The reading points out that socialization is critical with this age group. That can be leveraged to improve scholars' overall success. Small group work, partner work, table talks, etc. can allow for socialization that leads to academic success. Allowing socialization during class can also cut down on behavior problems. If students know they will have an opportunity to talk at some point, they are more likely to listen quietly during the lesson. 

There are a great number of milestones one might expect to see in adolescent ELLs.  One such milestone ESL educators can expect to see relates to what Piaget determined as the “Stage of Formal Operations.”  In this, older ELLs begin to demonstrate a more autonomized capability of building on background knowledge and utilizing the imaginative spaces of their brains so as to understand people and subjects more deeply.  This works in tandem with adolescents’ increases in declarative, procedural, and conceptual knowledge.  In other words, compared with younger counterparts, adolescent ELLs are able to draw upon their advancing reasoning and abstract-thinking skills. With aid from teachers, students will develop naturally occurring problem-solving skills to fill in gaps in knowledge of both the English language, as well as content.  

Another interesting point that was made in the resources was the idea of adolescents’ perceptions of an “imaginary audience.”  This is critical for all middle and high-school-aged students, and more so for newcomer ELLs in this age group, who fear negative judgement from peers due to their lower English language proficiency.  In my experience teaching English as a foreign language in Japan, the concept of the “imaginary audience,” and resulting fear of judgement and embarrassment was often detrimental to student gains in English language proficiency.  

ELL teachers’ understanding of the ages and stages of adolescents can be improved by being cognizant of each ELL’s unique background and experiences, as well as the challenges and triumphs that go hand in hand with learning a new language in a new country.  This makes it all the more important for ELL teachers to be mindful in imagining, crafting, and implementing risk-taking opportunities for ELLs to actively participate in the lesson, as well as engaging and interacting with native English-speaking peers.  I believe this is important to ensuring ELL scholar success.