Question #8: How do I help students build learning strategies?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Integrate and teach learning strategies across the curriculum
• Emphasize reading comprehension strategies
  
• Make learning strategies immediately applicable - This is so students don't forget!
• Use a variety of SDAIE strategies and techniques - You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Consult ELL resources like WIDA, TESOL and SDAIE.

Check out these resources online for teaching strategies to ELLs!
WIDA
TESOL
SDAIE Strategies

Question #10: How do I minimize communication conflicts in a multilingual classroom?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Establish a classroom community that values and celebrates diversity - Extend this to your whole school through a multicultural day.
  
• Seek out and exploit student common ground - Show how students are more similar than different through multicultural lessons. For example, show the similarities between holidays in different cultures.
  
• Provide frequent opportunities for meaningful collaborative work
• See conflicts as inevitable but solvable given critical reflection and persistence - Research cultural differences and make other teachers aware of these.
  

Question #9: How do I support a student’s first language when I don’t speak the language?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Establish a classroom community that values and celebrates all languages and dialects - Create a bulletin board using realia with students' native languages (i.e. Spanish newspapers, Cantonese cereal boxes, German magazines). Buy or check out multilingual books for your classroom library.
  
• Encourage parents to develop and maintain primary language at home - Many parents of ELLs are tempted to speak English-only with their students at home. Encourage parents to speak their native language at home; learning from the first language will transfer to the second language.
  
• Offer primary language support through bilingual parent and community volunteers, cross-age tutors, and extended day programs - Invite parents to an open house and use bilingual interpreters from the community. Invite bilingual college students to volunteer in your classroom and read with children.
  
• Learn and use some second language yourself with students - You don't have to learn an entire new language. Ask student to teach you a few words and phrases from their native language!
  
• Understand the differences between supporting and developing the primary language - You don't have to know Russian to teach a Russian ELL English! You can help your student by implementing the previous suggestions in your classroom.
  

Question #7: How do I teach grade-level content to English beginners?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Design programs around rich, engaging content
• Apply SDAIE strategies across all activities - SDAIE (Specifically Designed Academic Instruction in English) Strategies include lowering the student's affective filter, modifying speech, using context clues, giving students multisensory experiences, providing comprehensible input, conducting frequent comprehension checks, and not watering down the content!
  
• Use artifacts to boost content and language learning - Use realia, audiovisual materials, overhead transparencies, an ELMO, or audio-visual material.
  
• Emphasize collaborative over individual work!

Question #6: How do I help students improve their English writing?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Have students write for real-world purposes - Maybe have students create a newsletter about natural medicine use in their country.
  
• Base writing content on student interests - If an ELL loves soccer, have him write about the World Cup and his favorite team.
  
• Understand the terrors and limitations of "compliance" writing
• Emphasize process over product, wholes over pieces
• Use a variety of writing supports (group composing, graphic organizers, drawing-based text, "skeletons") - Have students write papers together instead of individually.
  

Question #5: How do I make a difficult textbook more readable?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Teach a variety of reading comprehension strategies
• Use text tours, graphic organizers, and main idea signposts
• Do think-out-loud modeling - Literally speak your thoughts out loud so students learn new problem-solving strategies.
  
• Offer multiple paths into the text
• Make text meaningful with personal stories - Share stories so students can connect and remember information.
  

Question #4: How do I get my reluctant speakers to speak English?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Increase time and opportunities for meaningful talk - Don't tell your students to "hush" all the time! Allow them to talk.
  
• Reduce teacher talk - Let your students speak; don't talk all the time.
  
• Incorporate students' personal interests - Talk about things the students like to talk about sometimes. It doesn't always have to be academic-related.
  
• Provide emotional "safe group" for language risk-taking - Build relationships in your class so students will feel comfortable enough to speak.
  
• Encourage English speaking while honoring students' first language

Question #3: How do I make my spoken language more understandable?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Use objects, video, pictures, and movement - Make sure when using pictures that all students can see; try displaying pictures on an ELMO or overhead projector.
  
• Offer periodic summaries and paraphrases - Summarize before, during, and after a presentation.
  
• Develop key vocabulary and "power" words
• Build and utilize student background knowledge - Connect old knowledge to new knowledge.
  
• Include first language support whenever possible - Use bilingual Oxford Picture Dictionaries.
  

Question #2: How do I find useful information on a student’s cultural background?

Why Should I research by students' backgrounds?
1) Respect
2) Sheer curiosity
3) Instruction!

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Use multiple sources - Refer to multiple sources to fill in the missing puzzle pieces of a child's culture such as enrollment forms, library reference books, trade books, website, language lessons, a public librarian, teacher material from the State Department of Education, extended family members, and in-class family history activities.
  
• Learn a student's "outside" story
• Identify potential cultural conflict points
• Know basic first and second language differences and similarities
• Avoid common cultural learning pitfalls

Check out these sources to learn about your students' cultures:

• http://www.hmongnet.org/

• http://www.everyculture.com

• Flaitz, Jeffra and Leslie Eckstein. Understanding Your International Students. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2003.

Question #1: How do I assess a student’s English?

Key ideas from the chapter:

• Rely on authentic, performance-based assessment
• Develop multiple-source, "big package" assessment
• Understand the terrors and limitation of formal language testing
• Use observation, chats, and anecdotal notes

• Give new students about two weeks to adjust before subjecting them to standardized placement tests. Let them get accustomed to the classroom and you. Put yourself in the new ELL shoes. Imagine going to a country as an adult and taking a placement test the first day you arrive. Could you do your best, not knowing anyone, not knowing the language?
  
• Give ELLs time to respond! Wait time is extremely important. Don't rush your students.
  
• Observe ELLs in a group setting. They are more likely to talk more around their peers!
• Also keep in mind that "authentic assessment is a [ongoing] process, not a one-shot event; it requires multiple measures of a student performance over time" (Cary 16). A student's quantity and quality of English can vary according to the activity, setting, number of participants, participant relationships, academic demands, and language response time.
  

Letter to Teachers

Dear Befuddled Teacher:

For my EESL 620 Special Topics in ESL: K-12 Equal Access, we were required to read Stephen Cary’s text Working with English Language Learners: Answers to Teachers’ Top Ten Questions and critique each chapter. Each chapter of Cary’s book covers one question. The top ten questions Cary answers are as follows:

Question #1: How do I assess a student’s English?

Question #2: How do I find useful information on a student’s cultural background?

Question #3: How do I make my spoken language more understandable?

Question #4: How do I get my reluctant speakers to speak English?

Question #5: How do I make a difficult textbook more readable?

Question #6: How do I help students improve their English writing?

Question #7: How do I teach grade-level content to English beginners?

Question #8: How do I help students build learning strategies?

Question #9: How do I support a student’s first language when I don’t speak the language?

Question #10: How do I minimize communication conflicts in a multilingual classroom?

Are these questions you have asked yourself or been asked by others? If your answer is yes, then please read the following posts! In my blog, I will summarize the chapters of Stephen Cary’s book and offer suggestions to help you in pursuit to help English Language Learners!

Thanks,

Jen Vinson