic. Table 1 below shows the deliberate moves of the teacher, Mr. DeFazio, during the lesson and the students' interactions. The text in the table indicates the multiple instances of productive talk that he promotes with his directions and actions.

(click image for larger view)

Let us look more closely at a specific interaction that occurred in the lesson after a student, Lavinia, reads the beginning of a letter she wrote about animal communication, and another student, Julio, reacts to one of her statements that animals do not have language.

Julio: Animal communication is not a language? It is a language-that's what I think-because they are communicating with each other.

Lavinia: But they don't speak.

Class: [Many students agree with Julio, saying "Yes, they do," or nodding.]

Julio: You said a language can have words, sounds, gestures, and everything.

Class: [Many students are in agreement with Julio's ideas once again.]

Lavinia: But they don't have words. They don't say "mama."

Julio: They don't need to. They have other characteristics. In animal language, some of the characteristics that you said are present-sound, pitch, gestures-so it is a language.

Mr. DeFazio: Julio is arguing very strongly that animal communication is language. Lavinia is saying that it's not. What do you think would be a way to help them resolve that argument in their writing?

Class: [The discussion continues and a resolution emerges. Then Julio reads a section of his letter.]

Mr. DeFazio: A lot is going to depend on how you define language, OK? You can define it in such a way as to exclude what animals do; you can define it in a very broad way, as a system of communication that includes everything. You are going to find linguists and zoologists who disagree, and if you are interested, I can give you some readings that were in the journal Science last year, people arguing back and forth.

Julio (reading his letter): First of all, I think that language is a way to inform others around you, your feelings, or just a simple thing that you want to let people know what is the deal. And it can be expressed by saying it, looking at a picture, or hearing it, you know what I'm saying? I don't know if you have heard about the kangaroo rat that stamps its feet to communicate with other rats. It's really funny 'cause we humans have more characteristics to communicate to each other, but we still have problems to understand other people. Characteristics like sound, grammar, pictures, and body language are some of them, while the rat only uses the foot. [Julio stamps the ground.]

Mr. DeFazio: Excellent! [The class applauds.] I never even heard about the kangaroo rat. Nice job, nice job. [Mr. DeFazio shakes Julio's hand.]

Applying the framework illustrated in Figure 1 to this interaction, we notice that students are clearly aware that the purpose of this exercise is to compare diverse positions on communication and to debate whether animals have language or not, providing evidence for their positions. They have ideas, and they choose which ones to debate based on a diversity of opinions. Mr. DeFazio's opportunity to correct student work, suggest changes, ask for elaboration, and so forth comes in the letters he is asking his students to construct. This written product is intimately tied to oral production. Oral activity feeds into writing, and writing produces oral activity.

In terms of productive talk, in Mr. DeFazio's class, students' analytic thinking is engaged, their interaction is sustained, and they control what they say. Mr. DeFazio has chosen a theme for the lesson that appeals to the students, and he has deliberately planned their active engagement throughout. As a result, the interaction engages students in deep thinking as they compare views on language.

Now that we have seen the characteristics of quality interactions for ELLs in practice, in the next section, we provide guidelines for promoting quality interactions during content lessons.

Six Guidelines for Promoting Quality Interactions

1. Design lessons that involve ELLs' participation in subject-specific and substantive oral practice to accomplish clearly defined lesson goals: Planning a lesson always begins with establishing the destination: Where do teachers need to lead students? Teachers should ask: Are my goals closely related to content standards? What is the knowledge that will be constructed? Which analytic practice will be promoted? What is the language (beyond isolated words or sentences) that will need to be developed? Unless teachers themselves are clear about the goals of a lesson, they will not be able to plan the tasks and activities that support students' language and conceptual development.

2. Construct tasks that appropriately scaffold student participation and growth: Tasks need to be deliberately constructed to engage students in working beyond their current competence. Such tasks should promote worthwhile interactions for students to acquire new conceptual understandings and analytical skills and language. They should also have appropriate scaffolds, which entail teachers closely observing students to ascertain whether the support is working, whether it is still needed, or whether it needs to be modified or replaced.

3. Make sure the task is designed to meet its purposes and the materials used are appropriate to support students working at the edge of their competence successfully: Learning is most effective when tasks are designed to match students' current competencies and also challenge them to move forward, with support.

4. Make sure that activities or tasks follow and precede others logically to build coherent lessons: Leading students to increasingly more complex demands is essential if teachers want their lessons to flow smoothly and to incrementally build ELLs' understanding.

5. Integrate reading and writing into oral development activities: Oral interaction while reading texts not only allows ELLs to understand the text more deeply but also helps them develop awareness of what they understand as they read and what they can do to solve problems in reading.

6. Be selective in addressing errors and intentional in providing feedback: When ELLs use English to develop their understanding of content and their use of analytical practices, often their language will be neither accurate nor fully formed, although the intent of their communication will be apparent. Imagine, for a moment, the impact on ELLs' motivation and self-esteem if teacher responses to inaccuracies constituted a constant flow of error correction. Instead, consider formative feedback to students as invitations to understand how they are progressing in language development and to provide a resource for how they can advance. When feedback is given to students about language while they are learning discipline-specific content, the feedback should focus on language so that students can make sense of the academic content, rather than on correcting errors of language production. As such, feedback can increase the students' awareness and help them troubleshoot their own performance and eventually correct their own language.⁸

There is no hard and fast rule about how much feedback students should receive or how often it should be provided; this is a decision teachers will need to make for themselves, given their knowledge of their students, their language and content goals, and the students' current language use. However, because of the powerful impact that feedback can have on learning, ⁹ we advise teachers to make providing feedback a regular and routine part of their classroom practice.

Common Misconceptions

Designing and facilitating meaningful classroom talk is essential for ELLs-indeed for all students-to develop more extended and sophisticated language use while simultaneously learning subject matter. Yet in too many U.S. classrooms, we find ELLs sitting silently, watching their teachers do all the work, and waiting for opportunities to fully engage cognitively and linguistically.

By way of concluding thoughts, we outline five pitfalls to avoid in thinking about language learning, and we provide suggestions for how teachers can engage students in sustained, high-quality classroom talk.
Misconception 1: Sentence frames that provide students with a way of expressing their ideas about specific situations are helpful to them.
A sentence frame is basically a fill-in-the-blank type of activity that invites only one correct answer. Sometimes it can be open and provide starters for students (also called sentence starters for this reason) to be filled in any way. However, these starters may not provide students with phrases they can use time and time again in academic situations. ¹⁰ For example: "The main character in The Pearl is a modest and loving man, furthermore..." "His wife, Juana, loves Kino and Coyotito, their baby, and because of that..."

In addition to using sentence frames, we suggest teachers use formulaic expressions, which are phrases that help start or link ideas and can be used in many situations. Initially, students learn them as unanalyzed chunks, almost as if they were one word. Later on, as students learn more English, they begin to realize the formulaic expressions are formed by several words. Formulaic expressions are extremely useful in students' development of English and in making their interaction with peers possible and more effective. Examples of formulaic expressions are: "I agree with you, and I can add that..." "May I suggest a couple of other ideas? One example I can offer..."
Misconception 2: Correct mistakes students make as they talk or they will "fossilize."
Historically, correctness has been regarded as paramount in second language learners' use of English. More recently, however, researchers' attention has shifted to the larger components of communication, as discussed before: purpose, ideas, organization, types of sentences, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Fossilization, a concept popular in the 1980s, refers to the inability of second language learners to learn the correct forms of language if they continually misuse them. Our perspective, consistent with that of multiple applied linguists, is that language keeps evolving as a result of continuous practice. It may fossilize if it is no longer used productively or receptively. However, in their schooling, students will be invited to engage in uses of language continuously, and thus, they will have ample opportunities to correct themselves or be corrected by others.
Misconception 3: Rather than correcting students' ungrammatical oral language, it is better to provide them with recasts, which model correct English in response to students' mistakes.
It is common for teachers to believe that rather than correcting a student's mistakes-and putting him or her on the spot-it is better to repeat what a student has said, this time changing the student's utterance into grammatical English. They think that recasting saves a student's face and that it is a less authoritarian approach.

Research, however, shows that these implicit corrections may not be productive. ¹¹ Students do not take teachers' recasts as corrections, but rather as reiterations of the idea and as acceptance of students' comments as being right. When the time is appropriate to focus on selected language forms to study and correct, the correction and expansion activity needs to be made explicit.
Misconception 4: Sustained, focused interactions are possible starting in fourth or fifth grade, but lower elementary students are not mature enough to carry them out because they get too impatient with the task and with each other.
Recently, during an open house at an elementary school in Portland, Oregon, one of us (Aída) had the opportunity to visit three classes. The first one was a kindergarten class. The teacher, Mr. Andanen, was preparing students to read and discuss Julius, the Baby of the World, a book by Kevin Henkes, an author the students were already familiar with because they had enjoyed reading three of his other books in class.

To introduce the book, Mr. Andanen set up nine stations around the room and invited students to walk through them. At each station, a picture illustrating a scene from the book was prominently displayed. Students were asked to rotate around the stations every three minutes. At each station, students needed to stop, look at the picture, and explain what they noticed. The teacher had asked students to use a "talking stick" so that the turns to speak were democratically divided within the group at each station. Peers had to listen attentively to the speaker and agree with, disagree with, or expand on what the student said. Formulaic expressions such as "In this picture, I notice..." and "I noticed that, too, and I want to add..." were familiar to the group. At one station, Aída heard the following exchange:

Student 1: I notice a woman holding a big baby. Her mouth is open. I think she is crying.

Student 2: I also noticed she had her mouth open, but I don't think she is crying. I think she is singing.

Student 3: I also noticed the woman with the big baby, and I want to add that he is very heavy. Perhaps that is why she is screaming.

The exchange shows that Mr. Andanen has created an environment that enables young children to notice and use language in purposeful ways. Although the students were only in kindergarten, they clearly articulated their ideas and listened to others. They showed they will soon be ready to start exploring the book more deeply so that they can eventually write an opinion piece based on evidence from the text about which Henkes book was their favorite.
Misconception 5: All students in a class need to master the same levels of oral development as a result of participating in lessons.
Because not all students in a class will be at the same starting point, a robust activity provides multiple entry points for all students to engage as they learn. The important idea is that they should all be gaining-not that all of them will arrive at the same point, in exactly the same way, developing at exactly the same level. This would only be possible if what is learned is limited, and if the learning demands recall. This is not necessarily what we want in education. Rather, we want to produce individuals who are thoughtful, engaged, and conscious of their own development.

English language learners bring valuable assets and immense potential to school. The role of educators is to realize that potential in deep and accelerated ways. Each classroom teacher must ensure the path to that development is paved with meaningful interactions to help students develop language skills, gain conceptual understanding, and learn academic content. Our students deserve no less.

--
Aída Walqui is the director of the teacher professional development program at WestEd. Previously, she taught in the Division of Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Margaret Heritage is a senior advisor at WestEd and was previously an assistant director at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles.
*Taffy Raphael's Question-Answer Relationships framework ¹ is intended to call students' attention to the kinds of questions that may be asked about a text. In this class, students work in pairs, announcing first the type of question he or she will ask to increase the other student's awareness of the types of meaningful connections the question seeks. ( back to the article)
Endnotes

1. Taffy E. Raphael, "Teaching Question Answer Relationships, Revisited," The Reading Teacher 39 (1986): 516-522.

2. Alison L. Bailey and Margaret Heritage, Progressing Students' Language Day by Day (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2018).

3. See Rod Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review (Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education, 2005).

4. Dan C. Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

5. Diane August, referenced in Ivannia Soto-Hinman, "Increasing Academic Oral Language Development: Using English Language Learner Shadowing in Classrooms," Multicultural Education 18, no. 2 (Winter 2011): 21-23.

6. Aída Walqui and Leo van Lier, Scaffolding the Academic Success of Adolescent English Language Learners: A Pedagogy of Promise (San Francisco: WestEd, 2010).

7. Anthony DeFazio and Aída Walqui, Where Do You Want to Go Next? (San Francisco: WestEd, 2001), DVD.

8. David J. Nicol and Debra Macfarlane‐Dick, "Formative Assessment and Self‐Regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice," Studies in Higher Education 31 (2006): 199-218.

9. See, for example, John Hattie and Helen Timperley, "The Power of Feedback," Review of Educational Research 77 (2007): 81-112.

10. For more on sentence frames, see Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition.

11. Ahlem Ammar and Nina Spada, "One Size Fits All? Recasts, Prompts, and L2 Learning," Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28 (2006): 543-574; Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition; and Roy Lyster, "Differential Effects of Prompts and Recasts in Form-Focused Instruction," Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26 (2004): 399-432.

Originally published in American Educator, Fall 2018.

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Meaningful Classroom Talk: Supporting English Learners' Oral Language Development

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This post was written by WestEd's Aída Walqui, Director of Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) and Margaret Heritage, WestEd Senior Scientist. Consider this interaction between a teacher and his students, most of them English language learners, in a ninth-grade English language arts class: Teacher: Who wrote The Pearl, Carmen?

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers.

How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

To lay a better foundation for this learning, we can do a few things: we can value oral language development, we can value communication of ideas over grammatical correctness, and we can value oral language as a powerful way to learn and remember content.

Here are three strategies to help develop oral language skills.

Strategy One: Adapt Activities to Include Authentic Talk

Adapting current activities to include more authentic, original, and extended discussions gives students opportunities to contribute more than one sentence to a conversation. Sometimes, we miss the opportunity to encourage language development. For example, many teachers use some form of a jigsaw activity, in which students get into expert groups, read a text, and answer questions or fill in charts. They then go to mixed home groups to share their information. Yet, often what happens is this: students just read aloud what another student has copied from a resource -- and opportunities for oral language development are lost.

To improve this strategy, you can have the experts engage in a discussion of what to put, in their own words, onto paper. Then, they can rehearse what they'll say - covering their papers to avoid reading aloud. Then in home groups, you can have each person glance at their notes, cover them again, and share with the group members, who listen and take notes. You can even ask students to try to speak in paragraphs, starting with a general claim or topic sentence, and then support it with evidence sentences. For example, in this video, notice how the talk evolves as students prepare their ideas for sharing.

Strategy Two: Use Activities that Develop Strong Language

Use activities that allow students to develop a "stronger and clearer" answer, as they talk to different partners successively in an activity. Instead of the all-too-common whole class discussion, with the teacher asking questions and a few students answering, ask a question and have students talk to three different partners. Or have students talk in different groups (see this 1-3-6 activity video).

A crucial aspect of this strategy is that students shouldn't say the same thing each time; rather, they need to build on the language and ideas of previous partner(s) to improve, expand, clarify, and support their evolving answer each time they share it.

Example Activities(from Zwiers, O'Hara, Pritchard, 2014):

Interview Grid:Students talk with one different partner each time, making their answers stronger and clearer each time, taking minimal, if any, notes on the chart. Note that this activity can also work using inner-outer conversation circles, such as the one in this Debrief Circles video.

Opinion Formation Cards: Students receive a quotation from the text (before it's read) that includes evidence for one side or the other of an issue. Students share their quotations and their evolving opinions, with reasons and evidence for them.

Opinion Continuum: Students share where they fall on the continuum of a two-sided issue and why. At the end, they share if they shifted at all along the continuum based on their conversations with partners.

Strategy Three: Use Strong Discussion Prompts

Try to use discussion prompts that foster evaluation in some way. Evaluation is usually needed for ranking, prioritizing, and choosing. For example, if you ask for evidence of a theme or a claim, many students just find the first three remotely evidence-y things they can, and stop there. But if you prompt students to rank the evidence from strongest to weakest, or to find the most influential cause of some war, you can often get deeper thinking and better conversation.

For instance, I was talking with a teacher who was asking this question, "How did the Civil War affect the families in the South?" I encouraged her to simply add "most affect" to force students to evaluate and discuss their opinions. When students evaluate, their ideas often differ. And if you allow them time to argue and negotiate the ideas, lots of learning can happen.

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Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers. How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

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Retelling is an important literacy skill. For English Language Learners retelling a story gives them the opportunity to practice their oral language skills. Here are some ideas for incorporating retelling into your classroom.

Retelling Center

Create a retelling drama center. This works especially well for younger students. It can be as simple as printing out character pictures and gluing them onto popsicle sticks or a full-blown play center with props. Have one book that you have recently read or create boxes with a book and the props that go with that book.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click on an Amazon link and make a purchase. This does not cost you any extra money.
Partner Retelling

Have students work with a partner to retell a story. One partner can retell the story while the other partner listens and then adds in details that were missing. Or the two partners can split up the story and retell it together. For older students/those with higher language levels they can create their own reader's theater scripts to retell the story.

Story Picture Cards

Visuals are helpful for language learners. Some students might struggle to retell all of the key details from a story but if they have pictures include many more details. Consider giving a nonreader the picture book and letting them use the pictures as they retell the story.

I have created sets of Speak then Write Retelling Packs with images from popular stories. Students can use the pictures to retell the story and then write down a summary of the story using the pictures.

Student Engagement

Create opportunities for students to retell stories that they have read or heard. When they practice retelling in an engaging way they will gain practice in listening and speaking. Young children can be given the opportunity to play while they are practicing academic skills.

Retelling as Part of Reading Comprehension

Retelling combines many aspects of reading comprehension. To retell a story students summarize and infer. Learn more about the skill along with some great sentence frames on Reading Rockets.

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Retelling with ELLs - A World of Language Learners

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Retelling is an important literacy skill. For English Language Learners retelling a story gives them the opportunity to practice their oral language skills. Here are some ideas for incorporating retelling into your classroom. Create a retelling drama center. This works especially well for younger students.

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This article is the second in a two-part series on supporting ELL literacy, sponsored by Middlebury Interactive Languages. Click here to read the first post in the series.
In recent years, many schools have raised the bar on writing instruction. We now expect middle and high school students to do the kind of written analysis and critique that was once limited to the college classroom.

When you teach English-language learners (ELLs), the concern is that this kind of increased expectation can lead to an even wider achievement gap. That's why we recently asked educators in our WeAreTeachers Helpline group to share their best tips for scaffolding writing instruction for ELLs at the secondary level. Here's what they had to say:

1. Consider writing in their native languages: If your students are at "entering" or "beginning" WIDA levels, you might consider allowing them to write in their native languages and then to use a translator app or tool to interpret their work. Be sure to spend some time comparing the two versions side by side so that students can begin to see what their ideas and thought processes look like in English.

2. Use dictation: "I have students use Dragon Dictation to dictate their responses out loud," says teacher Erin M. "Then I work with the students to teach them to group topics together into paragraphs and to use a dictionary and thesaurus to add detail words."

3. Review writing prompts: "I give ELL students the same writing assignments as the rest of the kids, but I make sure to define any unfamiliar words in the prompt itself," says Emily B. Do a verbal check for understanding before students start writing to avoid confusion and frustration down the road.

4. Give students sentence stems: It's a good idea to give students sentence stems and phrases for the different types of writing you will be doing all year long. So provide a narrative-writing word bank, an argumentative word bank and an informational word bank, for example.

5. Encourage outlining: If writing full sentences is a challenge, encourage outlining as a first step. "I had a student who couldn't write a paragraph in 11th grade," says Lauren P. "So I gave him the same assignments but had him bullet-point his ideas. We then worked one-on-one to form sentences. We started with just one well-developed paragraph, but as the year progressed, he'd write a little more."

6. Provide models from literature: "For example," says Erin. M., "if we were writing a reflective piece, I would show them paragraphs or selections from favorite books or articles that were reflective to use as examples for structure and even word use."

7. Try the four-square writing method: In this model, students simply divide a piece of paper into four sections to use as a graphic organizer for persuasive or informational writing. They write their topic/argument at the center and then one reason or claim with supporting details in each of the four boxes. As students progress, you can encourage them to add more details and evidence to their graphic organizers.

8. Grade selectively: Choose one or two skills that you want to target for each writing assignment, and focus the majority of your grading and commentary on those skills. For English-language learners, sometimes those skills might be about language acquisition (e.g., vocabulary, syntax), and other times, you might want to focus on a deeper understanding of writing (e.g., argument building).

Want more support for your English-language learners? Learn more about Middlebury Interactive Languages' exciting new curriculum focused on closing the ELL achievement gap.

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This article is the second in a two-part series on supporting ELL literacy, sponsored by Middlebury Interactive Languages. Click here to read the first post in the series. In recent years, many schools have raised the bar on writing instruction.

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Varieties of English | English Language Learning Tips | Cambridge English

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British English

The abbreviation RP ( Received Pronunciation) denotes what is traditionally considered the standard accent of people living in London and the southeast of England and of other people elsewhere who speak in this way. RP is the only British accent that has no specific geographical correlate: it is not possible, on hearing someone speak RP, to know which part of the United Kingdom he or she comes from. Though it is traditionally considered a "prestige" accent, RP is not intrinsically superior to other varieties of English; it is itself only one particular accent that has, through the accidents of history, achieved a higher status than others. Although acquiring its unique standing without the aid of any established authority, it was fostered by the public schools (Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and so on) and the ancient universities (Oxford and Cambridge). Other varieties of English are well preserved in spite of the leveling influences of film, television, and radio. In several Northern accents, RP / a:/ (the first vowel sound in father) is still pronounced /æ/ (a sound like the a in fat) in words such as laugh, fast, and path; this pronunciation has been carried across the Atlantic into American English.

In the words run, rung, and tongue, the RP pronunciation of the vowel is like the u in but; in some Northern accents it is pronounced like the oo in book. In the words bind, find, and grind, the RP pronunciation of the vowel sound is /ai/, like that in "bide"; in some Northern accents, it is /i/, like the sound in feet. The vowel sound in the words go, home, and know in some Northern accents is /ɔ:/, approximately the sound in law in some American English accents. In parts of Northumberland, RP it is still pronounced "hit," as in Old English. In various Northern accents the definite article the is heard as t, th, or d. In those accents in which it becomes both t and th, t is used before consonants and th before vowels. Thus, one hears t'book but th'apple. When, however, the definite article is reduced to t and the following word begins with t or d, as in t'tail or t'dog, it is replaced by a slight pause as in the RP articulation of the first t in hat trick. The RP /t∫/, the sound of the ch in church, can become k, as in thack ("thatch, roof") and kirk ("church"). In some Northern dialects strong verbs retain the old past-tense singular forms band, brak, fand, spak for standard English forms bound, broke, found, and spoke. Strong verbs also retain the past participle inflection -en as in comen, shutten, sitten, and getten or gotten for standard English come, shut, sat, and got.

In some Midland accents the diphthongs in throat and stone have been kept apart, whereas in RP they have fallen together. In Cheshire, Derby, Stafford, and Warwick, RP singing is pronounced with a g sounded after the velar nasal sound (as in RP finger). In Norfolk one hears skellington and solintary for skeleton and solitary, showing an intrusive n just as does messenger in RP from French messager, passenger from French passager, and nightingale from Old English nihtegala. Other East Anglian words show consonantal metathesis (switch position), as in singify for signify, and substitution of one liquid or nasal for another, as in chimbly for chimney and synnable for syllable. Hantle for handful shows syncope (disappearance) of an unstressed vowel, partial assimilation of d to t before voiceless f, and subsequent loss of f in a triple consonant group.

In some South Western accents, initial f and s are often voiced, becoming v and z. Two words with initial v have found their way into RP: vat from fat and vixen from fixen (female fox). Another South Western feature is the development of a d between l or n and r, as in parlder for parlour and carnder for corner. The bilabial semivowel w has developed before o in wold for old, and in wom for home, illustrating a similar development in RP by which Old English ān has become one, and Old English hāl has come to be spelled whole, as compared with Northern hale. In some South Western accents yat comes from the old singular geat, whereas RP gate comes from the plural gatu. Likewise, clee comes from the old nominative clea, whereas RP claw comes from the oblique cases. The verbs keel and kemb have developed regularly from Old English cēlan "to make cool" and kemban "to use a comb," whereas the corresponding RP verbs cool and comb come from the adjective and the noun, respectively.

In Wales, people often speak a clear and measured form of English with rising intonations inherited from ancestral Celtic. They tend to aspirate both plosives (stops) and fricative consonants very forcibly; thus, two is pronounced with an audible puff of breath after the initial t, and while may be heard with a voiceless /w/.

Scots, or Lowland Scottish, was once a part of Northern English, but the two dialects began to diverge in the 14th century. Today speakers of Scots trill their r's, shorten vowels, and simplify diphthongs. A few Scots words, such as bairn, brae, canny, dour, and pawky, have made their way into RP. Scots is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language still spoken by about 60,000 people (almost all bilingual) mostly in the Highlands and the Western Isles. Thanks to such writers as Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, many Scottish Gaelic words have been preserved in English literature.

Northern Ireland has dialects related in part to Scots and in part to the southern Irish dialect of English. The influence of the Irish language on the speech of Dublin is most evident in the syntax of drama and in the survival of such picturesque expressions as We are after finishing, It's sorry you will be, and James do be cutting corn every day.

American and Canadian English

The dialect regions of the United States are most clearly marked along the Atlantic littoral, where the earlier settlements were made. Three dialects can be defined: Northern, Midland, and Southern. Each has its subdialects.

The Northern dialect is spoken in New England. Its six chief subdialects comprise northeastern New England ( Maine, New Hampshire, and eastern Vermont), southeastern New England (eastern Massachusetts, eastern Connecticut, and Rhode Island), southwestern New England (western Massachusetts and western Connecticut), the inland north (western Vermont and upstate New York), the Hudson Valley, and metropolitan New York.

The Midland dialect is spoken in the coastal region from Point Pleasant, in New Jersey, to Dover, in Delaware. Its seven major subdialects comprise the Delaware Valley, the Susquehanna Valley, the Upper Ohio Valley, northern West Virginia, the Upper Potomac and Shenandoah, southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, western North Carolina and South Carolina, and eastern Tennessee.

The Southern dialect area covers the coastal region from Delaware to South Carolina. Its five chief subdialects comprise the Delmarva Peninsula, the Virginia Piedmont, northeastern North Carolina (Albemarle Sound and Neuse Valley), Cape Fear and Pee Dee valleys, and the South Carolina Low Country, around Charleston.

These boundaries, based on those of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, are highly tentative. To some extent these regions preserve the traditional speech of southeastern and southern England, where most of the early colonists were born. The first settlers to arrive in Virginia (1607) and Massachusetts (1620) soon learned to adapt old words to new uses, but they were content to borrow names from the local Indian languages for unknown trees, such as hickory and persimmon and for unfamiliar animals, such as raccoon and woodchuck. Later they took words from foreign settlers: chowder and prairie from the French, scow and sleigh from the Dutch. They made new compounds, such as backwoods and bullfrog, and gave new meanings to such words as lumber (which in British English denotes disused furniture, or junk) and corn (which in British English signifies any grain, especially wheat) to mean "maize."

Before the Declaration of Independence (1776), two-thirds of the immigrants had come from England, but after that date they arrived in large numbers from Ireland. The Great Famine of 1845-49 drove 1.5 million Irish to seek homes in the New World, and the European revolutions of 1848 drove as many Germans to settle in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. After the close of the American Civil War, millions of Scandinavians, Slavs, and Italians crossed the ocean and eventually settled mostly in the North Central and Upper Midwest states. In some areas of South Carolina and Georgia, enslaved Africans working on rice and cotton plantations developed a contact language called Gullah, or Geechee, that made use of many structural and lexical features of their native languages. This variety of English is comparable to such contact languages as Sranan (Taki-taki) of Suriname and Melanesian Pidgins. The speech of the Atlantic Seaboard shows far greater differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary than that of any area in the North Central states, the Upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, or the Pacific Coast. Today, urbanization, quick transport, and television have tended to level out some dialectal differences in the United States. On the other hand, immigrant groups have introduced new varieties in which the influence of ethnic origins is evident, and some immigrant languages are widely spoken (notably Spanish, in the southeastern and southwestern states).

The boundary with Canada nowhere corresponds to any boundary between dialects, and the influence of United States English is strong, being felt least in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland and Labrador. Nevertheless, in spite of the effect of this proximity to the United States, British influences are still potent in some of the larger cities; Scottish influences are well sustained in Ontario. Canada remains bilingual. Less than one-fourth of its people, living mostly in the province of Quebec, have French as their mother tongue.

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English language - Dialects, Grammar, Vocabulary

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English language - Dialects, Grammar, Vocabulary: The abbreviation RP (Received Pronunciation) denotes what is traditionally considered the standard accent of people living in London and the southeast of England and of other people elsewhere who speak in this way.

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6 Ways to Implement a Real Multicultural Education in the Classroom

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Multicultural education is about more than a classroom with varied skin color.

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Language Arts

Ask students to hunt for words in their reading and writing that fit the phonic or word study pattern being studied. These words can create a word wall that illustrates examples of the different patterns studied. Students could keep a word study notebook to record the known patterns and their new understanding about words, and can play games and activities that apply their word knowledge.

Math

Word walls in math can provide visual cues and graphic representations of content. Consider using a math word wall that has three parts: key vocabulary, "in your own words" definitions, and a variety of ways to portray a function. For example, multiplication is portrayed by the following symbols: x, *, and ( ).

Number sense, concepts, and operations word wall
The purpose of the mathematics word wall is to identify words and phrases that students need to understand and use so as to make good progress in mathematics. Mathematical language is crucial to children's development of thinking. If students do not have the vocabulary to talk about math concepts and skills, they cannot make progress in understanding these areas of mathematical knowledge. They need to be familiar with mathematical vocabulary and mathematical terms to understand written and spoken instructions. See math word wall resources ›

More ideas for word walls in math
Many teachers are familiar with basic word wall strategies including the use of a flashlight (to put the light on words) and a fly swatter (to highlight words). Teachers are also familiar with tested favorites like bingo; I Have, Who Has; and Mind Reader, but they really wanted other ideas. The purpose of this post by Dr. Deborah Wahlstrom is to identify additional ways to use word walls with mathematics content. More math word wall ideas ›

Science

Using interactive word walls in science
Science is a vocabulary-intense subject that is dependent on students learning new and often times difficult vocabulary to increase comprehension and help them make connections between and among concepts. When science students are given the opportunity to interact with the vocabulary, they are more likely to remember it.

Ideas for using the words on your wall are only limited by your imagination. Some examples include:

Students categorize and sequence from largest to smallest (cell, bacteria, yeast, tissue, ribosome, organ, organism, organ system, protozoa, virus) Variation: Students are given vocabulary words, and their classmates must arrange them in the correct order and justify the placement.

Students remove words from the wall and make connecting statements about the words. The class can then create a summarizing statement, for example: cells make up tissues, and tissues make up organs.

For more ideas like these, read the full post by Toni Enloe.

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A word wall is a collection of words that are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students and contains an array of words that can be used during writing and reading.

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May 2005 | Volume 47 | Number 5
Promoting Diverse Leadership

Effective Learning Communities Are Built on Understanding

John Franklin

Skillful teachers know that they regularly compete with various outside influences in their students' lives-such as television, Web sites, and video games-and are prepared to deal with them. Occasionally, however, even the most experienced teacher can find herself up against an influence she knows she can't compete with.

Take God, for instance.

"One of my [master's degree] student teachers told me that [an elementary school] pupil tried to share information with another student because at church he had been told that God would be angry with people who didn't share!" says Alison Shook, an assistant professor of education at Albright College in Albright, Pa. "Many minority communities don't focus on individual achievement," she adds. "They focus on collaboration instead."

Cultural differences such as the one Shook describes are an influence teachers must learn to manage in order to promote effective learning environments in their classrooms. For instance, disciplining a student for a perceived infraction can create a cultural rift between the teacher and student if the student feels the teacher does not understand or respect the intention behind the action. If not closed quickly, such a rift can lead to greater misunderstandings that have the potential to poison the teacher's relationship with the student. In extreme cases, such differences can irreparably damage a student's openness to learning.

"Conflicts can arise when 90 percent of teachers are white and a majority of the students are nonwhite," Shook adds. "There are disconnects or misunderstandings between approaches and activity levels that can come up, [so] the best strategy you can employ is simply to prevent problems before they start."

Cultural Sensitivity vs. Individual Identity

Ironically, one of the biggest mistakes new teachers often make stems from their good faith efforts to treat all students equally. "It's a mistake to treat everyone the same," says Richard L. Curwin, coauthor of the ASCD book Discipline with Dignity and a 25-year observer of effective classroom management techniques. "You need to choose what works with each student, not what works with someone else."

Selecting what works for particular students, however, is seldom easy. On one hand, some experts point out that certain ethnicities will often have cultural behaviors that are not always identical or compatible with those of the teacher. "A lot of middle class white [teachers] do not have a great deal of experience working with inner-city black children," says Shook. "There's often a disconnect or misunderstanding between approaches and activity levels," because physical activity and calling out is frequent in many black communities and churches. Reprimanding students for speaking up, she says, in some instances can reflect ignorance of the norm for African American, Hispanic, and other cultures. This can be interpreted as a simple misunderstanding at best or a disrespectful attitude at worst.

If the teacher yells at the student, things deteriorate further, Shook asserts. "It makes children dislike being in the classroom, and it makes them think that they now have to behave according to white, middle class mores."

On the other hand, other experts caution against drawing too many conclusions based simply on a student's ethnicity. "Knowing about a culture is important, but it doesn't help you know anything about an individual child," Curwin cautions. "You may have research that says black children may be louder than others, but what does that tell you about that particular child in your classroom who's being loud?"

Rewarding Relationships

This dichotomy of balancing cultural expectations with individual learning styles presents teachers with a difficult challenge: Given such conflicting advice, how does one best reach students to help them learn?

"To boil things down, you need to create relationships," says Allen Mendler, president of Discipline Associates, an educational consulting firm in Rochester, N.Y., and author of the book Just in Time: Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior. "You have classrooms full of different students, both culturally and in terms of learning styles, so how do you reach out to all of them? How do you achieve those high standards in a differentiated classroom while addressing multiple intelligences in an inclusive environment? You do it by building a community."

Building that community requires thinking of students not as members of particular groups but as individuals, each with his or her own distinct learning style. In fact, making hasty judgments based on perceived cultural similarities can actually have disastrous repercussions, however well-intentioned such perceptions and judgments might be. "I visited one classroom where the teacher thought that because certain students were from certain groups they would get along," says Alfred Arth, professor of education at the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. "The teacher was proud to be putting certain groups together and had grouped one set because the students were all from Vietnam," he says. "But what the teacher didn't realize was that some of the students were from South Vietnam and some were from North Vietnam."

"A lot of times our emphasis on cultural differences brings us to the point where educators become too worried about being politically correct and do not confront inappropriate behavior because they fear being called on the carpet," Mendler says. "Having an awareness of how one learns and being sensitive culturally to what fits is helpful and useful, but too often educators get overly concerned about responding in culturally sensitive ways as opposed to humanly sensitive ways."

Fearing Labels

The fear of not being perceived as culturally sensitive is not uncommon, according to sources. "Some teachers are afraid to confront minority students if they [themselves] are not a minority because they fear misperception," says Curwin. "They don't want to be accused of being racist."

If a student makes an accusation following a disciplinary action, experts caution against reacting with hostility. Instead, they encourage using the student's charge as a means for opening a dialogue with the student. "There's always the possibility that the student may be right in accusing you of something you're not aware of," he adds.

Mendler, for instance, had just such an experience. "A number of years ago, an African American woman approached me after I gave a presentation and told me I was being racist," he says. When he asked her why she thought that, the woman pointed out that in the demonstration Mendler had given, all the role-playing for good students had been done by white audience members while the roles for problem students had been done by black ones. The realization floored him. "I had no idea I had done that," he said. "I did not intend to do such a thing, but that was how I had come across. I thanked her for pointing that out to me, and I became more sensitive to these things as a result."

The key is not to seek to avoid conflict, experts say, because to some extent conflict is inevitable in any relationship between people. Rather, they argue, the successful strategy involves being open to listening to students, parents, and others and using discussions as a way to build bridges for understanding. "I once had a principal tell me that I couldn't understand my kids because I had not grown up where they did," says Kathleen Wheeler, associate professor of education at York College in York, Neb. "I remember getting so mad at him, but he was right. I had not experienced what they did from birth. I couldn't know what they had gone through growing up where they did. But I learned to ask them what I needed to know and sought ways for us to work together to learn more about each other."

The Importance of Differences

This openness to learning about one's students means recognizing that teaching methods vary with each individual. It takes time for the student and teacher to understand and learn from each other.

In Wheeler's case, she learned the importance of knowing her students during her first teaching assignment at an urban school in Memphis, Tenn. "The 5th grade teachers were actually taking bets on whether I would stay," she recalls. "But I was willing to learn from my students. I asked them to tell me what I needed to know to work with them more effectively."

Above all, successful classroom management requires being able to change course to meet the needs of the learner. "You need to know what makes your students tick by interacting with them and their parents to find the right strategies and procedures that work," says Arth. "You also have to care about what you're doing-because the bottom line is that the teacher makes the difference."

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May 2005 | Volume 47 | Number 5 Promoting Diverse Leadership Effective Learning Communities Are Built on Understanding John Franklin Skillful teachers know that they regularly compete with various outside influences in their students' lives-such as television, Web sites, and video games-and are prepared to deal with them.

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

This article written for Colorín Colorado provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and includes:

what a language objective is

steps that teachers can take to create language objectives

how to implement language objectives in a general education classroom

how to align objectives to content and language standards

ideas and resources on how to support teachers as they become familiar with this practice

how to use language objectives in distance learning environments.

Language Objectives: An Overview
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners. As Mrs. Shell was beginning to feel frustrated with her inability to reach all her students because of their needs, she learned about one way to make her content more comprehensible to all her students - creating and posting objectives that tell the students not just what content concepts they will learn in each lesson, but also the academic language they will need to learn and use to meet the state's math standards. With this knowledge, Mrs. Shell is now confident that she not only knows what to teach, but also how to teach it so that all her students can be successful.

Generally speaking, academic English is the language of schooling and the language that helps students acquire and use the content area knowledge taught in schools (Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010).

Teaching content to ELs: The challenge

In my work supporting general education and ESL/bilingual teachers who provide sheltered instruction for English learners (ELs), I have met many teachers like Mrs. Shell. While these teachers want to provide effective instruction for their ELs, often they don't see themselves as language teachers and so they aren't sure where to begin with their students.

These teachers aren't alone, however, and they are facing a challenge shared by teachers across the country. We know that for school-age students, academic language is crucial for school success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006). In addition, research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts (Goldenberg, 2008).

Yet while the explicit instructional support that ESL and bilingual teachers provide is essential to English learners' academic language development, English learners receive a majority of their instruction from general education and content area teachers who may not have experience teaching academic language development.

The question becomes then: What do general education classroom teachers need to do in order to support the academic English development of language learners in both face-to-face and virtual environments, especially when English learners are one of many types of students they serve?

Teaching content to ELs: The solution

One principle that teachers of English learners can begin to apply immediately is creating and posting language objectives for their lessons (whether in the classroom or online in a virtual space. Many teachers are familiar with using content objectives to identify what students will learn and be able to do in the lesson. However, they are less likely to include language objectives that support the linguistic development of their students.

Implementing language objectives can be a powerful first step in ensuring that English learners have equal access to the curriculum even though they may not be fully proficient in the language. This is because the second language acquisition process requires opportunities for the language learner to be exposed to, practice with, and then be assessed on their language skills (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

To this end, language objectives:

articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.

Now let's take a closer look at some examples and how to write language objectives.

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Writing Language Objectives

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Himmel

Learn more about language objectives in this podcast interview with Dr. Himmel from Teaching Multilingual Learners, produced by Tan Huynh.

What is a language objective?

Language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

These objectives involve the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), but they can also include:

Below are examples of language objectives for different content areas and grade levels. They come from the Common Core State Standards for Math and English Language Arts (2012) and state standards in New York and California.
Sources:
How do I create effective language objectives?

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the process of writing language objectives in this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview.

Language objectives are directly correlated to content objectives. Once a teacher determines the lesson topic from the appropriate content standards, the teacher will want to begin thinking about the academic language necessary for English learners to complete the tasks that support the content objectives. This identification of the academic language embedded in the lesson's content will become the basis for the lesson's language objectives.

You can use the following guidelines to start thinking about appropriate language objectives for the lesson:

1. Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, and other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topic of the lesson. Those words might be taught as a language objective. They should include technical terms, such as ecosystem, and terms like distribution that have different meanings across content areas. Other terms to highlight are those that language learners may know in one context, such as family (as in parents, siblings, etc.), but that have a different use in science (e.g., family of elements in the periodic table).

2. Consider the language functions related to the topic of the lesson (e.g, will the students describe, explain, compare, or chart information). See your state English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for examples of these functions for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for all English proficiency levels and grade-level clusters.

3. Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson's activities. Will the students be reading a textbook passage to identify the stages of mitosis? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe during a scientific demonstration to a peer? Do they know how to report observations orally? Acquiring the skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective.

4. Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Additionally, students may have to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts. Writing with the passive voice or using comparative phrases might be a language objective.

5. Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. If students are working on a scientific investigation together, will they need to explain the steps of the procedure to one another? The language objective might focus on how to explain procedures aloud.

6. Explore language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of the lesson. For example, if students are starting a new chapter in the textbook, the strategy of previewing the text might be an appropriate language objective.

(Adapted from Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec, 2012. Used with permission.)

Aligning Language Objectives and Standards

English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards

Developing appropriate language objectives for lessons involves becoming familiar with a state's content area and ELP standards. Whereas the content standards will provide the topic of the lesson and what exactly the students should be doing with that topic (e.g., solving problems, creating models, ranking ideas), the English language proficiency or development standards help to identify language skills and functions that students should be working on to achieve academic language fluency. These ELP standards can help to identify:

English Language Arts (ELA) standards

Other resources in addition to the ELP standards are a state's English Language Arts standards or the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS). The English Language Arts and Literacy CCSS might be especially useful to teachers of English learners due to its attention to literacy across the content areas.

Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.

Getting Started

How can I get started?

Careful lesson planning

In creating measureable and student-friendly language objectives that support the content objectives, it is important that learner tasks in the lesson are aligned with the objectives. It is not enough to have well-written objectives that promote language acquisition if the lesson is lacking in tasks that support the objectives. If the language objective for a middle school social studies lesson is for the students to orally retell the key characteristics in a historical event using sequential language, it is important that the teacher previews sequential language with the students, such as providing sentence stems or frames, and builds into the lesson some structured pair work so the students have an opportunity to retell the event to a peer. Therefore, careful lesson planning is another essential step in preparing effective language objectives.

Collaboration

It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.

How do I know which language objectives are best for my students?

The language objective that the teacher selects will depend on what the English learners in the class need most at that point in the year and what language is most important to understanding the content concepts. If the students have already spent a good deal of time working with new vocabulary, then the teacher might consider having students use that vocabulary to develop their writing skill by writing a summary of the process they followed.

Conversely, the teacher might want to help students become more proficient with a particular type of graphic organizer in order to develop more strategic language learning. As all teachers know, teaching is a dynamic and complex process that requires a multitude of decisions to be made. However, the advance planning required in creating language objectives allows teachers to better anticipate the academic English needs of all students thus increasing the comprehensibility of the lessons.

It is important for teachers to realize that even though their lesson may include all four language skills (it is good if they do, since the language skills reinforce one another), they do not need to post a language objective for every language-related item addressed in the lesson. Teachers address many instructional needs in a 50- or 60-minute class period. Rather than highlighting all language uses in a particular lesson, it is important for the teacher to think about what is non-negotiable in that lesson.

In other words, the teacher should keep the perspective of the English learner in mind and ask, "Of all of the skills and functions addressed in my lesson, which is most important for helping students meet the grade-level standard and develop their language proficiency?" These objectives then must be measureable (i.e., can you see or assess the student's mastery of that objective?) and written in language that accounts for the linguistic and cognitive development of the students.

How can I make language objectives "student-friendly"?

Both of the above objectives are measurable, but both also take into account appropriate developmental stages of the students. Teachers of young students (e.g., PK or K) may even want to consider further adapting the objectives. For example, we have seen kindergarten teachers use symbols such as a pencil to symbolize "write" and a mouth to symbolize "talk" when they post their objectives for the children to see. We have also seen teachers of young learners rely on pictures to show the key terms they want the students to use or to convey the topic of the lesson (e.g., a picture of a ruler and of hands to discuss standard and non-standard measurement).

One way that teachers can ensure that their language objectives are measureable and student-friendly is by using appropriate verbs. Because language objectives should provide students with practice in the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, verbs related to those skills might include, but are not limited to, the following:

List

Retell

Summarize in writing

Record

Read

It is also important to not equate low language proficiency with limited cognitive ability. Therefore, teachers will want to make sure that the language objectives they create also reflect tasks that fall on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy and use verbs (e.g., orally justify) accordingly.

As noted above in the guidelines to creating language objectives, language functions are also a potential source for language objectives. Verbs related to language functions might include:

When should I share language objectives with students?

To help students take ownership of their learning and provide explicit direction to students, especially the English learners who are processing content in a new language, it is important that objectives be stated at the beginning of the lesson and reviewed with the students at the end of the lesson to allow them to assess if they have met the objectives (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008).

How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).

Should I differentiate language objectives based on my students' language proficiency?

Although all teachers have students of varying language proficiency and skill levels in their classes, it is not necessary to differentiate language objectives by creating and posting multiple language objectives that reflect these proficiency levels. Rather, teachers should have one language objective that is appropriate for all students to meet. To provide the appropriate differentiation, the teacher would provide different scaffolds (e.g., adapted text, visuals, sentence frames) for students to use in order to reach the objectives.

For example, an appropriate language objective for an upper elementary language arts class might be for the students to be able to orally list text features found in a non-fiction book. For lower proficiency language learners, the teacher may give them a word bank from which to choose the text features; therefore, the students are meeting the same objective but with the appropriate amount of linguistic support from the teacher.

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Using language objectives in a distance learning environment

While teachers like Ms. Shell understand that the characteristics of good teaching for English learners does not change in a virtual environment, they do understand that instruction will necessarily need to look different in order to account for the challenges that distance learning presents for many learners.

Accordingly, teachers will need to think through how to:

Presenting language objectives

Many different ways exist for teachers to present language objectives in remote learning. For example, teachers might:

begin every virtual class by orally reading and presenting the content and language objectives in their Google slides and then asking students to briefly summarize in the chat box the activities they will be doing in that lesson to meet those objectives.

post the objectives at the top of a shared digital document that serves as a capture sheet for the lesson. A teacher might then ask learners to self-assess their progress towards meeting those objectives at the end of the document.

use live or recorded videos, especially when working with English learners with lower English proficiency. These videos can include props, for example ears to signify a listening objective.

use realia, such as rocks, if one of the lesson's language aims is for students to orally describe different types of sedimentary rocks.

Monitoring student understanding and engagement

Teachers in distance learning environments must also carefully consider how they will assess learner understanding and engagement throughout the lesson. Given the challenges virtual learning platforms present towards capturing data on learner comprehension (e.g., paralinguistic cues such as facial expressions, gestures, posture) teachers working in virtual environments know that it is more important than ever to ensure that students clearly understand the content and linguistic aims for each lesson.

Using comprehension checks and assessing progress

It is also essential that students understand how teachers will measure their progress towards meeting each objective. Towards this aim, teachers must build in multiple comprehension checks throughout the lesson that align to the lesson's objectives. Teachers can:

At the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can assess student progress towards meeting objectives via:

tickets out that are submitted digitally

the recording of a Flipgrid or use of another video platform where learners respond to a prompt that requires learners to use the academic language highlighted in the lesson's objectives.

Teachers can respond to the submitted tickets out or video with feedback that explicitly targets the students use of the language. When appropriate, teacher can provide learners with additional resources and/or support towards mastering that particular language skill or function. Teachers might also use that linguistic data to inform mini-lessons conducted to small groups of English learners during office hours or intervention time.

Next Steps

How can I learn more?

For more information on the SIOP Model, see Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

Although language objectives can be implemented in any lesson design approach, they are especially congruent with sheltered instruction and the SIOP Model. Since language objectives ensure that teachers meet the unique linguistic needs of English learners, they are sometimes easier to implement in the context of instructional practices espoused by the SIOP Model.

Practices that focus on explicit academic language teaching include:

Below are other resources that can help you learn more about creating language objectives and about integrating academic language into content area classes.

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Final Thoughts

We realize that it takes teachers some time to become very comfortable with creating language objectives, but our experience has shown that the implementation of language objectives can bring immediate benefits to instruction. Some immediate benefits include teachers understanding more concretely that they are both a content area and language teacher - as one teacher said in a CAL SIOP Model workshop, "I now see myself as a math teacher AND a language teacher".

We have also observed that when teachers consciously plan to meet the academic English needs of their learners, they end up with better planned learner tasks, and students begin to have more ownership of their content area and language learning. When it comes to building proficiency in academic English, as many teachers in our workshops remind us, "If you want to see it, you have to teach it." Therefore, if teachers want to see language development, language objectives are a great first step in helping teachers explicitly teach it.

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Recommended Resources

Further reading

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching mathematics to English learners. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for a comprehensive school-wide intervention. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/professional-development-framework.html

Himmel, J., Short, D., Richards, C., & Echevarria, J. (2009). Using the SIOP Model to improve middle school science instruction. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/siopscience.html

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010a). The SIOP Model for teaching history-social studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010b). The SIOP Model for teaching science to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Vogt, M.E., Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching English language arts to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Jennifer Himmel is the Project Director for the National Center for English Language Acquisition at the Manhattan Strategy Group. She previously served as the SIOP Manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization for language education research, policy, and practice in Washington, DC. She has served as a curriculum developer and research associate for the U.S. Department of Education funded project, Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) that is investigating academic achievement of ELLs in grades 4th-8th, and as a language testing specialist for the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® language proficiency test. She currently manages the SIOP Model professional development service line and provides technical assistance and professional development in sheltered instruction to districts and schools.

Video Clips: Language Objectives

How to Write Language Objectives: Tips for ELL Educators

In this video from Syracuse, NY, Jesus Ortiz, a bilingual teacher, learns how to write a language objective from Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator with expertise in ELL and bilingual education.

Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains language objectives

In this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners.

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K-12 English language learners. Arlington, VA: The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence. Education.www.ceee.gwu.edu.

Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. ( 2010). Programs and practices for effective sheltered content instruction. In California Department of Education (Ed), Improving education for English learners: Research-based approaches. Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does-and does not-say. American Educator, Summer 2008, pp. 13-44.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A resource guide. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium.

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (2007). WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.asp

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected] .

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

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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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This guest blog post was written by my friend Becca over at Science Rocks! She is a terrific teacher with a lot of experience working with ELL students in her science classroom and I collaborated with her in writing this post. I think her ideas are full of fantastic tips for teachers who teach English Language Learners.
If you've been teaching for a while, chances are you have had some ELL (English language learner) students in your classroom. I've known many teachers that have panicked and asked me "how can I teach them science if they don't speak English?" I think many teachers tend to think they need to dumb down the content for these students. They aren't dumb! Your job is to make the content accessible. It's been my experience that ELL students are amazingly hard workers and are a blast to work with. My friend Bethany Lau over at Science with Mrs. Lau and I have created a list of best-practice tips for working with ELL students. We also have some helpful resources to share with you!

Tip #1: Get them talking! A quiet classroom is not conducive to learning a new language. Many students are scared to speak out loud in English, especially in front of the entire class. To help build their confidence, try small group discussions first. To ensure that every student has spoken to his or her group, give each student something color-coded (I use colored popsicle sticks from the dollar store). When a student speaks, they place their popsicle stick in the center of the table. It is easy as a teacher to walk around and monitor who is speaking and who isn't. Make it a requirement that each student has to speak at least twice during group discussions.

Tip #2: SLOW down when you are talking, and use nonverbal cues. This is much easier to do when you have all your ELL students together in one class, but when they are mixed with native English speakers we often don't realize how fast we are talking. It is really difficult for ELL students to process when you are speaking a mile a minute. So take a deep breath, slow down, and use your hands and other nonverbal gestures. Don't be afraid to act things out! Yes they will giggle, and yes they will love it.

Tip #3: Build vocabulary. When you teach new words, always make your students repeat the word out loud after you say it. And if they aren't loud, make them do it again. If you have a word wall in your classroom, go down the list frequently and make your students say them with you. To help students remember the definitions, discuss prefixes and suffixes to help them decode meanings.

Find fun ways for students to practice those new words. Instead of doing vocabulary worksheets, do vocabulary games instead! Bingo is an awesome way to review vocabulary words before a test. Create a bingo card from a free online bingo-card maker such as http://osric.com/bingo-card-generator/. Type in the words you want your students to learn and print a class set. Instead of calling out the words, say the definition and the students need to cover up the correct word. If they get a bingo, they need to say the words out loud in order to win a prize.

Tip #4: Utilize pictures. I used to try and translate parts of my power points into Spanish before the lesson thinking I was doing my students a favor.

I quickly realized that:

1. Google translate is frequently wrong

2. Many of my students could speak fluent Spanish but couldn't read it.

3. Even if they could read most of it, they didn't know the content specific terms in Spanish. Why would I want my students to learn the word "homeostasis" in Spanish AND English? Let's just stick with English.

Instead of translating, stick with visual pictures. Pictures are understood in all languages. Include them as much as possible in your lessons and power points. Make students draw pictures in their notes. Include pictures in all your articles you want students to read. A great pre-reading activity is to have students look at the pictures and captions in an article before they read the body paragraphs. Have them guess what the article is about based on the pictures and discuss with their neighbors (get those popsicle sticks back out). If you have a word wall in your classroom, make sure it includes pictures too! The more they see a picture associated with a new word, the more likely they will remember what it means.

Tip #5: Learn about their language and culture, and include it in your lessons when applicable. Students will have more buy-in to your lessons when they feel like their language and culture is valued. If you can connect their language to the content, chances are they will remember it better. For example, students use the term "liga" in Spanish to mean rubber band or hair elastic. When teaching "ligaments," discuss how they are stretchy unlike tendons. Students won't forget!

Tip #6: Use Manipulatives! Sometimes students need help learning how to structure their writing into logical paragraphs (even native English speakers need this too!) If you have sample paragraphs for them to learn from, you can print separate sentences out on separate lines, and cut them into strips. Then you can mix the sentences up and have students order them in how they should logically appear in a sentence! You can also do this for other parts of a lab report, like the procedure section or even the proper labels for a graph!

You could create your own writing structure manipulatives, or you can check out Bethany Lau's Lab Report Writing Activity Bundle found here. She has a set of activities with manipulative for each and every part of the lab report with a lot of examples for students to learn from.

Tip #7: Get them writing as much as possible. Data shows that when students take the state language proficiency tests, they struggle the most with writing. Find ways to get students writing on a daily basis. This could work in many different formats- just find one that works for you. Daily bellwork is a great place to start, as well as having students keep writing journals.

What should you have them write about? Check out these writing prompts from Science Rocks' store!

These were designed to be used before new concepts are taught, and allows the teacher to assess prior knowledge and check for misconceptions. When students are first learning English, allow them to write in their native language if they are able to and plug in English words that they know. Throughout the year as their language improves, you will see their writing transform from fragmented to fluid sentences.

Another great writing strategy for ELL students are sentence frames. For students still learning how to write a complete sentence, give them half the sentence first and have them fill in the blanks. For example, a hypothesis on a lab report for an ELL student could look like this: "If I change ___________, then I think ___________ will happen, because __________.

Tip #8: Model. And then model some more. As science teachers we tend to think of "modeling" as meaning "I'll show them how to do a lab before it's their turn." Modeling applies to so much more than labs.

1. Model reading strategies. As you read through articles out loud, stop and discuss. What was the main idea? What did you highlight and why?

2. Model writing strategies. When you assign those writing prompts, work through one with them first. Show them what a quality answer would look like.

3. Model behaviors. Many students will enter your classroom from different backgrounds. Behaviors that may have been acceptable where they grew up may not be acceptable in your classroom. If you want them to give a verbal presentation with eye contact, show them what a good presentation looks like first.

4. Model word pronunciation. Sometimes if students are nervous to say things in English, I have them teach me how to say the phrase in their native language first. Once they have giggled at my horrible pronunciation, they aren't so embarrassed to pronounce things in English.

Tip #9: Modify. Yes, one more thing to add to your to-do list. But it can honestly be as simple as cutting down the number of questions for them to complete, or adding pictures to an assessment. One of my favorite websites to find nonfiction science articles on is newsela.com. Not only is it free to use, but once you find an article you can change the lexile! That means all your students can be reading the same article but at a reading level that is assessable to them.

Tip #10: Use formative assessment frequently, and celebrate gains. It's important to check in with ELL students often. Many of them will take notes, smile, and nod during class, but only understood 20% of what was discussed. Exit tickets and note summaries are great ways to check in and see where they need help and what they have mastered. Make your exit tickets specific. Don't just say, "One thing I still need help with is..." but instead ask them to answer a specific question related to the lesson. This will help you group them by mastery and focus on the students that really need your help. Once they have mastered a new concept or learned new vocabulary, don't forget to celebrate! Let them know you are proud of them, and they will work harder in the future. If students feel like their hard work is recognized and celebrated, they will continue to work hard!

We'd love to hear stories from you about what helps your ELL students! Let us know in the comments!

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Ten Tips for Teaching ELL Science - Science and Math with Mrs. Lau

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This guest blog post was written by my friend Becca over at Science Rocks! She is a terrific teacher with a lot of experience working with ELL students in her science classroom and I collaborated with her in writing this post. I think her ideas are full of fantastic tips for teachers who teach English Language [...]

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However, when math is presented only as words and numbers on a page, English language learners (ELL) can miss out on crucial opportunities to understand the meaning behind the math.

The ST Math game-based learning program guides students at all language proficiency levels in visualizing math concepts through tantalizingly tricky puzzle challenges.

How it Works

Designed by experts in neuroscience, the ST Math brain-building games provide all students the opportunity to become confident and capable problem solvers and to reach higher levels of math achievement.

1. ST Math Visually Presents Math Concepts

The game visually asks the ratio question: "If each purple fruit monster eats 3 bananas, how many bananas will 3 monsters eat?"

2. Introduces Mathematical Symbols Gradually

Using the division bar, the visual asks: "If each monster eats 2 bananas, how many monsters will eat 14 bananas?"

3. Connects Language to the Math Concepts

Students learn the language for stating ratios.

4. Transfers Learning from One Concept to the Next

Students learn that ratios are used in linear relationships.

ELL Math Education Stories and Resources

Learn more about how visualizing math can guide students at all language proficiency levels to deeply understand mathematical concepts and thrive in the classroom and beyond. MIND Research Institute has built and compiled a variety of material you can use to explore the challenges and opportunities of ELL math education. Check out the stories, videos and graphics below:

Breaking Barriers to Math Success for English Language Learners (Infographic)

By 2025, it is predicted that nearly 1 out of every 4 public school students will be an English Language Learner. Get an overview and more facts from the infographic.
What's Making a Difference in Math Education for ELLs?
Stories from educators across the nation about how they are helping ELL students make progress in math.
What Is It Like to Learn Math In a Different Language? (Video)
This video guides the audience through the experience of being a student in a math class taught in Welsh.
Data Teams Embedding ST Math to Strengthen Math Instruction
When Dr. Bailey's teachers looked at their ST Math data, they noticed that some ELL students were farther ahead in their math understanding than their classroom interactions suggested.
One School Beats the Odds in Chicago Public Schools (Profile)
Cesar E. Chavez Multicultural Academic Center has a population of nearly 50% ELL students and 98% low-income. Read how Chavez students are rising up in the midst of challenge.

Download the ELL Math Education PDF

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Visual Learning Transforms ELL Math Education

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However, when math is presented only as words and numbers on a page, English language learners (ELL) can miss out on crucial opportunities to understand the meaning behind the math. The ST Math game-based learning program guides students at all language proficiency levels in visualizing math concepts through tantalizingly tricky puzzle challenges.

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6 Strategies to Support ELLs in Science

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) bring enhanced opportunities as well as inherent challenges for ELLs. Because all students are learning new patterns of discourse and terminology in the science classroom (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013), ESOL teachers are situated to take the lead in integrating language learning support strategies. However, it might not always feel that way. Science content can be daunting, and many of us shy away from working with ELLS in that area. However, because we know our students and have a wealth of experience in language teaching, we can support them in acquiring the language and content of the science classroom with just a little bit of support. Here are six strategies you can use to take that lead and build a foundation for ELL success in science in the upper elementary grades.

1. Preteach Science Content in Reading

Many ESOL teachers already provide small-group reading instruction to their students. This can be the perfect place to integrate science content materials to build background knowledge, vocabulary, and language. Both nonfiction and fiction books lend themselves well to promoting discussions in reading groups and can reinforce discourse structures common to the science classroom (e.g., cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, making predictions, and communicating information). Any one of these structures can be the basis for a rich set of lessons.

For example, I've used Lynne Cherry's The Great Kapok Tree as a foundation for, among other things, a comparison of tropical rainforests and temperate forests. For a simple discussion, students compare life in the rainforest with their local environment. Providing a language frame allows all learners to participate. For example, "_______ live in tropical forests, and ______ live in temperate forests" (monkeys/deer). Science-rich texts that tell a story are beneficial to ELLs as they integrate science learning with common English language structures. Again, Lynne Cherry's The Great Kapok Tree serves as an example because it immerses students in rainforest ecology content through a repetitive pattern of dialogue, rich sensory description, and past tense verb use. Other examples of science-rich literature are:

The Umbrella by Jan Brett

A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carl

Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg

A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry

The Water Hole by Graeme Base

An expansive list can be found at The Reading Nook.

As an ESOL teacher, you are the expert on your students' English language proficiency and background knowledge. Let your knowledge of students' language abilities be your guide as you select relevant materials to support content comprehension and language learning. In my experience, classroom teachers appreciate resources that go beyond grade-level textbooks to support learners at different levels. Some excellent picture-rich trade books with comprehensible text are:

In addition, many videos, online textbooks, and websites provide differentiated content. Some stellar examples include:

ELLs require additional exposure to content and language to reach mastery. Give ELLs more opportunities for independent discovery and exposure to content by sharing these links and others directly with students via Google Classroom or a similar interface when possible. Providing a question or prompt (e.g., How does a magnet work?) with an associated website (e.g., DK findout!) will open up opportunities for students to independently research, write, and share their ideas. These kinds of resources can also help science teachers manage multiple student levels of knowledge and language in the classroom, so ELLs are not left to manage on their own.

3. Explicitly Teach Vocabulary

Technical vocabulary is often taught along with content in the science classroom. However, ELLs will need double exposure to these words and additional opportunities to use them in context in order to retain their meaning. Interactive word walls and student science dictionaries organized around themes, with illustrations and a quick definition of terms, are great tools for assuring ELLs' understanding of this Tier 3 vocabulary (technical language associated with science content). Today's technology-rich classrooms also provide opportunities for group activities using interactive white board technology. For example, at the beginning of designing an experiment, I walked a group of fourth graders through an exploration of the word "variable," a Tier 3 word.

While Tier 3 words are typically part of instruction in science, the understanding of Tier 2 vocabulary (high-frequency words used by mature language users across several content areas; e.g., create, analyze, develop, response) is often assumed. Explicit instruction of these words will help ELLs with comprehension. Look at the words independently, perhaps with a vocabulary web activity, such as the Frayer model, and then apply the correct meaning to the word in context. You can also teach your students how to use an online science dictionary or a translate function, such as ESL Reader, to look up new words they encounter.

Frequent monitoring for student understanding is equally important to vocabulary acquisition. ESOL teachers can play a key role in making sure that ELLs are keeping up with the content in the science classroom through quick formative assessments, often known as " dipsticks." These quick comprehension checks (see some examples here) will show which students need further clarification and teaching of vocabulary and content. As an ESOL teacher, you can use these assessments to provide tailored instructions for your students in small group settings as well.

4. Coteach in the Science Classroom
All of the strategies discussed in this article can be used to support ESOL teachers and students in a coteach model. When you have the opportunity, modeling ELL-friendly teaching strategies will be more effective than simply recommending them to the classroom teacher. Showing is much more effective than telling, and your experience will allow you to integrate many ESOL best practices such as

keeping lecture time short;

providing lots of comprehensible input;

varying instructional strategies and materials;

using fictional and factual accounts of scientific content; and

sharing videos (with closed captioning), authentic materials, and photographs.

In addition to modeling effective teaching practices, your presence in the classroom will support the differentiation of instruction. Teachers often shy away from student-centered activities because of classroom management challenges. With your help in pairing students for learning, creating flexible grouping, and providing the inputs needed for comprehension, more hands-on and student-centered activities can be planned. In addition, tiered instruction can help to meet the needs of all students at different stages of science and language learning. This might include incorporating word banks and sentence frames. Explicit modeling of what students are expected to do is an often overlooked, but timesaving strategy.

When students can observe a process and match that to written instructions, they will be much more successful in achieving the desired outcome. Finally, now is your time to demonstrate those frequent checks for student comprehension and tiered questioning strategies that will allow all students to participate.
5. Support Student Discourse
ELLs are sometimes left out of rich classroom discussions because of lack of language ability. Using science content as a nexus for discourse may be a challenge, but it is essential to helping all students meet the Next Generation Science Standards and other rigorous science standards. We can ensure that ELLs are included in classroom conversations by modeling discourse strategies using sentence frames to structure language, as already mentioned. One tool that brings all of these supports together is a "dialogue mat." Including pictures, illustrations, sentence frames, and word banks on one graphic can ground students in content and provide language for them to participate in higher order thinking and discussion tasks.

These mats should include word banks that are specific to the discussion and reinforce Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary. Again, modeling and practice will be key to student success. Providing numerous opportunities for small-group interaction before students participate in larger classroom discussions builds confidence and competence for students.
6. Help Students Get the Most Out of Science Notebooks
Many science classrooms use student notebooks as part of daily instruction. These interactive science notebooks help learners make sense of content and develop language, but can be a challenge for ELLs. One way to make journaling activities more engaging is to differentiate journal prompts and/or questions. Asking questions with different levels of complexity and allowing for a variety of responses while providing some of the language necessary to respond is an excellent practice for including ELLs. In all cases, providing some level of scaffolding to support student responses is ideal. For purposes of illustration, consider a science lab in which students are raising monarch caterpillars. The following differentiated prompts might be used:

Prompt: Draw and label the caterpillar.
Teacher input: Provide the word bank: legs, body, head, antennae.

Prompt: Describe the caterpillar.
Teacher input: Generate a word bank with students before writing.

Prompt: How has your caterpillar changed since the last observation?
Teacher input: model language for comparisons (e.g., bigger than, longer than, changed, the same.)

Prompt: Why does it look like your caterpillar has two heads?
Teacher input: guide students in discussion and write down relevant language for student reference.

Again, you should explicitly model the journaling task. Provide sentence frames and content-specific word banks to support responses. If you're able to, create a print-rich classroom environment with anchor charts, word lists, diagrams, and illustrations for easy referencing. Other journal activities to build comprehension and allow for participation of all ELLs include creating models, diagrams, and illustrations with drawing and labeling activities. As ESOL teachers, we understand that our students know more than they can express in words. Providing them both verbal and nonverbal opportunities for expression will allow them to demonstrate understanding. This, in turn, will give the teacher a fuller picture of who these students are and what they are capable of achieving.

As you move forward in integrating science and language learning, you'll find many engaging projects that will link you and your students to the global arena in science learning. A few that we have participated in are Journey North's Symbolic Butterfly Migration, International Migratory Bird Day, and Shad in the classroom. These are long-term projects that provide countless options for integrating language and science learning, as well as connecting students from different cultures and countries. Building, or adding to, your repertoire of teaching strategies by incorporating some of the strategies provided here will make you an asset in the science classroom and empower you to support ELLs in science content in multiple instructional models. (Get started with Larry Ferlazzo's Science webpage for an abundance of science-related links for ELLs.)

Hopefully, you've gotten an idea of how science and language learning are both facilitated in practice-oriented science classrooms. ESOL teachers possess a wealth of knowledge and practical experience that can bring immediate support to ELLs in the science classroom. The science classroom really is the perfect place in which to support our students. Their natural curiosity provides the drive to learn and can lower their affective filter. When ESOL teachers join in on instruction, our students will take more risks in the classroom and move toward a deeper understanding of science content and a more effective use of language.
Reference
Lee, O., Quinn, H., & Valdés, G. (2013). Science and language for English language learners in relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with implications for Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics. Educational Researcher, 0013189X13480524.

is a certified ESOL and science teacher (MEd TESOL, 1997; MAT Biology, 2016). She has taught ESOL for 18 years, integrating science and language learning.

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6 Strategies to Support ELLs in Science The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) bring enhanced opportunities as well as inherent challenges for ELLs. Because all students are learning new patterns of discourse and terminology in the science classroom (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013), ESOL teachers are situated to take the lead in integrating language learning support strategies.

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Students typically learn about the history of their nation and other nations from the comforting culture of their own country. ESL students who move to the U.S. have the added challenge of learning an additional perspective on history.

Tips for Teaching Social Studies to ESL Students

Moving from a foreign culture is a historical experience in and of itself, and these students often have a lot to contribute to history and social studies discussions. ESL teachers and social studies teachers need to employ special strategies to effectively reach out to this special population.

Understand the Eurocentric Viewpoint

After working in the discipline for some time, and even from being a student of the subject, you likely have realized that world history in American classrooms is taught from a Eurocentric point of view. History is viewed from the eyes of a European or is centered around European culture and history. Teaching social studies to ESL students requires a teacher to shift to a more worldy viewpoint.

ESL students have not all resided in Europe before coming to the United States, and they do not all hold the same perspective of world history. Recognizing the eyes through which they see history, whether your students are Chinese, Australian, Irish or another culture, should be at the core of your instructional methods.

Cultural Sensitivity

While remaining sensitive to the cultural needs of students should always be a part of your every day approach, this becomes particularly important when you have ESL students in the classroom.

No cultural practice should be belittled. No matter how far back in history your class travels, do not mock a practice.

The ESL student(s) in your classroom may follow those religious or cultural ways. The minute you offend a student, you have alienated him or her from your classroom.

Integrating ESL Students

History courses, much like reading and writing courses, can be particularly overwhelming for ESL students. Unlike their United States-born peers, they have not had the experience of growing up submerged in American culture. Concepts that a United States-born student may have known since birth, such as the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the tales of the Civil War or Revolutionary War, may be entirely unfamiliar to an ESL student.

To successfully teach social studies and history, you need to reinforce the knowledge of your ESL students, draw them into the discussion and supplement their knowledge where necessary.

Don't Skip Over the Basics

If you are teaching a course in American history, you might fairly assume that everyone knows who George Washington was or that all of the students are aware of the story of the first Thanksgiving. For a student who has never celebrated Thanksgiving before, this concept can be alien.

Always take the time to go back to the basics and explain the entire story before asking students to picture the events.

Review the Basic Vocabulary of the Subject

With numbers and math, students may be able to quickly translate into their native tongue and to understand the concepts. However, this is often not the case for social studies.

Imagine that you are teaching about the existence of major world religions, and you note that Roman Catholics believe in the Trinity. In your class, you may have an ESL student who comes from an atheist country. He or she is likely going to have no idea what the word "Trinity" even means. Without the basics of the language, the rest of the lesson might not make sense.

Consider providing word lists or reviewing vocabulary with the entire class before beginning a new unit or chapter in the book.

Celebrate Cultural Diversity

As a social studies teacher, you really have the opportunity to celebrate cultural diversity. You can do this in many ways, including:

Assign an activity where all of your students present information about their cultures within their small groups.

Start a culture club.

Have students bring in a food dish from his or her background.

Encourage Learning and Participation

As with all subjects, the ESL student may not have a problem learning the content of the course; but, special care should be taken to help them communicate comfortably with you and their peers. For example:

Remember that just because they don't speak English fluently it doesn't mean that they don't understand the concepts you are teaching.

Simplify your teaching language. Shorter, simple sentences are easier to understand than complex sentences with idioms.

Use visuals whenever possible instead of words. Many times an ESL student will recognize a picture of a famous person in history, even though they don't know the person's name.

Encourage your ESL students to be active members of the class, but do not pressure them into answering questions.

Don't draw attention to the ESL student if the attention seems to make them feel uncomfortable.

Encourage team and group work to encourage participation. Depending on the comfort level of the ESL student, consider making the ESL student the team leader.

These tips for teaching social studies to ESL students can help each student to feel more a part of the class.

Ultimately, social studies classes can provide an arena where students can embrace the differences among themselves. When you have ESL students in the class, encourage their participation and use their experiences to enhance your lesson plans.

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Tips for Teaching Social Studies to ESL Students

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Students typically learn about the history of their nation and other nations from the comforting culture of their own country. ESL students who move to the U.S. have the added challenge of learning an additional perspective on history.

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By Sarah Ottow
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.
Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.
These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.
Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

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By Sarah Ottow - By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases their growth.

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The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.

Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.

These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.

Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

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Formative Assessment for Language Learners - Confianza

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Featured on Getting Smart By Sarah Ottow The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside&n

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Educators face a number of challenges when designing programs that match technology with English Language Learners (ELL)-also referred to as ESOL, English for Students of Other Languages-students' capabilities. Computer literacy levels among ELL students run from having no experience at all to being able to reprogram or optimize a system for greater efficiency.

Fortunately, there are a wide range of resources available to you to help your students learn English, increase their confidence, and learn new technologies and computer skills along the way. And of course-although you probably didn't think otherwise-there are plenty of benefits of using technology with ELL or ESOL students.

Exploring the benefits of technology for ESOL students

Technology accelerates the acquisition of phonics, increases vocabulary, improves reading-comprehension skills, and encourages language development, according to Edutopia.org contributor Maya Payne Smart.

In the same article, Mark Warschauer, a university professor at the University of California-Irvine, said that authenticity is imperative for positive growth and experience. Warschauer suggests that written-conversations, online discussions, chat room conversations, and similar activities promote the development of more extensive vocabulary skills-he attributes this to mimicking other student entries they see online.

Bringing technology into the classroom clearly has multiple benefits for your and your students, especially when they're learning a second language. Students learn new vocabulary and develop skills necessary to thrive in the technology-rich 21st century, preparing them for success both in and beyond the classroom. Eager to dig in?

Educator competency

First, it's incredibly important for you, as their teacher, to feel comfortable with using technology in educational settings. As you well know, technology is quickly becoming an integral part of classroom instruction. For educators to provide students with a full-coverage educational experience, every teacher in 21 st century classrooms should possess the necessary skills to incorporate technology into lesson plans.

Feeling like you could up your game? That's OK! Professional development, private instruction, and continuing education are three channels educators can utilize to acquire or enhance their computer literacy before implementing teaching strategies and designing lesson plans supported by technology.

And then, once you've achieved adequate technological literacy, study up on the techniques and methods for success, and take a look at what's available to you online and in your district. There are numerous websites and technologies available for ELL or ESOL students, with applications that increase confidence, enhance language acquisition and development, and promote subject learning are just three options for classroom teachers today.

Techniques and methods for success

Color In Colorado published some suggestions based on a research study concerning technology and ELL students. The Visilearn Company findings were based on a 2002 survey conducted among 117 teachers regarding Special Education and ELL student technology learning. Teachers who responded to the survey identified the five techniques or methods below as most efficient for producing positive outcomes.

Provide hands on-opportunities.

Keep instructions simple, with step-by-step increments.

Use multiple large graphics.

Deliver information in small segments.

Use real-world examples and relevant exercises.

When adding technology to ELL student lesson plans, educators should also identify vocabulary gaps before providing instructions. Students may know a mouse is a four-legged rodent, but may not know it is a computer device. In addition, many computer terms do not come up in homes without computers and modern technology.

Be sure to use graphics, samples, or other visual aids to help students acquire the proper jargon-technical language-before giving instructions for completing assignments with a desktop or other computing device.

Games: playing and designing games for language development

Let's get more specific here. English Language Learners absolutely benefit from practice. In your quest to explore new ways to use technology to help your students improve their conversational skills-both oral and written-try out games they'll have fun with.

One example? Sploder is an online website that allows students to create video games, play games, review other games created by peers, write their own reviews, and practice English in a more relaxed, friendly environment.

According to Larry Ferlazzo, this experience and other online educational activities like games provide an engaging environment that is easy to navigate, engaging to participate in, and encourages face-to-face conversation.

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Tags: Educational Technology Leadership, ESOL

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How to Integrate Technology to Teach ELL Students | Resilient Educator

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Educators face a number of challenges when designing programs that match technology with English Language Learners (ELL)-also referred to as ESOL, English for Students of Other Languages-students' capabilities. Computer literacy levels among ELL students run from having no experience at all to being able to reprogram or optimize a system for greater efficiency.

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What Is Assistive Technology?

To put it simply, assistive technology (AT) is a program, type of support, or piece of technology that improves student learning. When it comes to English language learners (ELLs), assistive technology includes tools that assist in the acquisition and comprehension of both language and content area learning. This lesson will review different forms of assistive technology that can be used specifically for ELLs.

ELL Assistive Technology Types

The following forms of assistive technology can be used either in the classroom, or, if students have access to mobile devices, at home for extra language practice. Each suggestion is geared toward making the learning process easier for English language learners as they work on acquiring both language and content comprehension skills.

Text-to-speech software is a program that converts text into spoken voice output. While it's commonly used for those with visual impairments or reading disabilities, it's also very helpful for ELLs. Here are some highlights about this type of technology:

It can be installed on mobile devices, as in phones, tablets, laptops, etc.

Students can use it in the classroom.

Students hear the text while reading, which aids in word-sound recognition and pronunciation.

It increases students' focus on comprehension rather than sounding out words.

It supports multiple languages and text types.

And, finally, many students qualify for free digital text-to-speech books.

For many ELLs, repetition and practice are necessary in the classroom. Audio recorders can be used to record and play back oral explanations of new material taught in class. Here are some reasons why audio recorders are beneficial assistive technology tools:

They can be bought individually or installed as an app on mobile devices.

Students can use them in the classroom.

They can be used for recording class lessons, important lectures, key content, vocabulary definitions, or even word pronunciation.

Students can replay and better comprehend class content.

And, finally, students can record themselves talking to self-check their own pronunciation as they read or speak in English.

Pocket translators are electronic devices or mobile apps that translate words or phrases between multiple languages. Vocabulary development should be an essential element in all English language learning classrooms, so students should not be encouraged to rely solely on pocket translators for vocabulary acquisition. With that being said, students still benefit from translators when they get stuck, so here are some reasons why ELLs benefit from this device:

They're portable; can be purchased individually, or as an app for a mobile device.

They can be used for vocabulary building exercises.

They allow for quick retrieval of vocabulary, spelling, or pronunciation when stuck.

And, finally, they're beneficial for learning when the student is out of class and doesn't have a teacher to provide assistance.

Visual aids are visual displays of content for students to refer to when clarification is needed. These are very helpful for ELLs because repetition and frequent reminders of new vocabulary, concepts, ideas, and language rules are important for understanding and retaining what is being taught. Visual aids can be target posters (posters that remind them of language rules, context clues, pronunciations, etc.), pictures, flashcards, items being learned, etc. Here are the benefits of visual aids:

They help students understand new concepts or content.

Familiarity helps advance the learning process.

Assist students in recalling important details, rules, concepts, or vocabulary.

Create an ELL-friendly environment.

Promote the acquisition of new language learning skills and comprehension.

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assistive technology for english language learners - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Assistive Technology for English Language Learners - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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To put it simply, assistive technology (AT) is a program, type of support, or piece of technology that improves student learning. When it comes to English language learners (ELLs), assistive technology includes tools that assist in the acquisition and comprehension of both language and content area learning.

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Encouraging and Sustaining ELL Parent Engagement

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The following strategies offer tips for thinking creatively about how to engage families around topics or activities that are important to them and their children.Supporting immigrant familiesFor related ideas, see the following:Ten Strategies for Supporting Immigrant Students and FamiliesHow to Support Immigrant Students and Families: Strategies for Schools and Early Childhood Programs10. Look for ways that ELL parents can help with children’s schoolworkDownload PDF versions:This article >Full guide >A. What you need to knowELL parents may feel intimidated by or unprepared to help with homework or other schoolwork, especially if they have limited educational or English skills (Zarate, 9). You can help them understand their important role in supporting their child’s success, however, with a few simple suggestions. (Related video: Reaching out to families, Kevin Eberle)B. ReflectionWhat kinds of support do you expect your parents to give their children in terms of schoolwork? What kinds of resources and educational background (and language skills) do parents need in order to give their children that help? What are other ways parents can help?C. StrategiesEncourage parents to:Provide a place where children can do their homeworkCheck that homework is completed each nightAsk their children to tell them about what they learned each dayKeep in regular contact with a teacher or staff member about their child’s progressAsk teachers about any questions that ariseLearn more about homework help programs through before-/after-school programs and the public libraryRead and tell stories in their native language.D. ExampleMarty Izaguirre is an ELL teacher in Okatie, South Carolina. Her elementary school holds Family Literacy Nights, which take place after school every other month and provide working parents with an opportunity to read to their children in both English and Spanish. Once parents come in, they find read-aloud circles (where teachers read books aloud to a small group), as well as areas where they can go and read with their child separately. The variety of activities provided to the parents allows them to join in an activity in which they feel comfortable. Adults and children are allowed time and space to read together. The school also provides an opportunity for parents and children to create their own special bookmark as they enjoy some refreshments. The events offer parents an opportunity to meet other parents, show their children the importance of reading, and learn how to support literacy development at home (Izaguirre, 2006).11. Look for ways that ELL parents can participate and volunteerA. What you need to knowThere are a number of ways to include parents in the school community and to bring them together with other families at the school. This might include school visits, volunteering, or activities that draw upon their skills and hobbies.B. ReflectionHow likely are ELL parents at your school to sign up for events or volunteer? Do they know about all of the opportunities at the school? Are there certain events or places in the school where your active parents tend to gather? Do you know what skills and talents they might have to offer?C. StrategiesInvite parents to visit the school and their child’s classroom regularly (Houk, 66).Invite parents to speak with their child’s class about their native country, a hobby, or their job.Encourage teachers to have an inviting activity ready for visiting parents.Encourage parents to volunteer in the classroom, main office, lunchroom, or library; during events or field trips; or in a student club or after-school program (Meyers, 45). (Keep in mind that volunteering may include simple things like preparing items for an activity — such as cutting out shapes and organizing supplies.) Find out what your parents’ skills and hobbies are, and look for ways to draw on their talents.Find ways to bring ELL and non-ELL families together through student performances, a student cultures night, storytelling, workshops, and exhibits (Meyers, 46). Your families might just realize that they have more in common than you — and they — originally thought!D. ExamplesIndiana teacher Miriam Soto-Pressley invites the parents of her ELLs into her classroom during reading time. The parents follow along with their children and they learn about read-alouds and how to interact with text. This helps them work with their children at home to increase reading comprehension.A group of Latino parents at a preschool center in Florida who frequently sat outside in the sun waiting for their children each afternoon built a parent gazebo for the center, as well as a butterfly garden (Alvarado, 2010).Following the arrival of a new group of students from El Salvador and Puerto Rico to a school in Massachusetts, a group of teachers decided to organize a school play that would be performed in Spanish. They distributed bilingual flyers to tell parents about auditions and asked parents to help with costumes and refreshments (based on earlier conversations they had had with the parents). On opening night, the auditorium was filled, and the school held multiple performances to accommodate parents’ different work schedules. Word soon spread around the community about the play, and the students were invited to perform at other schools. By the final performance, more parent volunteers were participating in the school community than at any other time in the school’s history (Zacarian, 119).12. Think outside the box about parent engagementA. What you need to knowOne of the most important steps in engaging ELL parents is to realize that they may be coming from a very different cultural perspective when it comes to the educational system and their role in their child’s education (Houk, 60). This may be due, in part, to:Deep respect for teachers: Many ELLs come from cultures which revere teaching and where the teachers are considered the experts, not the parents. As a result, parents may be reluctant to ask questions so as not to question the teacher’s authority, or they may assume that the schools don’t want them to “interfere” in their child’s education. Upon arrival in the U.S., newcomer parents may wonder why they are suddenly a school partner, and why in fact the school is asking the parent to do the teacher’s job. As Betty Alford and Mary Catherine Niño note in Leading Academic Achievement for English Language Learners: A Guide for Principals, you wouldn’t expect a doctor to ask the parents which medical procedure they would recommend for their child (80), and ELL parents may feel the same way about what their school is asking them to do.Education vs. educación: These parents are likely to see an entirely different role for themselves in their child’s education (Hori, 40). For Latino families, the idea of educación focuses on a child’s personal and moral development, which has an important impact on the child’s academic development. The authors of Understanding Latino Parental Involvement in Education: Perceptions, Expectations, and Recommendations note that, when asked, ”(Latino) parents believed that monitoring their children’s lives and providing moral guidance resulted in good classroom behavior, which in turn allowed for greater academic learning opportunities (9).“The group vs. the individual: It’s also important to keep in mind that many cultures outside of the U.S. are oriented more towards the group (the family, the class, the society, etc.) than the individual. In their book Managing Diverse Classrooms: How to Build on Students’ Cultural Strengths, Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull explore this concept as it relates to the Latino ideas of educación:One’s social behavior in a group (such as the family or the classroom) is of paramount concern; being a respectful contributor to group well-being rather than focusing on one’s own achievement is highly valued. So when immigrant Latino parents come for a parent-teacher conference, their first question is likely to be ”¿Cómo se porta mi hijo/hija?” (“How is my son/daughter behaving?”). A teacher may find it difficult to stifle her consternation after hearing the same question from 25 or 30 sets of parents, believing that all the parents care about is their child’s behavior, when the teacher’s goal is to discuss the child’s academic progress (13-14).Nevertheless, what looks like a lack of interest to the teacher actually reflects a deep interest on the part of the parent in the child’s personal development and how this will affect the child’s ability to be successful in the classroom.B. ReflectionMake a list of five things you hope or expect that “involved” parents will do at your school. What do parents need to know in order to participate in these events? What challenges might ELL parents face in participating in these events?C. StrategiesForm small focus groups with ELL parents and an interpreter. Ask the parents:How they define their role in their child’s educationWhat their concerns, priorities, and hopes are regarding their childWhat kinds of events they would be interested in attendingThe obstacles that discourage them from participating and changes that would helpEvents where being part of a larger group might make them feel more comfortable.D. ExampleCarrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull share the example of a teacher who redesigned her parent-teacher conferences into group conferences for her Latino parents. She divided children by ability levels and met with the parents of children in similar levels at the same time. She also offered both English and Spanish groups. She explained report card formats, grading, her expectations for students, and what parents could do to help. Parents then had the opportunity for a personal consultation after the group discussion. One of the key benefits was that parents’ questions helped each other as they felt confident to speak up in a less threatening environment. She saw all twenty-eight parents in three days (62).13. Consider alternative schedules, locations, and kinds of eventsA. What you need to knowSometimes, when families can’t come to the school, the school has to go to the families. Meeting families in other settings such as community centers or churches can provide an informal way to start building a relationship, especially if ELL parents feel shy or nervous about going to the school. In addition, going into the community indicates a strong level of commitment on the part of the school to the families (Alford & Niño, 86). You might also try planning parent or family events around the schedules of the families, especially if they are working a couple of jobs or shifts.B. ReflectionDo you experience low attendance at family events held at school? Have you ever held any school events in the community? Were they successful? Why or why not?C. StrategiesVisit your students’ neighborhoods. Find out where families are congregating and who local community leaders are that can connect you with parents.Collaborate with apartment complex managers to make a recreation room available for families.Plan events in the community and put them on the school calendar before the school year starts, setting aside funds, such as Title I or Title III grants, to provide support for the events.Consider giving parents a few different options for meeting times based on teacher availability.Consider contacting parents’ employers about parent schedules or holding conferences closer to parents’ workplaces.Don’t limit yourself to meetings. Ask your families what kinds of events they would find enjoyable, beneficial, and convenient.Consider group parent-teacher conferences. Families may feel more comfortable in a group, and it can be an efficient option -- you provide the key information once, and then can have brief conversations with individual parents.D. ExamplesIn Philadelphia, a preschool held a parent meeting in the afternoon for parents who worked in the food service industry in the evening. More than twenty parents (mostly fathers) came to the meeting (Alvarado, 2010) to discuss their children’s preschool program.In Oregon, parent liaison Ma’Lena Wirth wrote a letter to her parents’ employers, sharing her goals for building a stronger partnership with the families and explaining that most parents couldn’t attend conferences due to their work schedule. As a result, the employer agreed to give parents time off for school events if the events started after the employer’s busy season.In New York, Susan Lafond held parent-teacher-translator conferences at the food court where her students’ parents worked so that parents could take turns coming to meet with her.In Colorado, Becky Corr made an appointment at the salon where her student’s father worked with him specifically to talk about the student’s college application.In California, a group of teachers organized a meeting for the school’s Hmong and Cambodian parents (whose people had been farmers for many generations), in which they would discuss the creation of a new school garden. The teachers were disappointed when just a few parents attended the meeting, and they took that as a sign that there was little interest in the garden. On garden day, however, eighty family members arrived with hoes and dug up the garden in a single day. As one of the parents said, “We don’t do meetings. We do gardens” (Ferlazzo, 45).14. Look for the successesA. What you need to knowEncourage your staff to look for all of the different ways, big and small, that ELLs’ families (including parents, siblings, grandparents, and other relatives) support their children’s well-being and education. For example, different relatives may be involved in taking the children to school and picking them up, providing child care, or making sure that they are getting fed and getting a good night’s sleep. While we expect all families to manage these responsibilities, ELL families may be going to extraordinary lengths to meet their children’s basic needs. In addition, older ELLs have a lot of responsibilities in their family, including working, taking care of siblings, and translating for their parents. What looks like laziness, irresponsibility, or absenteeism may in fact be the result of a lot of responsibility at home.Some of the successes and strengths of ELL students and families may include:Commitment to the family’s well-beingHigh expectations for childrenMaking education a priorityRespect for the teacherGood attendance and behaviorWell-developed cooperation skillsA strong sense of responsibility one’s self and othersResourcefulnessNote: ELLs’ parents might be largely absent from the picture, whether it’s because of difficult work schedules or a family separation (or worse) that happened before moving to this country.B. ReflectionWhat is a typical day like for your ELL students? Does that differ from the typical day of your other students? Where are they sleeping? Who is taking care of them? How do they get to school every day? What do they do after school? What challenges are they facing in their daily lives?C. StrategiesLearn what you can about your ELLs’ routines (which will vary tremendously), including the responsibilities they have in their families. Share what you learn with your staff (observing confidentiality rules) and encourage your staff to look for all of the ways, big and small, that ELLs’ families and extended families are supporting their children’s well-being and education.Find out whether these responsibilities are taking a toll on students’ school work or health, and if so, brainstorm some ideas with staff members about possible solutions.D. ExamplesSusan Lafond notes that her elementary ESL teachers had students whose families brought them to the restaurant or family store where they worked so the children wouldn’t be home alone. The kids helped out on the phone or register and did homework until the parents closed for the evening, which was often 9:00 PM or later.Kristina Robertson remembers a 3rd-grade student named Lisbeth. Lisbeth was very conscientious and came to school with neat clothing, clean and braided hair, and notebooks and pencils ready to go. When the staff did home visits, they were welcomed graciously by Lisbeth’s parents to their home. In the apartment for a family with four children, the only furniture consisted of two chairs, a kitchen table, and a mattress. The parents spoke about the importance of their children’s education and explained that every night they had their children do their homework at that kitchen table even though the parents didn’t understand English. The teachers, who had been unaware of the family’s limited circumstances, were incredibly moved by what they saw and developed a new appreciation for the parents’ commitment to their children’s education.Kristina also shares the experience of a 2nd-grade student who was missing school frequently. Kristina soon discovered that she was helping her mom (a single mom) babysit her younger siblings since they didn’t have regular childcare. The staff met with the mom and helped her find resources to provide affordable childcare support.Finally, Kristina remembers her high school students who attended school from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.., and then worked from 4:00 p.m. until midnight. All of their money supported their relatives here and in their home country, so they never had extra money (or time) for special activities. Homework was a struggle, but in Kristina’s eyes, her colleagues’ attitudes were the most difficult challenges to overcome. Once teachers discovered why the students were coming to class so tired and how hard they were working, however, they worked to modify assignments and help the students.< Communicating Important InformationParents as Leaders >

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7 Effective Ways Teachers Can Advocate for English Learners

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Many English language learners who enter our schools aren't welcomed into inclusive environments. Teachers of ELLs are in a key position to draw attention to inequalities they observe and to advocate for their students.