ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

English Language Learners Diverse Abilities Teaching

English Language Learners Diverse Abilities Teaching

Introduction

Students with English as a second language (ESL) constitute a significant percentage of the population of our nation's schools. This population continues to increase more rapidly than that of native English speaking students (Shore, 2001). The language minority population has a high drop out rate. These students are also among the lowest ranking in academic achievement and expectations. They represent an at-risk population faced with a wide range of challenges (Thompson, 2000).

This presents a unique challenge for teachers as we strive to help these students achieve in learning the English language and the academic material specified in our content area learning standards. Every teacher who teaches subject matter in English to ESL students is not only a teacher of the content area but is a teacher of English as well. As educators, we must continually reflect on our teaching and update our practice to address the needs of this population, placing a strong emphasis on the human side of teaching. We must continually focus on these students and find effective ways to arrange their learning to help them achieve.

Barriers to Meaningful Instruction for English Learners

Cognitive load refers to the number of new concepts embedded in a lesson. It is critical that we consistently assess prior knowledge of all students, ESL students particularly, and look to identify the concepts and skills the students do and do not possess. We must then fill in any conceptual gaps by trying to relate new concepts to life experiences of ESL students. Thus, it becomes more critical to get to know and understand these students (Olsen, 2000).

Teachers should treat English learners with respect, not judgment, and try to build personal relationships with students, their families and communities. Teachers can use information gained through these relationships to develop lessons and activities that help students understand the American culture while still respecting the culture of the student. By demonstrating respect for students, teachers allow a door of trust to open that can serve to further deepen a nurturing teacher-student relationship (Meyer, 2000).

The next barrier, the 'language load,' refers to the number of unfamiliar words encountered as an English learner reads a text or listens to teacher or peer academic talk. Teachers can lighten this load by rewriting or explaining text material. Complex sentences can be broken down into comprehensible parts. Academic vocabulary can be presented at the start of a lesson and highlighted. Several different texts can be available covering the same content but at different reading ability levels. Additionally, teachers should model both academic and social language and scaffold its appropriate use to help the learner acquire it, use it effectively and move to more sophisticated levels of speaking and writing (Beckett and Haley, 2000).

The 'learning load' represents what teachers expect students to do with English in the learning activities. An example offered by the author is brainstorming, an activity that is oral and fast-paced, with few visual examples and minimal clarification in ...