How to Teach English Language Learners

Effective Strategies from Outstanding Educators, Grades K-6

Diane Haager, Janette K. Klingner, Terese C. Aceves

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780470555521
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Lehrmethoden für Lesekompetenz

This hands-on book offers teachers a much-needed resource that will help maximize learning for English Language Learners (ELLs). How to Teach English Language Learners draws on two wide-ranging teacher quality studies and profiles eight educators who have achieved exceptional results with their ELL students. Through highly readable portraits, the authors take readers into these teachers' classrooms, illustrating richly what it is they do differently that yields such great results from English learners. Because most teachers profiled work within a three-tiered Response-to-Intervention framework, the book shows how to implement RTI effectively with ELLs—from providing general reading instruction for the entire classroom to targeted interventions with struggling students. Written by noted ELL educators Diane Haager, Janette K. Klingner, and Terese Aceves, How to Teach English Language Learners is filled with inspiring success stories, teaching tips, activities, discussion questions, and reflections from these outstanding teachers.

PART One

Core Instruction in the General Education Classroom (Tier 1)

CHAPTER 1

EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM PRACTICE IN A GENERAL EDUCATION SETTING

A SNAPSHOT OF THE CLASSROOM

Ms. Larson calls her students to the front carpet by table and passes out this week’s class storybook. Maria and Diego await their turn to reach the carpet, both already clutching their copies of this week’s story. “Okay, class,” announces Ms. Larson. “Today is Monday, so I hope you’re ready to go on a quick picture-walk through our story for this week. Take five minutes to walk through your book and see what it’s going to be about. I think you’re going to love this one. Remember to mark your favorite pages with a yellow sticky note so you can share them and your predictions with the rest of the class.”

Maria and Diego both look eager to start sharing. They have marked their books already with several sticky notes. Ms. Larson gave them copies of the book last Friday so they could read it with a family member at home over the weekend. They have several stories to share with their friends about the connections they made with the story and the new words they learned. “Okay, class, who wants to tell us what they think the story is going to be about?” Much to Ms. Larson’s surprise, both Maria and Diego, two of her quietest students, shoot their hands straight up in the air, hoping to be the first students to share. This is a big change, given that both of these students began learning English only last year, when they started first grade in September.

Ms. Larson is a second-grade teacher at Conrad Elementary School. New to Conrad this year, Ms. Larson brings a raw passion for working with children and a desire to continue her growth as a teacher. She is driven to seek new ideas, strategies, and ways of creating a safe learning environment, exciting classroom space, and challenging lessons. Her students see her as a supportive adult who believes in their ability, holds high expectations, and includes them as part of the teaching and learning process.

ABOUT CONRAD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

The School Today. Conrad Elementary School is part of a very large urban school district on the West Coast, with an enrollment of approximately 850 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The student population at Conrad is fairly representative of its surrounding neighborhood—primarily Latino (80 percent) and African American (20 percent) students. The majority of Latino families living in the area are immigrant families, with a large number from Mexico and the remainder from Central and South America. These families generally have a strong connection to their home countries. Most of Conrad’s students are first- or second-generation Latino American and often the first English-speaking members of their family. Many parents work multiple jobs, live paycheck to paycheck, and often experience financial distress.

A Challenging Past. Not too long ago, the neighborhood around Conrad School experienced a high crime rate, where shootings, drive-bys, drug trafficking, and school lock-downs were fairly regular occurrences both on and close to the school’s campus. This level of crime and violence led parents to keep their children home from school to ensure their supervision and safety. Chronic absenteeism and tardiness became the norm. Amid this constant unrest within the community, Conrad School, a local church, and other smaller agencies often served as safe havens for families wanting a safer environment for their children.

During this time the teaching staff at Conrad Elementary was primarily concerned with meeting students’ basic needs, including food, shelter, clothing, and a safe home and school environment. Teachers felt unable to focus on academics when students reported being hungry and tired as a result of not having slept the night before or coming to school filthy or in ill-fitting clothes. Lack of resources and professional development in meeting the needs of a diverse student population—including providing intense English language development—hampered teachers’ efforts to help their students achieve anything close to grade-level expectations. Few teachers implemented instructional intervention for struggling learners, and only a handful of students qualified for or attended after-school support programs. Families, many of whom spoke very little English, were unsure of their role in supporting their children’s education. Many felt unwelcome at the school or unable to provide direct home support given their lack of understanding of teachers’ expectations and their own family and work schedules.

A Time for Change. Conrad Elementary experienced a major turning point almost five years ago. Tired of its reputation of fostering poor student achievement, supporting minimum standards, and creating an unreceptive environment for parents, the school staff began focusing on high expectations, instructional support, and an inclusive atmosphere for families. Administrators, staff, parents, and students at Conrad have made great strides in beautifying the school and community by cleaning graffiti, painting murals, and planting trees. These efforts have made the campus a more welcoming and optimal environment for student learning. An outreach counselor and a social worker have joined Conrad’s staff to assist with more challenging issues.

Tired of its reputation of fostering poor student achievement, supporting minimum standards, and creating an unreceptive environment for parents, the school staff began focusing on high expectations, instructional support, and an inclusive atmosphere for families.

A team of school staff and parent volunteers address issues related to chronic absenteeism and students’ physical and mental health issues. They meet with families on site, host weekly coffee gatherings, accompany parents and guardians to appointments in the community as necessary, and conduct home visits. The team initiated a Saturday Food Bank to help struggling families obtain necessary food items for their children. Through this ongoing local effort, the school provides parents with information on obtaining clothes, employment, and medical services within the community.

A recently formed parent-teacher association (PTA) creates opportunities for parents to actively participate in social networking and training events. Other similar organizations allow parents to voice their concerns about school decisions and provide input on the effectiveness and implementation of various support and instructional programs. The PTA developed a Conrad Family Resource Manual so that teachers could tap into family members’ expertise and assistance for particular lessons, instructional units, field trips, and other authentic experiences. Thus far, parents at Conrad have assisted teachers in creating flower and vegetable gardens for the science curriculum, modeled cooking of favorite recipes to reinforce math concepts, shared personal stories and expertise for thematic units on immigration, family heritage, farm life, and Mexican and Native American culture.

In the last two years, Conrad School has developed and piloted a building assistance team (BAT) to improve general instructional practices for all students. The reading coach, principal, school psychologist, and special education teacher at Conrad are members of BAT. Team members observe teachers’ general classroom instruction at least once per quarter to insure implementation of effective teaching practices. These visits are meant to be supportive rather than evaluative observations, to provide teachers with concrete, constructive recommendations for improving instruction for all students. After classroom visits, BAT members meet with teachers individually to discuss strengths and areas of need where further support might be required. The members of the building assistance team meet monthly to discuss general issues observed during classroom visits and teacher meetings. The team also reviews ongoing concerns reported during student study team (SST) meetings that month, where teachers discuss individual student concerns and develop action plans to address those concerns. Conrad is committed to improving instruction for all students by supporting teachers through additional professional development, coaching, and individualized support.

General Education Reading Instruction (Tier 1)

Although students continue to perform below grade-level expectations across academic areas, the school has made strides recently to improve the level of instruction, intervention, and support for the purpose of improving student achievement. Conrad has hired a full-time reading coach to support teachers’ implementation of the district’s reading program, benchmark assessments, and direct intervention services. The reading coach models intervention instruction for teachers in their classrooms, provides ongoing professional development, and assists in overall classroom intervention implementation.

The school principal recently allotted weekly time for grade-level meetings on Thursday afternoons, when students receive specialized instruction (in physical education or technology, for instance). During grade-level meetings, teachers discuss their students’ needs and review benchmark data or progress monitoring data to improve general Tier 1 reading instruction. Minimum instructional days on Tuesday afternoons were added to allow teachers time for additional professional development in areas of need like English language development and enhancing reading comprehension.

Ms. Larson and Room 34

Meeting Ms. Larson. This chapter highlights the instruction of an extremely bright and enthusiastic second-grade general education teacher at Conrad Elementary, Ms. Larson. Originally from the Midwest, Ms. Larson lives in an apartment in the heart of the city fairly close to the school. Like many of her colleagues, Ms. Larson is a fairly new teacher to Conrad. Although it is her first year at Conrad, Ms. Larson worked as a primary grade teacher the previous year after completing her credentialing program. Coming to the West Coast meant learning new standards and curricula, but most of all learning how best to meet the needs of a more culturally and linguistically diverse student population.

Ms. Larson had some preparation through her university teaching program, but very little experience actually working with such diversity, including a large number of second-language learners. As she began preparing for the new school year, Ms. Larson asked herself and her new colleagues some tough questions:

How can I make sure my English language learners finish second grade with the skills they need to read and begin comprehending content in a language they are only beginning to acquire?

How can I provide literacy experiences for my students that will tap into their existing knowledge and resonate with their personal experiences?

How will...