Getting Started With English Language Learners

A veteran educator provides insights and strategies for educators unaccustomed to working with students whose native language is not English.

This basic text provides beginning learners of English with a logical and systematic approach to learning to speak, read and understand English. Through the text the learner is introduced to four main characters - Gai, Roxanna, Jason and Jian, who model the language structures and vocabulary in contexts and situations relevant to any beginner learner of English. It can be used as either a student workbook or as a collection of resources which can be photocopied for classroom use. Both the book and the supporting audio cassette can be used with learners ranging from primary school age to adults.

Strategies, tools, tips, and examples that teachers can use to help English language learners at all levels flourish in mainstream classrooms.

Put all English learners on the path to success—right from the start! As more beginning ELs enroll in schools every year, educators need a realistic framework for addressing the varied needs of this growing population. In this practical resource, the authors provide templates, tools, and vignettes illustrating real-world challenges to help teachers and administrators: Learn strategies for teaching beginning level ELs across the curriculum Create a welcoming environment for students and families Reach out to students from both literacy and non-literacy-oriented homes Design programs that meet the needs of beginning ELs and students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE)

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.

Conversing with others has given insights to different perspectives, helped build ideas, and solve problems. Academic conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas. In Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the classroom. They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive academic conversation across content areas: Elaborating and Clarifying Supporting Ideas with Evidence Building On and/or Challenging Ideas Paraphrasing Synthesizing This book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills and conversations into current teaching approaches. More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the following: Academic vocabulary and grammar Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and application Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizing An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual support The ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

This text offers practical insights for English teachers, especially novice educators, to incorporate into their classroom lessons.