View Content #4136
| Contentid | 4136 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Suggestions for Content Teachers of ELLs |
| Body | A recent request on the TESL listserv for suggestions for content-area teachers of English language learners received the following suggestions. Although these tips were intended for college teachers, they should be useful for teachers of any age level. ---- Make ESL students feel welcome and valued: ask them to talk a bit about their native languages, cultures, history, etc. This will help them to feel less stressed in trying to learn hard content in a second language. Most ESL students never have this recognition, and are treated like aliens. When lecturing, speak a little slower and face the students. This will make your lecture much easier to understand. Using gestures and visuals will make it even easier to understand. Encourage ESL students to audiotape your class and to study their subjects together. Give extra credit to native speakers of English to do their out-of-class study and assignments with an ESL student from your class, and help that student with what s/he doesn't understand. Encourage them to read simpler versions of the text. For example, in U.S. History, suggest that they read books written for younger students on the various topics of U.S. History, books with pictures, time lines, maps, etc. that highlight the most important issues, people and events. It will be difficult to read about U.S. history at the college level in English if they start with such advanced, dense texts, ones that also assume readers already know about the constitution, slavery, the civil war, or even our most famous presidents. Do regular, in-class, student-centered activities where ESL students interact with native speakers. Ask your ESL students to write at the end of each class both what they have learned and any questions they have. Respond to these writings and answer their questions. Don't correct their English as they try to speak in class. Just try to understand what they are saying. Use interpreters in the class if there are any, both to help ESL students understand material and assignments, and to translate things you want to say to them. Have your ESL students sit up front and tell them to ask you when they don't understand a word or expression. When you give tests, grade the content of ESL students' answers, and don't grade down if they make mistakes in grammar or spelling. Making mistakes is a natural and necessary part of second language acquisition. When ESL students write compositions and term papers, give them a chance to submit a second draft, just as you would likely want a second chance to revise and edit an essay on economics in Chinese or Arabic if they were not your strongest languages. Remember that ESL students are trying to learn twice as much as other students in your class: the new content plus the new vocabulary, expressions, and rhetoric of that content area. Gilhooly, A. Re: support for content-area college instructors with ESL students? Teachers of English to speakers of other languages electronic list. TESL-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (14 Oct. 2005). |
| Source | TESL-L |
| Inputdate | 2006-02-03 15:33:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2006-02-03 15:33:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | 2006-02-06 00:00:00 |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
