Creating an Environment Where Language Flourishes
- A Resource for Elementary Classroom Teachers
Strategies to Support ELs
How do you differentiate more specifically for the language needs of you ELs? How do you support their linguistic growth?
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?
· Students' academic language development in their native language facilitates their academic language development in English. Conversely, students' academic language development in English informs their academic language development in their native language.
· Students learn language and culture through meaningful use and interaction.
· Students use language in functional and communicative ways that vary according to context.
· Students’ development of academic language and academic content knowledge are inter-related processes.
· Students' development of social, instructional, and academic language, a complex and long-term process, is the foundation for their success in school.
. Students’ access to instructional tasks requiring complex thinking is enhanced when linguistic complexity and instructional support match their levels of language proficiency.
As compiled in WIDA's Guiding Principles
Academic language is central to schooling and is one of the most important factors influencing academic success.
The pressures on all students are tremendous, but think about school for English language learners who are trying to learn (and in some cases, relearn) through a language that they have not yet mastered, English. Teachers are duly challenged in needing to become more aware of the unique features of this growing segment of the school population and to plan instruction that is more strategic and nuanced for content learning that will benefit an entire classroom of learners. Dutro and Moran (2003)
English learners have triple the work of mainstream students:
1) many lack background and cultural knowledge that helps to learn new content
2) they are learning social and cultural English
3) they are learning complex uses of academic language
Academic English Learners (AELs)
Many academic English learners have been in the U.S. schools for multiple years and speak social versions of English quite well. These students are sometimes called "long-term English learner". Many academic English learners have grown up in English speaking homes using variations or dialects of English that differ significantly from the English from the English used and expected in school. Finally, many academic English learners have grown up speaking English at home and have simply struggled with the ways in which school asks them to read, write, speak, listen to, or converse in academic English.
(for bilingual settings, English can be replaced by any language used to learn)
Adapted from Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy
AND YET while it is still tempting to blame the backgrounds of the students for their struggles, we must look instead at the ways in which we can and must shift our practices of instruction and assessment to meet the needs of these students.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
Models
See a model of writing output that builds on students' ability to develop a connected response/message.
Connect with an ELM Coach to develop strategies adapted to your classroom environment.
Setting Language Goals
Guide students in understanding language proficiency, determining their own strengths, and setting goals for language development. A lesson designed for K-5 students.
Rubrics
The WIDA Speaking and Writing Interpretive Rubrics are tools for teachers who work with English language learners (ELLs) in Grades 1-12. Teachers can use these rubrics for three primary purposes.
• Understanding ACCESS Speaking and Writing scores
• Analyzing student speaking and writing samples
• Interpreting common speaking and writing tasks
Language Observation Tool
Use this form as you prepare to discuss language growth with colleagues, students, and their parents/families.
Examples of Sensory, Graphic, and Interactive Supports from WIDA (p.15):
Comprehensible Input (CI)
Making Content Understandable and Accessible to English Learners
Pause to Ponder:
How do you make content accessible to your students? What support do you use to give students access to the material you are teaching?
Note from Zwiers et al:
Move away from simply choosing from long lists of instructional practices to seeing the practices in strategic frames that show how they reinforce one another.
From access to ownership of the language and thinking!
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Adapt and support language tasks to match current levels and observed needs
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Gradually take away linguistic supports so that students develop the ability to use academic skills independently.
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Increase support if needed