The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide

Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching All Levels

Larry Ferlazzo, Katie Hull Sypnieski

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781119550419
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Métodos de enseñanza de la educación

Maximize the educational potential of your ESL/ELL class with this singular resource

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of All Levels, 2nd Edition offers readers a comprehensive range of instructional strategies and educational resources for teaching English. The newly revised 2nd Edition includes brand new chapters on:

• Working with Long-Term English Language Learners
• Teaching English internationally
• Teaching Elementary Age ELLs
• Teaching Adult ELLs
• Teaching ELLs with learning challenges
• Culturally Responsive Instruction
• Effective online instruction
• Working with co-teachers and para-professionals

In addition to the new chapters, The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide contains updated material on topics including math, science, social studies, Common Core Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards and 150 pages of new, highly engaging content. An essential resource for anyone involved in teaching English as a Second Language to students of all ages, this book is perfect for general education teachers and ESL specialists for students in grades six through twelve. It's also highly instructive for teachers of adult ESL classes, elementary and teacher educators, and resource specialists.

PART ONE
Getting Started with English Language Learners

CHAPTER ONE
ELL Instruction: The Big Picture

Long ago a wise, old teacher lived in a village near a range of mountains. Climbing the highest of these mountains was considered an important accomplishment, and all the young boys of the village couldn't wait until they were old enough to make the climb on their own.

One night, the wise teacher gathered a group of boys together and said to them, “You have reached the age to take on the challenge. Tomorrow you may all go and climb that mountain with my blessings. Go as far as you can, and when you are tired, turn around and come home. Remember to bring back a twig from the place where you turned around.”

The next morning, the boys began the long‐awaited climb. A few hours later, one of the boys returned with a piece of buckthorn. The teacher smiled and said, “I can see you made it to the first rockslide. Wonderful!” Later in the afternoon, another boy arrived with a cedar frond. “You made it halfway up! Well done!” remarked the teacher. An hour later another boy returned with a branch of pine, and the teacher said, “Good job. It looks like you made it three‐quarters of the way. If you keep trying, next year you will surely reach the top!”

As the sun began to set, the teacher began to worry about the last boy, who still had not returned. Just when the teacher was about to send out a search party, the boy finally returned. He ran to the teacher and held out his hand. His hand was empty, but his eyes sparkled with happiness as he said, “Teacher, there were no trees where I turned around. I saw no twigs, no living things at the very top of the peak, and far away I could see the majestic sun shining off the sea.”

The teacher's eyes also sparkled with joy as he proclaimed, “I knew it! When I looked in your eyes I could see that you made it! You have been to the top! It shines in your eyes and sings in your voice! My son, you do not need twigs or branches as prizes of your victory. You have felt the prize in your spirit because you have seen the wonder of the mountain!”¹

This tale describes the satisfaction and joy felt by the boy who reached the mountain's peak and witnessed the compelling view from the top. He didn't return with any physical “prizes” but instead carried the treasures of his journey within himself. The next time he climbs the mountain, he will be motivated from within, not because there are tokens or prizes to be collected.

As educators, we hope all of our students will “see the view from the peak” and will feel compelled to take on many more journeys as they learn and grow. Researcher Stephen Krashen explains how “compelling input” relates to language learning: Compelling means that the input is so interesting you forget that it is in another language. It means you are in a state of “flow.”² In flow, the concerns of everyday life and even the sense of self disappear—our sense of time is altered and nothing but the activity itself seems to matter.³

This idea will be reflected throughout this book as we identify and describe research‐based instructional strategies and approaches that “compel” students to want to learn English. Compelling input can help students “reach the peak” of acquiring language without seeking external rewards. However, it is ultimately important for students to come to their own conclusions about the value of “reaching the peak.” Once students see the value of language learning and become intrinsically motivated to learn English, they will take the risk and climb that mountain over and over again. Sometimes they will need encouragement and support from us, especially when the peak is obscured by clouds along the way.

This book contains strategies and tools for teachers of English Language Learners to act as guides on this trek up the mountain. We hope it will help you feel prepared and excited about this journey. We know that everyone's trail will be different, and we hope this “survival guide” will serve as a compass rather than a direct map.

In the following subsections we will lay out a big picture of ELL instruction, including statistics on the English language learner population, research on language development, and several ELL instructional best practices. Later chapters will go into more detail on how to implement these big picture research findings and practices in your own classroom.

ELL Population Growth

It is hard to find a school district in this country that doesn't have an English Language Learner population. For teachers in states like Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington, it is sometimes hard to find a school or even a classroom without any English language learners. ELL enrollment in K‐12 schools increased 28 percent between the 2000–2001 school year and the 2016–2017 school year.⁴ In fact, the US Department of Education estimates that approximately five million English language learners are enrolled in public schools across the country—roughly 10 percent of all students enrolled in K–12 schools in the United States.⁵

While English learners in this country come from over 400 different language backgrounds, the majority (around 75 percent) of English Language Learners are Spanish speakers.⁶ Arabic and Chinese are the second most common home languages spoken among ELLs (accounting for 2.7 percent and 2 percent, respectively, of the ELL population).⁷ English is the fourth most common home language (spoken by about 2 percent of ELLs) and may reflect students raised in multilingual households as well as students adopted from other countries who were raised speaking a different language but who now live in an English‐speaking household.⁸

US school districts in more urban areas have higher percentages of ELL students. ELLs make up 14 percent of students in city school districts, compared with just 4 percent in rural districts. Suburban districts and towns fall in the middle with ELLs making up 9 percent and 6 percent of total public school enrollees.⁹

In general, most ELLs are in the elementary school grades. In 2018, 15.1 percent of kindergartener...