Score Yourself! Are You Teaching Vocabulary According to Research?
Take the quiz: Are you or the teachers you supervise using research-based strategies to teach vocabulary to English Learners? Give 3 points if your answer is "always"; 2 points if your answer is "sometimes"; and 1 point if your answer is "rarely". Add up your total. Key: 30-36 points You...
ELL Population in the United States by County 1999-2010
How many English Learners are there in my state? My county? How have English Learner populations changed in the last 10 years in the United States? Look no further than the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition & Language Instruction Educational Programs (NCELA) who have published county-by-county maps of the...
Emotions in Language Learning: How do they matter?
Does it matter how you are feeling when you are trying to learn another language? If you are nervous, can you learn just as well as when you are relaxed? Does the teacher's response to your feelings make a difference? I think most of us would guess that yes, emotions...
(Un)knowing Diversity - My First Book
I am excited to let you know that my first book will be published next month, February 2012. The book presents the stories of five diverse youth in their own words. They talk about their lives inside and outside of school, the challenges they face, their triumphs, their identities, their...
BICS vs. CALP..What do they mean again??
There are so many acronyms in education. I think two of the most important ones in thinking about language education are BICS and CALP. Take a look at the chart below to start thinking about these 2 different kinds of language that language learners produce: Why is it important...
Teaching Tip: Graphic Organizer are an Easy Way to Shelter Instruction for All Ages
WHAT? Use a graphic organizers at the beginning, middle and end of a lesson. WHY? Graphic organizers help language learners become familiar with and organize vocabulary and concepts in a visually accessible way, helping them to understand the lesson concepts and language throughout the lesson. There is a body of...
Hands-On Learning for ELLs
Students need many opportunities to work hands-on with content and language to practice working with and applying the new knowledge and language. Research says working with hands-on materials can increase achievement and English acquisition. There is a lot of research that shows practice helps students master skills (Jensen, 2005; Marzano,...
The Goodness and Challenge of Writing Language Objectives
What do I see least of in K-12 classrooms? Language objectives. In my work with K-12 teachers of language learners (LLs), I see a lot of sound research-based sheltering strategies like using graphic organizers to help LLs get their feet wet with new language and concepts or showing pictures to...
Make it Meaningful: Engaging ELLs with their Own Experiences
We know that our most memorable learning experiences as students ourselves was when our teachers made a lesson personally meaningful to us - it connected to our lives outside of or even inside of school. Based on this, one of the things we try to do as educators is make...
“A Love Affair of Mine: Objectives”
“Simply said, when students understand the purpose of a lesson, they learn more” (Fraser, Walberg, Welch, & Hattie, 1987; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001 in Fisher & Frey, 2010, p. 1) It has been stirring for a while. At first I didn’t even notice him. He kept coming around more...