When teaching ELLs using a culturally responsive-sustaining pedagogy, write Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull-Sypnieski, centering student voice is critical to creating the conditions for student success. The teacher asks for, listens to, and acts on student ideas and feedback.
Culturally responsive and sustaining teaching needs to underlie and guide all our classroom practices, write Ferlazzo and Sypnieski. When we validate the cultural learning tools that diverse learners bring, we can leverage them to produce positive outcomes for all students.
If we want multilinguals to develop their speaking skills while learning content (and we do!) then they need multiple opportunities to engage in academic conversation throughout the school day. ML/EL education leader Jenny Vo shares her favorite successful strategies.
Whether his soon-to-be teachers are spending an hour or all day with students, the question teacher educator Curtis Chandler most often hears from them is this: “How can I better support my students who are English language learners?” His 2022 resolution – prepare them better.
Book Reviews / English Language Learners
by MiddleWeb · Published 05/31/2018 · Last modified 11/22/2019
The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox is all meat with 400+ pages of teaching tactics, techniques, and methods, organized for use by ELL teachers and their colleagues across content areas. Educator Rita Platt says the book’s high impact strategies are perfect for summer PD.
Summer Slide / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Valentina Gonzalez · Published 05/27/2018 · Last modified 12/01/2019
One way to counter summer slide is to provide easily accessible books. Public libraries are great but many kids can’t get to them. Valentina Gonzalez describes the challenges facing ELLs and other kids and suggests ways to make school libraries available over the break.
Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Sypnieski provide ELL students the chance to read high-interest books independently. Literary conversations help ELLs interact with the texts, creating a classroom culture of shared literacy. The co-authors share six creative activities.
Diane Heacox presents differentiation tools that can be used immediately, and provides guidance for adapting them for a range of ages and content areas, ELLs, gifted students and kids with IEPs. Jeny Randall agrees with Heacox’s advice, “Start small, but start somewhere.”
Learning through Conversation / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Valentina Gonzalez · Published 12/31/2017 · Last modified 11/28/2019
Frequent academic conversation supports learning for all students, and especially ELLs. PD specialist Valentina Gonzalez offers strategies to help teachers avoid ineffective practices and remove barriers to meaningful student-to-student and student-to-teacher dialogue.
Scaffolds / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Valentina Gonzalez · Published 10/08/2017 · Last modified 12/14/2019
If we provide scaffolds for the students who need it – especially ELLs who represent so many different backgrounds – we can promote independent learning. Valentina Gonzalez offers five easy-to-implement strategies to help make lessons ELL-friendly in any content area.
