Teaching ELLs

Teaching English Language Learners: Grades 6 & Up © Katherine Davies Samway & Dorothy Taylor, Scholastic Teaching Resources
Grades 6 and Up
Strategies That Work,
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ISBN-13: 978-0-439-92648-5
ISBN-10: 0-439-92648-3
Copyright © 2008 by Katharine Davies Samway and Dorothy Taylor
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Printed in the U.S.A.
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Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 10
Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 11

Influence of Geopolitical Issues 12
Situations
1: Why is it taking my more recent immigrant and refugee students so much longer to
complete the English Language Development (ELD) program than the students I had a few
years ago? 14
2: Which countries, languages, and cultures are we likely to see in the next few years in our
schools? 16
Conflicts Between Students 18
Situations
1: Some of my newcomers are bullied by other students. 20
2: I sometimes see conflicts between groups of immigrant refugee students, which appear to
be carryovers from their own countries. 26
3: My ELL students are teased and/or encounter hostility because of their accents, clothing,
and school equipment. 27
4: My ELL students encounter hostility because of their country of origin, ethnic background,
or religion. 30
5: My mainstream students aren’t very welcoming of ELLs; they don’t like having to work with
ELLs in small groups. 31
Dissonances Between Community Expectations and School Practices 32
Situations
1: Some of my students are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with learner-centered,
process-oriented learning experiences, such as writing workshop, math manipulatives,
and exploratory science. 34
2: My students do not like doing group work where all students get the same grade. 35
3: Because they are not native speakers, my ELLs sometimes expect their native-
English-speaking peers to do most of the work in group projects. 35
4: My ELL students cheat on tests. 39
5: Many of my ELL students never look directly at me when I am talking with them, which can
sometimes feel awkward and sometimes downright rude. 43
6: I have some male students who won’t let the female students speak for themselves or who
don’t listen when females speak. 44
7: Some of our ELL families won’t let girls continue in school. 46
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8: Some of our ELL girls don’t graduate because they marry early. 46
9: My students tell me they have to leave school early to help their families. 48
10: My students come to school tired because of home responsibilities, including needing
to work. 48
11: My students are absent often because they have child care, translating, or other family
responsibilities. 48
12: The parents of my ELL students are resistant to their children receiving mental
health services. 50
13: The families of my ELL students use practices that are culturally different (for example,
coining) or illegal in North America (for example, female genital mutilation/cutting). 51
Communication With Parents 53
Situations
1: The parents of my ELLs don’t speak English and I don’t speak their languages, so we
can’t communicate. 54
2: How do I communicate with parents who are illiterate? 55
3: The parents of my ELL students decline a translator, but we have a hard time
communicating. 56
4: My students’ parents say they’ve been told not to speak their native language at home so
their children can learn English, but they can’t communicate with their children in English. 57
5: The parents of my ELL students don’t speak English at home, and I wish they would so the
children could learn English more quickly. 57
6: Some parents won’t let their children go on field trips. 59
7: The parents of my ELL students express concern about behavioral problems with their
children since coming to the U.S. 60
8: The parents of my ELL students tell me that their children threaten to report them to social
agencies or schools if they chastise the children. 60
Chapter 2: Listening Situations 62

Students Don’t Understand or Don’t Show They Understand 63
Situations
1: I’m not always sure if my ELL student understands me. How can I or others in the school
check for understanding? 64
2: When I ask my ELL students if they understand, they often nod or say, “Yes,” but I then
find out that they didn’t understand. 66
3: My ELL student constantly says, “I don’t understand,” or says, “I don’t understand”
before I even finish the sentence. 67
Students Don’t Understand Directions 68
Situations
1: My ELL student doesn’t understand simple directions. 70
2: My ELL student doesn’t understand complex directions. 72
3: My ELL student doesn’t pay attention when I’m giving directions. 75
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Students Don’t Understand Content Material 76

Situations
1: My students don’t understand my read-alouds. 77
2: My ELL students understand me when I talk about things that they are familiar with, but
they look totally lost when I teach abstract ideas or unfamiliar content. 79
3: Sometimes I look at my ELL students’ faces and they are blank, exhausted, and/or
confused—as if they’ve stopped listening. 82
Chapter 3: Speaking Situations 85

Students Aren’t Speaking English 87
Situations
1: I have students who have been in the country for a few months, and they still rarely speak in
class, or answer with only yes/no answers. 88
2: I can’t communicate with my ELLs because we don’t have a shared language yet. 96
Students Are Reluctant to Speak 99
Situations
1: I have intermediate/advanced students who don’t talk in class. 99
2: My students are reluctant to make errors, so they only say what they’re sure of or don’t
speak at all. They’re overly cautious. 102
3: I have students who ask other students to speak for them. 102
4: I have students who talk in class only during structured activities, such as listen-and-repeat
activities, reading aloud, and sharing completed activities. 105
5: Some of my ELL students are very reluctant to share opinions. 108
Grammatical Structures 110
Situations
1: My students misuse pronouns. For example, they say “he” when they mean “she.” 113
2: My students often omit the plural ending –s (for example, they say three book instead
of three books). 115
3: My students have trouble pronouncing past-tense inflections (talk/t/, rain/d/,
and want/Id/). 116
4: My ELL students often confuse verb tenses. For example, they use the present tense instead
of the past tense (I go to school yesterday) or overuse the present progressive tense
(I am washing my face every day). 117
5: My students misuse or overuse the present tense or present progressive tense (He walking
to the bus every day instead of He walks to the bus every day). 119
6: My students have difficulty forming negatives (I no want play for I don’t want
to play). 120
7: My students have difficulty forming questions. 121
8: My students’ speech is confusing because of their grammar (Sister he no look she
bus go away for My sister missed the bus). 126
9: I correct my students’ grammatical errors, but they continue to make the same
mistakes. 128
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Pronunciation 129
Situations
1: Sometimes I can’t understand my ELLs when they speak because of their accents. 133
2: I have students I can understand perfectly well when we’ve having a one-on-one
conversation, but when they make formal presentations, they are hard to understand. 134
3: My ELL students have difficulty with particular sounds, which makes them say the wrong
word (e.g., snake for snack, den for then). 135
4: My students sometimes add an extra syllable or sound to their words (e.g., es-panish). 137
5: Students sometimes omit unstressed vowels or syllables (sounds slide into each other). 139
6: Sometimes my students speak so quickly I can’t understand them. 139
Vocabulary 140
Situation
1: My students have difficulty expressing themselves because they have limited
vocabulary. 142
Idioms, Slang, and “Dangerous English” 143
Situations
1: My students don’t use idioms or slang correctly. 144
2: My students sometimes mix up words (e.g., horny for ornery) or misuse idioms or slang
(e.g., knock up). 147
3: My students use offensive language in inappropriate situations, but I don’t think they
understand the meaning of the words. 147
Using the Native Language 149
Situations
1: I don’t understand why the parents speak English and their child doesn’t. 149
2: My students switch between English and their native language, sometimes in the same
sentence and sometimes across several sentences. 150
Chapter 4: Reading Situations 151

Reading Comprehension 166
Situations
1: My ELL students’ knowledge of English words is very limited and this affects their reading
comprehension. 167
2: Students don’t understand concepts in either the L1 or English. 181
3: My ELL students can decode words, but they don’t understand what they have
just read. 189
4: Students can recall literal facts, but they have a hard time with higher-level
reading skills. 199
5: My students want to read aloud to each other, but the other students hate it (and it’s an
ordeal to listen to them). 203
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6: I see very irregular reading behaviors in my ELL students—sometimes they read a text
smoothly and with understanding, but at other times, even when reading a book at the
same level, they struggle to decode and/or understand the text. 208
Limited Purposes for Reading 209
Situations
1: My students think that reading is decoding, and they focus exclusively on sounding out
the words. 209

2: My students read in a nonfluent, staccato-like way. 209
3: My students read very quickly, but without making meaning. 209
Decoding in English 212
Situations
1: My ELLs sometimes get confused by similar sounds and letters, such as n/m, b/p,
b/d, and ch/sh. 212
2: My ELLs sometimes have difficulty decoding multisyllabic words. 212
3: My ELLs sometimes read word-by-word, and it doesn’t sound fluid. 212
4: ELLs don’t recognize high-frequency words (e.g., the, was, my, that). 213
5: I have students whose written native language looks very different from English,
and they struggle to decode the words. 215
Chapter 5: Writing Situations 218

Students Are Reluctant to Write or Don’t Write Much 219
Situations
1: Students don’t know what to write about. 236
2: Students copy everything, instead of producing original work. 243
3: My students just list words. 246
4: My ELL students plagiarize all the time. 248
5: During independent writing time, my ELL student doesn’t do anything. 249
My ELL Students Don’t Seem to Be Improving as Writers 251

Situations
1: I correct my students’ writing, but they continue to make the same mistakes. 251
2: My students’ writing isn’t very sophisticated and seems to have been that way for a
long time. 258
Grammar and Mechanics 262

Incomprehensible Writing 266
Situations
1: The handwriting of my ELL student is very hard to decipher. 267
2: When I read my ELLs’ writing, I’m overwhelmed by the many issues I could address. 269
3: I can’t understand what my ELL student has written because of the spelling. 272
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References 273
Appendices 282
Appendix A: Booksellers and Distributors of Books About Diverse Cultures and
Books Written in Languages Other Than English 283
Appendix B: Books About Diverse Cultures 285
Appendix C: Cultural Differences in Student Behavior 296
Appendix D: Selected Wordless Picture Books 298
Appendix E: Picture/Visual Dictionaries 300
Appendix F: Pronunciation Web Sites 301
Appendix G: Guidelines for Developing Cloze Activities 304
Appendix H: The Cloze Text Without Deletions 305
Appendix I: Example of a Cloze Text With Every Five Words Deleted 306
Appendix J: Example of a Cloze Text With Every Ten Words Deleted 307
Appendix K: Example of a Selected Feature Cloze Text: Past-Tense Verbs 308
Appendix L: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry Touchstone Texts 309
Appendix M: Picture Books to Help Spark Students’ Memories 313
Appendix N: Types of Written Reflection in the Classroom 315
Index 316
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Acknowledgments
We are indebted to many, many people who have influenced us as teachers and/or
helped us as we have written this book.
Over the years, we have had the good fortune to work with many gifted teachers,
from whom we have learned so much, and we would like to first acknowledge our
indebtedness to them—Marina Afentakis, Barbara Agor, Joan Albarella, Laura Alvarez,
Sharon Amos, Edwin Aponte, Angie Barra, Joanne Basil, Jill Berg, Romeo Bryant,
Keith Buchanan, Fran Butler, Marsha Christiano, Stephanie Costner, Laurel Cress,
Yolanda Dandridge, Jerry Dickson, Ellen Edes, JoAnne Edmiston, Audrey Fong, Maya
Galperin, Isabel Hernandez, Mary Howlette, Libby James-Pasby, Jennifer Jones-
Martinez, Jennifer Kim, Patti Legates, Denise Leograndis, Musoko Luko, Kathy
Maloney, Michael Marinaccio, Lynn McMichael, Mark Methven, Jen Meyers, Atsuko
Nishida Mitchell, Todd Mitchell, Laurie Nussbaum, Gwen O’Dette, Mary Pippitt,
Kay Polga, Teddi Predaris, Ali Rasheed, Doreen Regan, Marjorie Rosenthal-Foer,
Rachel Rothman, Barbara Schmidt, Choji Schroeder, Lydia Stack, Annie Swanlaw,
Carlyn Syvanen, Sharon Weight, María Wetzel, Robert Wiggenfeld, Beverly Wilkin,
Gail Whang, and Mary Zimmer.
We would also like to thank the teachers who have shared invaluable resources
with us while writing this book, and/or responded to our requests for situations that
teachers encounter when working with ELLs—Sharon Amos, Jill Berg, Jerry Dickson,
JoAnne Edmiston, Lisa Gustafson, Elizabeth Jaeger, Libby James-Pasby, Karen
Jeffries, Karen Kane, Fran Magallanes, Lynn Matwijko, Erin McCarthy, Jen Meyers,
Celeste Notaro, Bridgett O’Shea, Melanie Pyne, Jenny Rienzo, Rosalie Rienzo,
Heather Rivera, Rachel Rothman, Kelly Shulman, and an anonymous teacher who
responded to our survey and provided us with lots of very useful situations. Thanks also
to Nancy Markowitz, Kris Pemberton, and Sharon Weight for forwarding our request
for situations to other teachers.
Several of the annotated book lists that we have included in the book are the con-
sequence of work that Katharine did with Jill Berg and Kelly Shulman—thank you for
all your help. Dorothy would also like to thank Sherryl Weems and Debra Thompson
for their support.
We have taught in several states and we are indebted to our students in western
New York, including Brockport, Buffalo, and Rochester; Brookline, Massachusetts;
Reston and Herndon in Virginia; and the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Writing a book is a very time-consuming act, and would have been very difficult
for us if we had not had the support of our families. Katharine would like to thank her
family, especially Tom, who knows how important writing is to her and epitomizes the
supportive spouse, and young Tom, for his artistic talents. Dorothy would like to thank
her parents, Hammersley and Ann Taylor, who knew she wanted to be a teacher even
when she thought she didn’t; Patricia Clay, Carol McKinney, Mary Jane Smith, and Jim
Taylor; Don Pollock, the anthropologist, for expert advice on the sociolinguistic chap-
ter; and Don Pollock, the husband, for too many kindnesses to list.
Our thanks also extend to the Scholastic staff, who helped bring this book into
existence, particularly our editor, Lois Bridges, Melissa Inglis-Elliott, Amy Rowe,
Jason Robinson, Sydney Wright, and Susan Kolwicz.
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Introduction
Together, we have spent decades teaching and working on behalf of English language
learners (ELLs), and it is work that we value enormously. We have found that working
with ELLs and their families is very stimulating and rewarding, and through this
work, we have been welcomed into the lives of our students, and we have learned
through them how people from many different parts of the world think, communicate,
and learn.
ELLs can be a tremendous asset to schools when members of the school
community view them that way. We recognize, of course, how challenging it is to try
to communicate with a newcomer who does not yet know English (and whose native
language we do not know). When this happens, we try to remind ourselves that any
situation that we find challenging will almost always be much more challenging for
the ELL student—after all, not only are ELLs in a new environment where they may
not hear their home languages for hours at a time, but they are often separated
from family members, friends, and familiar surroundings without sufficient time to
say good-bye.
How we respond to ELLs can make a huge difference in how they feel about
school and how other students respond to them. And, ultimately, it can have a huge
impact on the learning of all of our students, both ELLs and non-ELLs. For example,
when meeting a new student whose native language we cannot speak, we call upon
some basic strategies that can help integrate the newcomer into the school and
classroom community. We do this because we realize that ELLs will be learning more
than the English language and content-area material; they will also be learning the
social and cultural norms of school life and life in the community at large, and peers
can bridge that gap very effectively.
We hope that our book gives teachers who work with ELLs lots of strategies to
use when they aren’t sure what to do next. Though our focus is on ELLs, we firmly
believe that effective strategies for ELLs are often effective for all students. This
book emerged from working with ELL students and from working closely with
many teachers, particularly ESOL specialists (also called ESL or ELD teachers). The
situations that we describe are authentic; they come from our experiences and those
of other teachers. Although the book can be read from front to back, it does not
have to be approached that way; it is designed so that teachers can dip into it as the
need arises.
Each of the five chapters begins with background information on the overarching
content of the chapter, followed by some general strategies. There are then several
subsections, each with its own background, general strategies, specific situations, and
targeted strategies for those situations. The table of contents lays out all the general
strategies and specific situations.
We hope our readers will feel much more confident about working with
ELLs once they have read this book. We also hope that all our readers feel the same
enthusiasm and optimism that we feel when working with ELLs.
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C HAPTER I
Sociocultural
Situations
T
he social and cultural backgrounds of English language learners
and their families can greatly influence their school experiences, and
schools must take sociocultural issues into account to successfully
work with ELLs. The learning styles of ELL students may be affected by
their underlying assumptions about the nature of education, classrooms, and
the authority of teachers. Students may be coming from cultures in which
they were not expected (or allowed) to acquire significant levels of formal
education. Students and their families may view schools as representatives
of oppressive political regimes and may resist the well-intentioned efforts
of teachers and school officials. Expectations about respect or personal
demeanor may be highly variable, and assumptions about health and illness
may sometimes differ from mainstream Western beliefs and practices. Many
students and their families may have come to North America to escape war,
oppression, or other hardships. Some have spent years in refugee camps, and
many have suffered extraordinary traumas. Under such circumstances, the
formal schooling of students and their families was interrupted or it may
never have occurred. It is not unusual for political and tribal conflicts to carry
over into classrooms and local communities in North America.
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Regardless of how they arrived in North America, many ELL students and
their families are dealing with economic hardships that may affect how they
participate in school. Students may be hungry; their clothes may not be new or
of the current style; they may be lacking school supplies; and they, their parents,
and other family members may be working long hours and/or multiple jobs.
Understanding these sociocultural issues will better equip teachers and schools
to achieve the goal of successfully educating ELL students.
Influence of Geopolitical Issues

In the past, immigrant students came to some school districts from well-
educated, middle-class backgrounds, such as the first waves of Vietnamese
and Cuban refugees in the early 1960s and 1970s respectively. In other cases,
ELLs were the children of graduate students at local universities, and they
typically had been schooled in their native lands before coming to the U.S.
Although middle-class immigrants continue to come to the U.S., now many
more ELLs come from low-income homes. Often, they have had little or
no schooling due to a variety of factors, including economics (e.g., having to
work to help support their families), geography (e.g., living in isolated
areas with limited access to teachers), or war (e.g., leading to intermittent
and/or interrupted schooling). In other cases, students who speak indigenous
languages may have been schooled in their nonnative language, as often
happens in countries such as Guatemala (where a majority of the population
is of indigenous/Indian descent and speaks many different indigenous
languages, including Mon). In these situations, it is common for teachers to
arrive on a Monday and leave on a Friday, thereby further reducing the
educational opportunities for local children.
Due to these socioeconomic factors, immigrants may enter North America
with limited schooling in their native language. This factor alone—the level of
education in the native language (L1)—plays a huge role in how long it takes
to acculturate and acquire English language and literacy. Research shows that
the greater the schooling in the L1, the greater the ease in acquiring English
(Collier, 1989, 1992; Cummins, 1981; Thomas & Collier, 2001). This is due
in part to the way in which literacy skills and content knowledge transfer from
the L1 to the new language (L2). Also, in many of the countries from which
immigrants come, middle-class families have some familiarity with Western/
North American culture through travel, the Internet, cable TV, movies, and
print materials. In contrast, people from much humbler circumstances may
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have had very limited contact with English and Western customs; hence, they
often need more time to adjust to a very different way of life.
General Strategies
................................
Information is the key to being prepared to help newly arrived immigrant

and refugee families. Local community support agencies, such as refugee
resettlement agencies, can alert schools to anticipated arrivals of ELL families
and provide culturally relevant information, including the educational
backgrounds of arriving students. Once educators know which populations to
expect in their schools, they can begin to gather information through the
resources listed on pages 16–18. Many immigrant and refugee families
arrive with tremendous needs, and it is essential for schools to work with
community agencies to coordinate efforts to meet the needs of these families.
Patience, time, and a concerted and consistent effort are the greatest means
of support that teachers and schools can offer ELL students who have
suffered traumas and had little or no schooling.
Schools with large numbers or rapid rises in the numbers of new
immigrant and refugee families have found it useful to add some or all of
the following staff members and programs:
c Parent liaisons from the same ethnic backgrounds and language groups
as the families to provide a bridge between the school and the home.
c Bilingual aides to support ELL students and classroom teachers.
c ELL specialist support people to provide focused English language
development (ELD) instruction.
c Bilingual counselors and/or counselors who specialize in counseling
refugees and immigrants.
c After-school tutoring to provide one-on-one tutoring and
homework assistance.
c Volunteers to work one-on-one with ELLs on a regular basis.
c Newcomer schools or classrooms to provide concentrated cultural
orientation, ELD instruction, and sheltered content-area instruction,
if it is not available in the L1.
c Advocacy, particularly with regard to funding and standardized testing;
it often helps to have access to extra funds for specialized ELD staff and

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programs, including professional development. Also, it is important to

have the resources to act as advocates on behalf of ELLs, for example,
regarding high-stakes testing waivers or test accommodations.
Why is it taking my more recent immigrant and

Situation 1
refugee students so much longer to complete the
English Language Development (ELD) program
than the students I had a few years ago?
Targeted Strategy 1: Check into students’ backgrounds.

How much formal education ELL students have received in their native
language (L1) often greatly affects how quickly they progress in schools in
North America in their new language (L2). In fact, a large-scale national study
by Thomas and Collier (2001) led the researchers to conclude, “The strongest
predictor of L2 student achievement is the amount of formal L1 schooling. The
more L1 grade-level schooling, the higher L2 achievement.” Asking questions
about ELL students’ backgrounds will allow teachers to accommodate the
needs of these students and adjust expectations about how much time they
will need ELD support. Questions that teachers will want to ask parents or
guardians, students, or agency support groups include the following:
c How much time did the ELL spend in school?
c Has the ELL’s schooling been interrupted?
c When was the last time the ELL attended school?
c Did the ELL study in the home language?
c Is there a written form of the home language? If so, are the parents
literate in the home language (or another language)?
c What kinds of trauma may affect the student’s ability to concentrate?
Targeted Strategy 2: Teach students how to “do” school.

Students who have had little or no formal schooling are not just learning a
new language; they are also adjusting to the academic culture of school.
Sitting for long periods of time, understanding class schedules, using
computers, and raising their hands to speak are aspects of schooling that
may be new to them. While teachers should uphold clearly stated standards
of behavior for all students, they also should be prepared to explicitly model
and instruct ELLs in school conduct and encourage the newcomers’ peers to
do so as well—peer partners can be hugely helpful to newcomer ELLs.
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Targeted Strategy 3: Contact community support organizations.

Community agencies and refugee resettlement groups can provide information
about new groups of immigrants and refugees entering the community and
may also offer support services for families, such as helping with basic living
needs, transportation, or after-school tutoring. If these services are not in
place already, agencies can work collaboratively with schools to write grants
and look for other ways to support these services.
Targeted Strategy 4: Enroll students in after-school programs.

Students who have had little or no education in their home countries often
benefit greatly from after-school tutoring and homework assistance. Refugee
resettlement agencies, community support groups, and schools can work
together to secure the financial resources to support these programs. In
general, it is a good idea to provide after-school assistance in a location where
students of many different ages (elementary, middle, and high school) can
receive assistance, since older ELL students are often responsible for the
after-school care of younger siblings while parents are at school or at work.
Targeted Strategy 5: Enroll students in newcomer centers or schools.

Many school districts with large numbers of newly arrived ELLs, particularly
students who have had little or no formal schooling in their home countries,
have created newcomer schools or programs to meet the specialized needs of
these newly arrived students. The objective of newcomer programs is to
provide students with basic language, academic, and cultural skills to help
them prepare for mainstream classes in which they continue to receive
language and academic support. Students often receive support in their home
language through bilingual teachers or teacher assistants, in addition to
English language development (ELD) classes and sheltered English content
classes. In addition, newcomer centers offer ELLs and their families the
opportunity to become accustomed to a North American school environment
(for example, class schedules, grading systems, computer technology, and
social customs) in a safe environment in which all students in the program
are learning about these issues. Resources, such as trauma and other mental
health counseling, parent workshops, interpreters, and collaborative
community support for newly arrived families, are often offered as well.
Newcomer programs are usually optional and short-term, from a few months
to a couple of years, and serve as a bridge to mainstreamed programs in which
students will continue to receive English language development support.
Further information about newcomer programs is available in Program
Alternatives for Linguistically Diverse Students (Genesee, 1999).

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Which countries, languages, and

Situation 2 cultures are we likely to see in the
next few years in our schools?
Targeted Strategy 1: Contact national organizations.
Information about national trends in immigration, refugee resettlement, and
secondary migration within the U.S. and/or Canada can be obtained from the
following organizations, which can often provide information about where to
find local organizations.
c Association of Jewish Family and Children Agencies (AJFCA)
This organization is composed of more than 140 Jewish family and
children’s agencies and specialized Jewish human service agencies in the
United States and Canada. Member JFCA agencies assist Jewish refugees
and immigrants.
www.ajfca.org/facts.html
c Catholic Charities USA

One of the largest social service networks in the United States, Catholic
Charities assists local agencies in refugee resettlement and provides
networking opportunities, national advocacy, program development,
training and technical assistance, and financial support.
www.catholiccharitiesusa.org
c Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)

CAL is a private, nonprofit organization working to improve
communication through better understanding of language and culture.
www.cal.org/index.html
c Central Alberta Refugee Effort Committee (C. A. R. E.)

C. A. R. E. offers several programs to help immigrants and refugees
successfully settle in the area. Some of these programs include
ESL classes for adults, providing information about government
documents (such as applications for citizenship or passports), access
to an interpreter’s bank, and general community outreach.
c Church World Service (CSW)
CSW is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of
35 Christian denominations (Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican) in
the United States.
www.churchworldservice.org
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c Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)

CIC admits immigrants, foreign students, visitors, and temporary
workers to Canada, resettles refugees, and helps newcomers adapt to
society. Its Web site offers information about immigrating to Canada
and the refugee system.
www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp
c Cultural Orientation Resource Center (COR)

The center is housed at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), and
offers orientation resources for refugee newcomers and service providers
throughout the United States and overseas.
www.cal.org/co
c Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
EMM carries out a national program of refugee resettlement through
a public/private partnership with the U.S. government.
www.ecusa.anglican.org/emm.htm
c FCJ Refugee Centre

The center serves refugees and others at risk due to their immigration
status. It addresses issues that face newly arrived refugee claimants in
Canada, including housing, translation, interpretation, legal issues,
orientation to local social services, skills development, and counseling.
www.fcjsisters.ca/RefugeeCentre/index.htm
c Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB)

The IRB of Canada is responsible for applying the Immigration and
Refugee Protection Act. Its mission is to make decisions on immigration
and refugee matters in Canada. In partnership with Citizenship and
Immigration Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, the
IRB helps to develop and implement Canada’s immigration and
refugee program.
www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/index_e.htm
c National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language
Instruction Educational Programs(NCELA)
NCELA is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of
English Language Acquisition (OELA). It is authorized to collect,
analyze, synthesize, and disseminate information about language
instruction, educational programs for limited English-proficient
children, and related programs.
www.ncela.gwu.edu

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c U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)

The committee addresses the needs and rights of refugees and
immigrants in the U. S.
http://refugeesusa.org
c U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The department produces data and statistics on foreign nationals who
have been granted permanent residence or are applying for asylum or
refugee status.
www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics
c World Vision Canada
World Vision’s Refugee Centre provides emergency shelter for refugee
claimants and their families in Canada.
www.worldvision.ca/home/programs-and-projects/canadian-programs/
refugee-centre
Targeted Strategy 2: Contact local agencies.

Local community support groups and refugee resettlement agencies are the
best sources of information for and about immigrants and refugee families.
The national agencies listed above often have information about where to
find local services. Teachers can also contact community centers within their
locale’s ethnic communities.
Targeted Strategy 3: Locate resources about ethnic groups.

Most of the agencies mentioned above have information available about
ethnic groups that are currently in schools and/or slated to arrive in the near
future. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) regularly publishes cultural
profiles of the history and cultural background of refugee populations. Family
members of ELL students can also share information about their culture and
recommend readings about their country and culture.
Conflicts Between Students

Adolescence is a particularly volatile time for many students. In addition, any
time that communities—including schools and classrooms—undergo change,
there is the potential for conflict. Increased numbers of ELL students
bring with them the opportunity to enrich a school’s and community’s global
understanding. They also bring the potential for cultural clashes and
misunderstandings. Conflicts may arise between ELL students and the
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native-English-speaking population or among groups of ELL students. These

conflicts can be grounded in many factors, including race, religion, nationality,
ethnic background, and gender.
Many refugee students and families have lost family members and homes
because of ethnic or tribal warfare. Not surprisingly, these rivalries and hostile
feelings often carry over to their new country. Once families arrive in the U.S.,
the stresses of culture shock, poverty, and poor living conditions can fuel
conflicts that manifest themselves in aggressive behavior and, sometimes,
gang warfare.
All students need to feel safe in their schools. It is the school’s responsibility
to understand the nature of the conflicts, to take quick action to prevent all
forms of physical and emotional aggression, and to stop them as quickly as
possible when they do occur.
General Strategies
................................
Although schools and teachers cannot change sociopolitical realities, they can
make it clear that all cultures, races, ethnicities, and religions are welcome in
the school, and that prejudice of any kind is not tolerated. And they can teach
students strategies for dealing peacefully with anger, hurt, and prejudice.
Below, we list some general strategies for schools and teachers, followed by
more developed strategies for dealing with some of the most frequently
encountered sociocultural issues affecting students in North America.
What Schools Can Do
c Produce clear, strong guidelines and rules about teasing and bullying.
c Create strong relationships with community agencies and law
enforcement agencies.
c Provide professional development on conflict resolution.
c Have parent liaisons and parent-teacher organizations address conflict issues.
What Teachers Can Do
c Learn about potential tribal or ethnic conflicts between populations
in the school.
c Talk with students regularly about bullying and teasing.
c Collaborate to generate norms about interpersonal communication,
including bullying and teasing.
c Include community building and conflict reduction/resolution in
classroom activities on a regular basis.

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c Talk and read about different cultures.

c Address conflicts head-on.
Some of my newcomers are

Situation 1 bullied by other students.
Targeted Strategy 1: Use community-building activities.
Students who see themselves as part of a community are more likely to be
respectful, responsible, and caring toward each other. Feeling isolated from
the community is one factor that contributes to participation in youth gangs.
Regularly providing opportunities for community building may help lessen
those feelings of isolation. Some community-building school and classroom
activities include the following:
c Class meetings (for example, working collectively to solve a problem in
the classroom, such as students not sharing materials or excluding others
from sports).
c Icebreakers, such as:
• You may not know this about me:
—Share some information about yourself that students may not
already know. For example, Katharine has shared the following:
• I won the outstanding athlete silver cup when I was in high
school.
• I hiked the three highest peaks in Scotland, England, and
Wales in 24 hours.
—Pairs of students have about five minutes to interview each other
to learn more about their partners.
—Pairs take turns introducing each other, sharing one item that was
discussed in the pair share.
• Let me tell you about our team:
—The purpose of this activity is to help students find what they
have in common, rather than how they are different (Vicens,
1995). It can also be a good activity when groups are new
to each other, that is, a way for them to begin to form a
cohesive group.
—Give students a set of the following prompts and designate
an amount of time for them to figure out what they have
in common:
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• Our team likes (an activity). We have lots of (object used in

activity). We (do this activity) (how many times a week).
Above all, (this activity) makes us (adjective). We are a very
(same adjective) team.
For example, a team might create the following:
• Our team likes soccer. We have lots of soccer shirts. We play soccer
twice a week. Above all, soccer makes us strong. We are a very

strong team.
—Group members practice introducing their group to the rest of
the class. This can be a choral reading, or group members can
take turns in reading one of the sentences. An unassisted,
memorized introduction can also be very effective.
—Groups take turns introducing themselves to the rest of the class.
• What do we have in common?
—In this activity, students have a designated amount of time (for
example, five to ten minutes) to generate a list of items that they
have in common. The winning team is the group that comes up
with the greatest number of items that are not shared by other
groups. Students we have worked with have listed walking to
school, gender of siblings, eye color, and enjoyment of reading
or swimming.
• Liar’s/Actor’s Club
—See Chapter 3, pages 104–105, for a description of this activity.
c Literature study circles focus on books written by authors from
underrepresented groups.
• See Chapter 4, page 163, for a description of literature study circles.
• See Appendix A for information about booksellers and distributors
of books about diverse cultures and books written in languages other
than English.
c International festivals.
• These celebrations can be held during the day or in the evening, so
that parents can attend. Students can do the following in advance:
—Practice dance performances, including traditional dances.
—Rehearse musical performances, using modern and/or traditional
instruments.
—Prepare fashion shows of traditional clothing, including writing
a script.

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—Draw pictures of the geographic location where they were born.

—Make maps of their native lands.
—Write invitations to family and community members.
—Identify music to be played at the festival.
—Make labels for artifacts that will be displayed and food that will
be served.
We have found that ELL families are eager to share their favorite
traditional foods and welcome the opportunity to share their
cultures in this way. The best school international festivals that
we have attended have included the following:
—Performances by students (for example, dancing, playing music,
putting on skits).
—Displays of labeled artifacts that come from the diverse cultures
in the school. These displays often help enormously in initiating
conversations.
—Food from diverse cultures.
—Attendance of all age groups—very young children can act as
icebreakers for many adults who feel uncomfortable talking
with strangers.
—School faculty and staff make a concerted effort to welcome and
interact with family members.
c School-wide murals also contribute to a sense of community. Students,
school staff, parents, and community members can collaborate on
making the mural.
c School counselors are often excellent resources for community-building
activities, such as Link Crew (linkcrew.com), Where Everybody Belongs
(WEB) (www.boomerangproject.com/web), and Teen Empowerment
(www.teenempowerment.org).
Targeted Strategy 2: Set up norms for tolerance.

On a regular basis, discuss tolerance and bullying with the class. Post norms
for behavior, explanations of what bullying is, and what to do if you see
bullying or are bullied. Some strategies for dealing with bullying include
the following:
If You Are Being Bullied
c Don’t keep it to yourself—tell an adult (for example, a teacher,
parent, or coach).
c Stay calm and try not to show that you are scared or angry—bullies tend
to feed on reactions.
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c Ignore or walk away from the bully.

c If ignoring doesn’t work, tell the bully to stop (“Stop that!” “That’s not
funny” or “How would you like it if someone did that to you?”).
c Don’t fight back—a bully can’t be bullied into changing his or her actions.
Also, it’s dangerous.
If You See Bullying

c Refuse to join in, because bullies thrive on an audience—if you aren’t part
of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

c Be a friend—if you know someone is being bullied, offer to walk with that
person or sit with him or her at lunch.
c Walk up to the person being bullied and say, “Can I help?”
c If offering to help doesn’t work, get adult help—if you aren’t part of the
solution, you’re part of the problem.
Targeted Strategy 3: Monitor high-incidence bullying areas.

Bullying is most likely to occur outside of the classroom. Schools should
take care to have an observant adult presence in high-incidence areas, such as
athletic areas, cafeterias, and hallways.
Targeted Strategy 4: Prepare class for ELL students.

Teachers can prepare their classes for newly arriving ELL students by providing
information about them, their language, and their country. In the following
discussion excerpt, a teacher prepares his class for a new student from India:
Teacher: Tomorrow a new student is joining our class. His name is Harjot. He comes
from India. (Teacher points to India on the map.) Did you know that many
different languages are spoken in India? Can anybody tell us some of the
languages spoken in India?
Javier: My friend Deepak, he from India, and he speak English.
Teacher: Yes, some people in India speak English. Maybe Harjot will speak some
English, but not everyone in India speaks English. Does anybody know
other languages spoken in India?
Emily: My neighbors are from India, and they speak Hindi.
Teacher: Yes, Hindi is another language that’s spoken in India. Any other languages?
Rebecca: Indian?
Teacher: Good guess, Rebecca. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? But actually,
there is not a language in India called Indian. I guess that’s because there are
so many languages—at least 22. The language that Harjot speaks is Punjabi.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
That’s because he comes from an area of India called Punjab. Let’s find
Punjab on the map. (Points to State of Punjab on map.) Can you see it?
Ahmed: It close to Pakistan.
Teacher: Yes, it’s close to Pakistan. We can look forward to learning more about
Punjab and India from Harjot. One thing that I know about Harjot already
is that he practices the Sikh religion. One important part of the Sikh
religion is that they do not cut their hair, and males cover it with a turban
or dastaar. Harjot’s dastaar is a symbol of his religion and should be
treated with respect—just as we treat all symbols of religion with respect.
Many people show their religion by things that they wear or do. Can you
think of some other ways that people show their religion?
María: My grandma gave me a cross on a chain for my birthday because
we’re Catholic.
Teacher: Right, that’s one way to show your religion.
(The teacher then shows pictures of young people wearing crosses,
yarmulkes, and head scarves, and the class discusses the religions these
items are associated with.)
Teacher: In this country, everybody is free to practice their religion, and it’s
important to respect everyone’s religion. In time, Harjot may want to tell
us more about his religion, his language, and his country. And we can
help him learn about us. How can we help him?
(The discussion continues.)
Targeted Strategy 5: Include diverse racial and ethnic groups

in the curriculum.
It is important to routinely include diverse racial and ethnic groups when
studying all content areas, including literature, history, science, and art. The
following appendices offer resources that can be very helpful to teachers who
are diversifying their school and classroom libraries:
c Appendix A: Booksellers and distributors of books about diverse cultures
written in English and other languages. Some of the books are bilingual
(i.e., written in English and another language).
c Appendix B: Books about diverse cultures.
Targeted Strategy 6: Establish conflict-reduction/conflict-resolution

programs.
Programs to reduce conflict, such as the four described next, can be
implemented by one classroom or an entire school.
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c Peacemakers is a set of lessons that teaches the value of peaceful behavior.

Students study the social skills needed to avoid conflict. Peacemakers
includes lessons in anger management, problem solving, empathy,
assertiveness, conflict resolution, and peer-pressure resistance. Students
also recognize how their own behavior might provoke other students.
More information about Peacemakers is available at
www.applewoodcenters.org/frames_page_links.htm.
c Positive Action Program (PAP) teaches that actions influence feelings, which
influence thoughts. Parents and community members work with teachers
to enhance students’ self-concepts so that they behave more responsibly
and perform better academically. PAP includes training in conflict
resolution, diversity education, ethics, values, responsibility, life skills,
and leadership. More information is available at http://positiveaction.net.
c Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) is a comprehensive multiyear
program for preventing violence and creating caring and peaceable
communities. The teaching guides provide age-appropriate interactive
lessons designed to develop students’ understandings and skills in a wide
range of topics related to social and emotional learning, including active
listening, assertiveness, handling feelings, negotiation, mediation,
celebrating differences, and countering bias. More information is available
at http://innerresilience-tidescenter.org/pdfs/rccp_school-based_sel.pdf.
c TRIBES (Gibbs, 2007) is a process for enhancing learning and human
development by creating communities where all students feel included,
accepted, and safe. Four agreements are honored: attentive listening,
appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect, and the right to pass.
Students learn a set of collaborative skills so they can work well together
in long-term groups (tribes). More information about the TRIBES process
can be found at www.tribes.com.
Targeted Strategy 7: Survey parents.

Some schools that are proactive against bullying send out questionnaires to
parents asking about any incidences of aggressive or threatening behavior
their children may have encountered. These questionnaires not only clarify
a school’s stance on bullying but also give parents an opening to discuss
bullying behaviors with their children. Questionnaires to parents of ELL
students should be translated into their native language, and parent liaisons
can make follow-up phone calls to parents who do not respond.

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I sometimes see conflicts between groups of

Situation 2 immigrant refugee students, which appear
to be carryovers from their own countries.
Many refugees have come to this country because of atrocities suffered in their
homelands. The violence they have experienced is often the result of civil wars,
insurgencies, tribal or sectarian conflicts, or wars of national aggression. It is
not surprising that refugees often bring feelings of anger or hostility toward
those they perceive as their enemies or rivals. In addition, immigrant or
refugee students from countries with strong class or caste systems may have
preconceived notions about interacting with certain groups of people or
nationalities. Many of the strategies discussed in the previous pages can help in
dealing with these conflicts. However, sometimes it may be best to address
these deep-seated issues more directly.
Targeted Strategy 1: Acknowledge the suffering, but distinguish

between groups and individuals.
Students who have suffered violence and persecution must have that suffering
acknowledged. An empathetic ear and acknowledgment of harm or suffering
is the first step toward healing. This step may take place with the help of
counselors or therapists, but can also be drawn out in specific lessons. Oxfam
Education (www.oxfam.org.uk/education) offers many age-appropriate
downloadable lessons for teachers on a number of global issues, including
current world conflicts. These lessons can help all students understand the
violence and suffering occurring around the world. Through lessons such as
these, teachers can also help their students see each other as individuals sharing
similar needs and desires rather than simply members of one ethnic, religious,
or tribal group. Teachers may want to keep in mind that one or two lessons
will not necessarily “cure” deep-seated, long-standing conflicts or prejudices,
but we have found that regular messages of tolerance and understanding,
through lessons and discussions, and by example, are likely to have a
cumulative positive effect on students.
Targeted Strategy 2: Explore and compare periods of discrimination.

During social studies and history lessons that deal with periods of
discrimination in North America, teachers can make a point of relating them
to periods of discrimination in other countries around the world. In addition
to the Oxfam Education Web site mentioned in the previous strategy, teachers
can also use Web sites at Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) and Amnesty
International (www.amnesty.org) to gather specific information.
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Targeted Strategy 3: Teach about antidiscrimination laws.

The United States and Canada have legislation against discrimination.
Teachers can explain these laws to students and also explore why they were
necessary. Again, it will be most helpful if these laws are framed within a
historical and global perspective.
Targeted Strategy 4: Study conflicts in world history.

Through investigating periods of conflict in the world over the ages, students
can develop a deeper understanding of the various political, economic,
religious, and other reasons conflicts erupt and the devastation that they can
cause in the world, as well as how such conflicts have been resolved.
It is beneficial to study fiction and nonfiction literature that explores
these issues as well. For example, Dorothy has discussed with students how
Aesop, believed to have been a slave in Ancient Greece, used his fables
personifying animals to express moral lessons that could have been politically
dangerous if expressed more directly with human protagonists. Another book
that deals with oppression is an autobiographical picture book written by
Peter Sis (2007) about growing up in Czechoslovakia under Soviet rule.
More of a graphic novel than a picture book, The Wall is likely to be
meaningful and thought-provoking to all students, from beginning ELLs
to native-English speakers.
My ELL students are teased and/or

Situation 3
encounter hostility because of their
accents, clothing, and school equipment.
In Our Own Stories (Dresser, 1993), a young Vietnamese girl writes

about her first day of school in the U.S., when she mistakenly wore a
nightgown to class. She describes how confused she felt when the other
students laughed at her, and how embarrassed she felt when an Asian
teacher explained to her that what she thought of as her “dress of lace”
was actually a nightgown for sleeping. It is not uncommon for ELL
students to find themselves in situations where their dress, school bags,
or other equipment are different from those of other students. Sometimes,
these situations are a result of a lack of understanding of cultural norms
for dress and school equipment in North America. For example, we
have known immigrant boys who have come to school wearing clothing
that is viewed in North America as girls’ clothing (for example, a pink
jacket or pink sneakers) and students who have used equipment

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
inappropriate for the setting or their age (for example, carrying a briefcase
instead of a backpack, or a notebook with a cover considered too childish).
ELL families and school staff need education and cultural understanding in
order to avoid the kinds of teasing and embarrassment that can result from
cultural differences or misunderstandings.
Targeted Strategy 1: Address teasing head-on.
Norms against teasing should be talked about and posted in the classroom.
Teachers should include teasing prevention lessons as a regular part of their
curriculum. These lessons should include discussions about the difference
between friendly and hurtful teasing. Teachers can also conduct role-playing
activities in which students take the part of someone being teased, someone
doing the teasing, silent bystanders, and friends who intervene. The
discussions that surround these types of activities can go a long way in
educating students about the consequences of hurtful behavior and how to
prevent teasing.
Targeted Strategy 2: Address issues of dress and school equipment

in parent orientation.
Parent orientations or handbooks are good places to discuss standard
clothing and school equipment. For example, immigrant families may not be
familiar with backpacks for students and places where they can be purchased
inexpensively, including secondhand stores. We have also seen cases in
which ELL teens have badgered their parents to buy exorbitantly expensive
sneakers, jeans, jackets, and other clothing, and parents have acquiesced,
spending a week’s paycheck on name-brand clothing because they feared
their children would be ostracized or made fun of if they didn’t. Parents of
ELL students, who may not be familiar with teen peer pressure, will likely
welcome a discussion of this phenomenon and strategies for helping them
and their children deal with it. While teachers and staff can address issues of
standard and appropriate dress, they can also assure parents that religious
apparel, such as head scarves for Muslim girls or turbans and bracelets for
Sikh boys, are acceptable.
Targeted Strategy 3: Contact religious groups and social agencies

for support.
Refugee resettlement agencies and community groups can discuss issues of
appropriate dress and school equipment with client families. These groups
often accept and distribute donations of clothing and other school items.
28
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Religious groups are another resource for clothing and school supplies. If
these groups are presented with a list of needed school supplies, many are
willing to fill individual backpacks for students in needy families.
Targeted Strategy 4: Teach mainstream students about

language development and ways
to support ELLs.
Often, students who tease ELLs about their accents or nonnative language
grammar have never been in a situation in which they had to use a foreign
language or adapt to new customs. Helping students understand that
language develops over time and showing students how they can support
ELLs in their language learning, rather than making fun of it, can help
develop a positive atmosphere in the classroom. For example, students may
well laugh when an ELL student addresses a male student as “she” instead
of “he.” The teacher can point out to the students that many languages, such
as Chinese, Farsi, and Turkish, use genderless pronouns (for example, he, she,
and it are all expressed by the same pronoun). They can explain that ELL
students are just as aware of gender differences as we are, but it may take a
while before they use pronouns correctly in their speech. Students can
brainstorm ways that are helpful and not so helpful to ELL students as their
language develops. The result of a brainstorming session may be a list such
as the one in Figure 1.1.
Helpful NOT Helpful
Tell them you didn’t understand and Tell them they are stupid
ask them to repeat what they said. or laugh.
Point or use pictures to help them Keep saying, “I don’t

understand. understand.”
Show or explain the misunderstanding Ask them to repeat the correct

(e.g., In English, we don’t call a pen way many times.
“she,” we say “it” because it’s a thing).
Demonstrate how to do or say Walk away or give up.

something correctly (e.g., let out a puff
of air when you say /p/ like in poor,
but don’t let out air when you say /b/
like in bore).
Figure 1.1: What to Do When You Can’t Understand ELL Students

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My ELL students encounter

Situation 4 hostility because of their country
of origin, ethnic background, or religion.
Our ELL students, foreign colleagues, and friends, particularly those who
are from the Middle East and/or those who are visibly Muslim, have reported
an increase in hostile encounters since 9/11. Encountering this kind of
hostility can be shocking and demoralizing to ELL students, and these
events are destructive to the nourishing environment that schools aim to
provide. Many of the issues discussed previously surrounding bullying and
teasing can be helpful in dealing with hostile behavior. The following are
additional strategies.
Targeted Strategy 1: Explore world religions and related

practices with students.
Understanding is often a crucial step toward acceptance and tolerance.
Teachers can help their students appreciate the meaning behind clothing and
symbols, which are sometimes the only aspects of a religion that they know,
by studying world religions. Just such a unit on exploring world religions
was created by two sheltered content-area teachers as a result of tensions
that emerged during a discussion of religious beliefs in a social studies class
(Riles and Lenarcic, 2000). The teachers used a variety of instructional
methods (for example, journals, group research projects, world map timelines,
and silent dialogues) to explore the meaning of religion and spirituality and to
examine six major religions in depth. One of the goals of the project was to
encourage students to explore their own perspectives on religion (including
atheism and agnosticism) and to develop a more sensitive and tolerant view of
the religious choices of others.
Targeted Strategy 2: Encourage regular discussions about

how to respond to acts of hostility.
Discussions about how to respond to acts of hostility can include
these topics:
c When it may be best to ignore hostile remarks (e.g., in vulnerable
situations, such as when students are alone).
c To whom to report acts of hostility (e.g., teachers, parents, counselors).
c How to respond to offensive remarks, such as by expressing pride in
one’s ethnic heritage or responding with questions to open a dialogue
(e.g., Do you know why I wear this scarf?), instead of verbal retorts.
30
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Role-playing different scenarios can be useful in helping students learn

the vocabulary they may want to use in such encounters and to understand
differences in tone and body language.
My mainstream students aren’t very

Situation 5 welcoming of ELLs; they don’t like having

to work with ELLs in small groups.
Targeted Strategy 1: Set up projects in which ELLs are the experts.

Projects in which ELLs can contribute significantly include those that allow
for the inclusion of information about their native countries. Rather than
placing undue attention on ELLs, it is often a good idea to do this kind of
sharing in small groups, where all students are responsible for sharing their
customs and analyzing what they have in common, as well as their distinct
experiences and customs. For example, when exploring life from an inclusive,
multicultural perspective, there are many things ELL students can teach
others in their group, such as:
c Words and phrases in their native language, including:
• Greetings and expressions, such as hello, good-bye, thanks, no thank
you, please.
• Directions, such as come with me, over there, please give me, have a seat.
• Objects in the school and classroom, such as ball, table, chair, book,
paper, rug, pencil.
c Famous people from their country.
c The geography, climate, and animal life in their native geographical
region (for example, the equatorial rain forest areas in South America and
Southeast Asia and deserts or river regions in the Middle East and Africa).
c A special holiday or celebration in their culture, country, or family.
c A game, dance, and/or song from their country.
Targeted Strategy 2: Support ELL student presentations.

ELL specialists can work with content-area teachers to develop units in which
ELL students visit classrooms around the school to present information about
countries and cultures being studied by the students in the classroom. For
example, a school in Montana celebrates its cultural diversity every year with
International Day (Reed and Railsback, 2003). Each classroom hosts a nation,
such as China, Russia, or Venezuela. Students from those nations speak about

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
the countries, languages, music, geography, and special interests of their

countries. Students sample the country’s foods, “travel” to the country
using a passport, participate in a parade of flags, and sing along with
international music.
Targeted Strategy 3: Set up language-appropriate cooperative
learning roles.
Playing a role in the classroom, such as timekeeper or errand runner, can help
ELL students feel part of the group while lessening the pressure to perform
beyond their linguistic ability. Illustrating, labeling, taking photographs,
playing a musical instrument, sewing, cooking, and designing are other
nonlinguistic ways that ELL students can contribute to group projects.
However, care must be taken that they don’t get stuck in these less
linguistically demanding roles once they become more fluent in English.
Targeted Strategy 4: Group students very carefully.

It is best to carefully consider with whom to place ELL students so that all
students in a group can benefit from the cooperative learning experience. In
many cases, ELL students can benefit from being included in heterogeneous
groups of students. At other times, it may be useful to group students
homogeneously by native language so they can support each other and
clarify one another’s learning in their first language. ELL students who
have established comfortable working relationships with support partners
can be placed together, especially if the task is new to the ELL student.
Dissonances Between Community

Expectations and School Practices
Most people have opinions, even strong opinions, on what school should look
like and what it should do; this is also true of immigrant and refugee families.
In large part, school experiences that we have had, both positive and negative,
form the basis for how we perceive the way schooling should be conducted.
For immigrant and refugee families, for whom life in North America is often
filled with frustrations, conflicts, diminished resources, and reduced status,
school may be one of the few situations in which they feel they have some
knowledge, or even expertise.
Add to this reality the fact that classroom practices vary a great deal
around the world. For example, in many developing countries, where some
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classes may contain 50 to 100 students, a didactic transmission approach to

teaching is often the norm, including rote learning, memorizing, and
chanting lessons. If students and their families are familiar with this mode
of instruction, it can be very challenging for them to adjust to the more
learner-centered approaches of many North American schools.1
Another type of dissonance occurs when teaching practices in North
America are much less progressive or learner-centered than those of the home
country. For example, in Japan and Korea, there is a strong tradition of an
inquiry approach to mathematics learning that is often missing in North
American classrooms. Similarly, when students come from countries where
they have been exposed to high levels of math and science instruction, it can
be very alarming to both parents and students when the content demands are
reduced in North American schools.
A third area of dissonance that is often encountered revolves around
teacher-student dynamics, and there is a wide range of specific dissonances.
For instance, some parents have come from countries where corporal
punishment is the norm and don’t understand why teachers don’t smack or
physically punish students who have transgressed. Also, in many countries,
classrooms are relatively quiet, and when the teacher speaks, he or she gets
the undivided attention of students. So, it can be of great concern to immigrant
families when they see what appears to be chaos in the classroom and
inattentive students. When students come from cultures where being quiet
and deferential and not expressing an opinion to an adult are considered
good behavior, it is hard for some parents to see their children chastised for
being unassertive and quiet. When students encounter these huge differences
in expectations and behavior, it can be very confusing and lead them to
behave inappropriately.
General Strategies
................................
Understanding the dissonance is the first step toward dealing with it. For
example, what does the teacher expect as opposed to what the student expects?
And what are the underlying causes of these expectations? Flexibility on the
part of teachers and ELL students and their families may sometimes be the
1 A transmission model of teaching/learning is, of course, still common in North America, particularly
when mandated, scripted textbook teaching is the norm, an increasingly common practice in the
United States since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
solution. For example, we have encountered the following situations and

solutions that make sense both at home and at school:
c Teachers changed homework policies so that students who were
babysitting or going to work with their parents had an extended time
to complete assignments.
c The parents of a sick child who had been visiting traditional healers but
remained quite sick agreed to take their child to a physician practicing
Western medicine who consulted with the traditional healers.
c Teachers adopted certain practices used by school systems in other
countries, such as an inquiry approach to math.
There are times, however, when practices commonly used in some
cultures, such as spanking or beating, are unacceptable or illegal in North
America, and schools and community organizations must make that very
clear to immigrant families.
Schools should make every attempt to respect and tolerate religious
differences, such as Muslim girls wearing head scarves or Sikh boys wearing
turbans and bracelets. In order to inform their students about unfamiliar
customs and practices, teachers can invite parents or other guest speakers
into classrooms to share aspects of their culture. This can be extended to the
entire school community through a school-wide international festival, which
can provide an excellent avenue for discussions about cultural differences
(and similarities).
Some of my students are unfamiliar and

Situation 1 uncomfortable with learner-centered,
process-oriented learning experiences,
such as writing workshop, math
manipulatives, and exploratory science.
Targeted Strategy 1: Assign a partner.

A peer is frequently the best person to explain to an ELL student what is going
on and can demonstrate and work with the student. If partners come from the
same country and speak the same language, they are in the best situation to
understand the confusion or discomfort that the ELL student may be feeling;
however, any empathetic student can show an ELL student how to proceed, for
example, in exploratory science experiments. Often, ELL students become more
comfortable with these types of learner-centered experiences once they have
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encountered them a few times and have had the opportunity to understand
how the process leads to the end result.
Targeted Strategy 2: Explain benefits and share end results.

It is important to explain to students that they are being asked to participate in
process-oriented learning experiences and activities because these experiences
promote problem solving in real-life situations that students will encounter

outside of class, now and in the future. These experiences help students retain
and understand information attained through their own routes of discovery,
and teachers can understand students’ developmental processes and teach more
specifically to their needs. In addition, students need to see the end result of
process-oriented learning experiences. For example, when Dorothy teaches
her students to create PowerPoint presentations about a chosen city, she shows
them presentations produced by previous students. She points out some
common features of the presentations (for example, keeping information short,
using an outline format, making text and pictures stand out), but also points
out the many ways in which the presentations are different (for example,
differences in color, design, and layout; how different students have focused
on different features of their cities; and how different animation techniques
were used). She encourages students to experiment with their writing and the
PowerPoint software to create a presentation that is unique, but lays out the
promise of an attractive end result by sharing previous presentations with them.
My students do not like doing group work

Situation 2
where all students get the same grade.
Because they are not native speakers, my ELLs

Situation 3 sometimes expect their native-English-speaking
peers to do most of the work in group projects.
ELL students who have not been exposed to group projects can be confused
or distrustful of cooperative learning processes. They may react to group
assignments by expressing displeasure, as in Situation 2, or they may respond
by handing over responsibility for the work to their native-speaking peers
whom they feel can more adequately fulfill the required tasks, as in Situation 3.
In either case, it is important for all students to understand the purpose of
group work and the roles that ELL students can play in completing
group assignments.

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Targeted Strategy 1: Explain the purpose of group work.

When students object to the whole group receiving a single grade, it is
important to explain to them the following:
c The goal of group work is to learn from and with peers, and to learn
to work together.
c Doing one’s fair share of the work is important. However, students
may contribute differently according to their varied skills and talents.
Targeted Strategy 2: Arrange multifaceted group work.

Make sure that group work is multifaceted so it can accommodate
different learning styles and talents. Also, encourage students to use
audio and visual materials, including multimedia and PowerPoint
presentations. Be prepared to teach the students how to use these tools
if they are not familiar with them. In addition to traditional cooperative
learning roles, other ways that new ELL students can contribute to group
work in the classroom include: illustrating, labeling, designing, sequencing,
organizing, creating or recording music, running errands, and providing
information in their native language (if translators are available to translate
for them).
Targeted Strategy 3: Teach non-ELL students strategies

for working effectively with ELLs.
Non-ELLs can get frustrated when ELL peers don’t understand or have a
hard time completing academic tasks quickly or accurately. That’s why
strategies for working with ELLs, like the following, can be very helpful:
c Allowing enough time for ELLs to process questions and requests and
to formulate responses.
c Using gestures, pictures, and objects to explain things.
c Listening attentively.
c Paraphrasing what you hear the ELL say.
Targeted Strategy 4: Group students carefully and

monitor progress regularly.
Group students very carefully, making sure that ELLs are in groups where
they can succeed. Observe groups carefully by moving around the classroom.
Watch and listen, at close range and from a distance. It is important to
monitor groups regularly, so check in on their progress and ask about their
future plans frequently.
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Targeted Strategy 5: Teach students how to recognize, raise,

and deal with problems.
Social skills do not magically appear when cooperative learning strategies are
employed. Instead, social skills must be taught to students just as purposefully
and precisely as academic skills. It is essential to be explicit about the kind
of behavior you expect. Some strategies that can foster successful group
work include:
c Making sure that students understand group-work expectations.
Shown below are some basic norms that apply to all students:
• Contribute and help.
• Listen carefully to others.
• Encourage everyone in the group to participate.
• Praise helpful actions or good ideas.
• Ask for help, if needed.
• Check to make sure everyone understands.
• Stay on task.
c Modeling what these behaviors look like.
Simple role-playing that includes appropriate and inappropriate behaviors
can be very effective. We have noticed that students seem to better
internalize appropriate behaviors after brainstorming these behaviors in
a role-play activity.
c Having students evaluate their behavior.
If group members are not behaving appropriately, it can be helpful to do
the following:
• Assign someone to the gatekeeper role—this person has the
responsibility of ensuring that behavioral expectations are met.
• Have everyone in the group evaluate each other.
c Allowing time for reflection and debriefing.
Following group work, it is essential to allocate time for debriefing so
that problems such as students not being prepared, goofing off, or putting
down group members can be presented and solutions discussed and
modeled through role-plays.
Targeted Strategy 6: Prepare a contract.

It is often useful to have the group prepare a contract together, listing the
roles for each member of the group, along with deadlines, and signing off on
it. (See Figure 1.2.) At the end of group-work activity, ask students to assess
the effectiveness of the group, as well as the contributions and work of each

Group Project Contract
Project: ______________________________________________ Date: _____________________________
Names of Group Members:
Tasks to be completed Person responsible Due date Signature
Assessment of Group
How well do you think your group worked together?
Not very well: _______ OK: _______ Very well: _______ Superbly: _______
Please explain your rating:
What were the strengths of your group work?
What were the limitations of your group work?
Please rate each member of the group, including yourself:
Group member Contributions Difficulties encountered
Figure 1.2: Group Project Contract

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group member. It is important to spend time with students before beginning

group work to develop a set of guidelines for effective group work. At this
time, it is important to discuss how same is not necessarily equal. It is not
reasonable to expect a newcomer to be able to do the same kind of research
that native speakers might do, but he or she can have other important roles,
such as illustrating or labeling text that has been developed by group
members. Emphasize that all group members need to work hard for
themselves and on behalf of the entire group—students can anonymously
rate each other’s contributions, and the teacher can give a group grade and
individual grades based on feedback from group members.
Targeted Strategy 7: Don’t always grade group work.

Although it is important for students to learn to work together, not all group
work has to be graded.
Situation 4 My ELL students cheat on tests.
In some cases, students may not perceive what they are doing as cheating,
since what teachers in North America may view as cheating would not be
regarded as such in other countries. In many countries, there is much less
emphasis placed on individual achievement; it is acceptable, in fact even
desirable, to work together and to share answers. In other cases, student
cheating may be a result of unrealistic expectations imposed on ELLs as a
result of local, state, or federal testing regulations. For example, students who
are expected to take tests (standardized or class-based) well beyond their level
of English may passively put their head down or may, proactively, resort to
looking at their neighbor’s paper. It’s also possible that ELL students may
not realize the serious repercussions of cheating in this country because in
their countries corruption has forced teachers to collude in cheating. It is
important that ELL students understand what cheating means in North
America and that teachers address ways to prevent it—when students are
“caught” cheating, no one benefits. (See Chapter 5, pages 248–249, for
information about plagiarizing.)
Targeted Strategy 1: Talk about cultural differences around learning.

For students and teachers to understand the full implications of attitudes
about learning, assessment, and cheating, teachers can invite discussions

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
about these issues in class. Discussions might start with the following kinds of
broad questions:
c What do you think is the best way to learn?
c Do you like to learn with others or do you like to study by yourself?
c What are some ways that you learned in your country?
c What did your classroom look like in your country? Were there desks in
a row? Did you sit at tables? Did you face the teacher or did you face
other students?
c Did you work on assignments independently or with other students?
c Did the teachers give you answers to memorize or did they expect you to
solve problems and find information yourselves?
As students discuss any differences in teaching and learning styles,
teachers can encourage students to think about why these differences exist.
From broad questions about teaching and learning, teachers can begin to ask
more narrow questions about testing and evaluation, which might include
the following:
c Is it important to know if someone has learned something?
c How can you determine if someone has learned?
c Is it more important for each student to learn or for the group to learn?
c Do teachers single out individual students for praise in public or do they
praise students privately? Or do they never praise students?
And finally, teachers can raise questions about the idea of cheating.
c What do you think cheating is?
c Do you think cheating is okay?
c Is it sometimes okay and sometimes not okay to cheat?
c What forms of cheating are there? Are some worse than others?
c Should students be punished for cheating? If so, how?
In these discussions, it is important for teachers to explain the
consequences of cheating in the school setting as well as other settings that
students might encounter in the future, such as college and the workplace.
Targeted Strategy 2: Set up problem-solving or opinion scenarios.

As a follow-up to the discussions about learning and cheating in the previous
strategy, or to open up discussions about learning and cheating, teachers can
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provide students with a series of problem-solving discussion activities centered

around the topic, such as the following:
c You are going to have a math quiz. How would you prepare for it?
c You are taking a test and you see your friend is copying your answers.
What would you do?
c You were the only person in your class to get 100 percent on your science
test. The teacher holds up your paper, tells the class your score, and says
what a wonderful student you are. How would you feel?
c The teacher says that you cheated on your research paper because you
copied some sentences from a book without saying so. Do you think the
teacher was right?
c Your friend was caught copying during a test. The teacher gave your
friend a failing grade for the test. Do you think that was a fair response?
As the class discusses these situations, it is important to explore why
students answer as they do, how their beliefs and feelings are affected by their
cultures, and what the cultural norms are in North America.
Targeted Strategy 3: Explain to parents and students due process

if students are accused of cheating.
Students and their parents may not realize that they have the right to defend
themselves against accusations of cheating. This information should be
included in parent orientations and in parent/student handbooks in the
languages of the students and parents. In addition, when ELLs are accused
of cheating or plagiarism, information about the process of defending
themselves should be explicitly provided in person with a translator and
should be provided in writing in English and the language of the students
and parents.
Targeted Strategy 4: Teach students how to take tests.

Because of the proliferation of standardized tests and few waivers from such
tests, ELL students are often required to take tests that are beyond their
linguistic or subject-matter knowledge. This situation can be almost as
frustrating for teachers as it is for ELL students. Teachers can help make the
testing less stressful for students by preparing them ahead of time. Here are
some things that teachers can do before giving a standardized test:
c Explain carefully to the students (and their parents) why you must
administer the test and what the information will be used for. Parents and

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
students may be worried that the students will be forced to leave school
or repeat a grade if they fail the test.
c Give examples of the kinds of questions that students will see on the test.
c Practice ahead of time by marking responses in the same manner as will
be required on an upcoming test (for example, fill in bubble responses,
circle multiple-choice answers) and with the same writing implement
that the test demands (for example, pencil, pen).
c Explain to students that they will not be penalized for guessing and
discuss how and when guessing is a good idea (for example, if there are
only a few minutes left in a timed test).
c Explain to students if the test is timed, and give students practice with
timed tests.
c Explain to students what is permissible to do if they are confused
or don’t understand (for example, they can raise their hand for the
teacher, but they can’t speak to the student next to them; they can
put their head down if they don’t understand; they can stop early and
leave the testing area).
c Explain rules about leaving the testing area in the middle of the test
(for example, whether they can go to the bathroom and under what
conditions; what they should do if they feel sick).
c Tell students whether they can use dictionaries or calculators.
c Explain carefully to students what will happen if someone sees them
looking at another student’s paper, copying information from a paper,
or trying to use a dictionary when it is prohibited.
Targeted Strategy 5: Use many different forms of assessment.

It’s a good idea to offer students many different ways to show what they have
learned. By doing so, they can become accustomed to traditional methods of
assessment in North America, such as individualized discrete point tests
(e.g., true and false or multiple choice), essay exams, short-answer tests, and
problem-solving tasks, as well as other forms of evaluations they may or may
not be used to (for example, portfolios, group projects, demonstration, or
hands-on assessments).
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Many of my ELL students never look directly

Situation 5 at me when I am talking with them, which
can sometimes feel awkward and sometimes
downright rude.
In many countries around the world, including China and Latin American
countries, a sign of respect, particularly when being chastised, is to lower
one’s eyes and avoid eye contact. This situation, however, is just one of many
cultural differences affecting classroom behavior that teachers may encounter
when working with ELL students. Recognizing and understanding typical
behaviors is not stereotyping. Behaviors are part of a larger culture and should
be understood within that cultural context, rather than viewed as isolated
behavior that may be perceived as strange.
Targeted Strategy 1: Understand cultural differences.

Understanding cultural differences helps to prevent misunderstandings
about behavior that is thought to be rude. (See Appendix C for a list of
behaviors that may appear to be rude or strange in North America but
that reflect standard conduct in other parts of the world.) In addition, the
Cultural Orientation Resource Center at the Center for Applied Linguistics
(www.cal.org/topics/rc/index.html) produces culture profiles to promote
understanding of new refugee populations. Culture profiles provide short
introductions to the history and cultural background of refugee populations.
Local refugee resettlement and community service agencies are other good
resources for cultural information.
Targeted Strategy 2: Explain your feelings.

Just as it is incumbent upon the teacher of ELL students to understand
behaviors that are culture-based, it is equally incumbent upon them to teach
norms and practices in the new culture. Often, the most effective response is
for teachers to be clear and explicit about their own expectations or those
prevalent in North American society. Teachers can respectfully explain to
ELL students and their parents their feelings about specific behaviors. As
ELL students become part of a mainstream class, everyone in the class must
be prepared to adapt and to broaden his or her understanding. However, like
language learning, cultural understanding does not happen spontaneously; it is
a process that takes time and effort.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Targeted Strategy 3: Teach about cultural differences.

Older ELL students, in particular, may benefit from explicit teaching about
cultural differences. They often appreciate learning about what might be
considered rude or polite behavior in different countries. For example,
spitting in public in some countries is quite common, while it is frowned
upon in many parts of North America. Teachers may want to share the list of
behaviors included in Appendix C with their students and discuss how these
behaviors are viewed in North America and in the students’ countries.
Teachers should be especially sensitive to making sure that judgments (good
or bad) are not made about specific behaviors within specific cultures, but
that students understand these are simply cultural differences. On the other
hand, students will want to understand what reactions certain behaviors may
elicit in North America. Teachers can invite guest speakers from other
cultures and/or students who have lived in North America for a while to talk
about how they have adapted to North American cultural norms without
losing their cultural identity.
I have some male students who won’t let

Situation 6 the female students speak for themselves
or who don’t listen when females speak.
Discourse in classrooms can be affected by cultural norms of gender

differences (Stritikus & Nguyen, 2007; Wolfe & Faltis, 1999; Zuengler,
2004).These differences may result in male-dominated interactions, although,
in some cases, the opposite situation may prevail, and female ELL students
may speak more than males. In the strategies that follow, we discuss ways
that teachers can discuss these differences with their students and encourage
equal participation and respect among female and male students.
Targeted Strategy 1: Discuss interaction styles

among different cultures.
Students have personal and cultural responses to different kinds of
classroom interactions. Teachers can open discussions about what patterns
of interactions students are accustomed to (for example, lecture, questions
and answers, small groups, women separated from men). These discussions
may help teachers understand what kinds of interactions make students
comfortable or uneasy.
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Targeted Strategy 2: Offer opportunities for different

kinds of interactions.
Males and females may have different responses to different kinds of
discourse. For example, in a study of high school students of Mexican origin,
researchers found that girls actively participated most in known-information
exchanges with the teacher (when the teacher already knows the answer),
whereas boys demonstrated more resistance talk (for example, arguing,
changing the subject, denying), resulting in more turns at talk than girls
(Wolfe & Faltis, 1999). They also noted that girls decreased their participation
as the requirement for sustained and more academic discourse increased.
Teachers might find that discourse structures in which student-initiated
language is a necessary part of classroom interaction (for example, exploratory
and inquiry-based activities) create a more equitable distribution of
participation by boys and girls.
When students come from cultures where power and authority are
held by men, teachers may find that competition makes both genders
uncomfortable—both boys and girls may be reluctant to participate for fear
that girls may outshine the boys, who will then lose face. Students may also
come from societies in which males or females “own” particular settings or
kinds of discourse. For example, Dorothy has had male African students who
begin to orate on a subject in much the same way a tribal leader would deliver
a speech. These speeches tend to stop further conversation on the subject.
On the other hand, at classroom parties, where females set out and serve food,
women are likely to dominate the conversation. Participating in classroom
interactions is an important part of language and academic development;
ELL students need to become accustomed to the interaction styles of North
American classrooms, and they need opportunities to contribute to classroom
conversations in ways that are nonthreatening to them. In the chapters that
follow, we offer a diverse range of classroom-discourse strategies that can
support language and academic development.
Targeted Strategy 3: Explain why women (or men) need to talk.

When male students attempt to talk for female students, or in cases when
male students are resistant to certain kinds of activities (for example,
competing against women), teachers can have frank talks about why women
sometimes need to speak for themselves (for example, to assess their needs
and strengths; to develop their language and academic skills; to prepare for
competitive situations in the future, such as in college or at work).

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Targeted Strategy 4: Use parallel role-play.

Teachers can use role-play to initiate discussions about gender differences in
interaction styles between North American and other countries. For example,
teachers can ask students to create dialogues within specific circumstances
or settings. One dialogue would model North American culture and
conversational styles and the other dialogue would model the cultural
and conversational style of the ELLs’ native country. The following are some
examples of possible role-playing situations or dialogues:
c A student’s fifteenth or sixteenth birthday party.
c A soccer match, either attending or participating.
c A job interview, with both males and females playing roles of interviewer
and interviewee.
c A teacher giving a reprimand.
c A student lunchroom.
c A wedding.
Teachers who encourage ELLs to come up with topics for gender
role-playing situations may learn a great deal about gender differences in
their students’ cultures from the topics themselves.
Targeted Strategy 5: Raise awareness of differences in male/female

discourse by doing research.
Read excerpts from You Just Don’t Understand by Deborah Tannen (2001)
and ask students to look at differences in how males and females talk in the
classroom. Students can do research in their various classes by writing down
how many times boys talk and how many times girls talk, for how long, and
what they say. With permission from teachers, students can record classes
for later analysis, and discuss such issues as how discourse differs by subject,
whether boys generally talk more than girls, and whether the topic of
conversation affects how boys and girls talk.
Some of our ELL families won’t let girls

Situation 7 continue in school.
Some of our ELL girls don’t graduate

Situation 8 because they marry early.
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Families often bring their attitudes about girls and women and their role in
society with them to their new country. In some cases, the decision to remove
girls from school is grounded in economic necessity (for example, the need
for family members to work to help pay for living expenses or take care of
younger siblings). Sometimes, however, the decision is grounded in deep-
seated experiences and customs in the home country (for example, where girls
aren’t allowed to work outside the home or can’t get work, even if they are
well-educated). Families may be concerned that well-educated girls will have
difficulty finding a husband because men may shy away from an educated
woman out of fear that an educated wife will not be appropriately submissive.
In some cultures, it is expected that girls will marry at an early age. School
is a place where ELL families can learn about cultural norms in North
America and begin to think about how they can coexist within these norms
while retaining their home country’s cultural values and responding to
economic needs.
Targeted Strategy 1: Work with parent liaisons to

explain educational norms.
When dealing with families’ cultural attitudes about gender roles and economic
needs, parent liaisons can play a valuable role, since they can speak with
families with an understanding of both cultures. If the liaisons are women,
they may also serve as a model of someone who has benefited from education
themselves, and can speak to families about how women can maintain a balance
between the home culture and their new one. These are issues that parent
liaisons and others might want to raise with families on a regular basis, not
just at the critical moment when girls are about to drop out of school.
Targeted Strategy 2: Explain the benefits of well-educated

females to the whole family.
While North Americans typically tend to think of themselves and their
children as individuals, many ELL students come from cultures in which the
family is the central unit. In this case, ELL parents and students might
appreciate explanations of how families as a whole will benefit if girls continue
their education. Without attempting to pressure them, teachers, counselors,
and other school staff who have established a respectful relationship with
families can discuss the contributions that well-educated girls can make
to a family. For example, they can point out that there are few jobs for
undereducated school-leavers, and that well-educated women can be a
greater support for their children and others in the family.

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Targeted Strategy 3: Invite educated females to speak

to parents and students.
Teachers who are familiar with respected females in the community can ask
them to speak to parents and students about their experiences. Parents and
children may be influenced by women who are passionate about their careers,
yet have families and retain the cultural values of their home country.
My students tell me they have to leave
Situation 9 school early to help their families.
My students come to school tired because of

Situation 10 home responsibilities, including needing to work.
My students are absent often because they

Situation 11 have child care, translating, or other family
responsibilities.
These three situations involve family obligations that are often the result of
the financial and social struggles that numerous ELL families face. Many
parents of ELL students are in North America without the support of their
family or friends. Single parents or parents who work two or three jobs
sometimes have no recourse but to depend upon older children to bear some
of the load that they carry, including working at least part-time and taking
time from school to fulfill other family obligations, such as translating for
family members who have difficulty with English and caring for younger
siblings. In some instances, these are responsibilities that older children
would be handling if they were in their home countries, so parents and other
family members may not think that it is unusual to expect the same level of
commitment from their children in their new country.
Targeted Strategy 1: Read statistics about the value of education.

Leaving school before receiving a high school diploma or not pursuing
further education can have lifelong repercussions. Most ELL families are
probably aware that there are few well-paid jobs for undereducated workers,
but they might not realize the vast differences in income and other
quality-of-life issues between educated and uneducated individuals. For
example, adults who don’t finish high school in the U.S. typically earn
65 percent of what people who have high school degrees earn—the most
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severe income gap of any industrialized nation (Feller, 2006). Education can
also affect job stability and advantages that come with stable jobs, such as
access to medical benefits and retirement plans. It is important to share
specific information about the benefits of education and the repercussions of
the lack of it with ELL students and their families.
Targeted Strategy 2: Visit homes and talk with the family.

Parents may not realize how late hours and lack of sleep affect their children’s
school day. Teachers and parents may be able to come up with a solution, such
as seeking the assistance of a neighbor or friend for child care or the support of
a social service agency.
Targeted Strategy 3: Work with community service

agencies that can help families.
Schools can help make sure that ELL families receive all the social services
support that they are eligible for. In addition, schools can collaborate with
community centers and other agencies to gather services together in
convenient settings. For example, if day care and after-school tutoring for
different ages and grade levels are provided in one location, schools can
arrange for all of the school-age children in one family to be bused to this
location for after-school tutoring, participation in sports, and other enriching
activities. Older siblings are thus available to help meet the needs of younger
siblings, yet they can receive any homework or subject-area support that they
need. With their children in organized, supervised programs, parents are free
to work more hours or attend school.
Targeted Strategy 4: Provide a place for students to rest.

Schools or teachers can provide a quiet place, such as the nurse’s office or a
quiet lounge, for students who are extremely tired due to family responsibilities.
Targeted Strategy 5: Encourage students to talk and

write about their experiences.
Teachers should recognize the value in the experience gained by students
shouldering family responsibilities. Despite the difficulty of their circumstances,
students who work are provided with opportunities to make connections
between what they learn in the classroom and real life. They are learning at
a much earlier age than many North American students the importance of
familial commitments and the discipline required to keep them. Students
looking after younger siblings are learning nurturing, patience, and decision-
making skills. Encouraging students to talk and write about these experiences

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can help them make connections between what they are learning in the
classroom and the skills they are using at home and work, and may help them
deal with issues that arise as a result of these responsibilities.
Targeted Strategy 6: Be flexible about homework

assignments and deadlines.
When teachers know about students’ obligations outside of school, they can
work with students to come up with a flexible plan that will help them fulfill
their academic obligations without putting undue stress on themselves or
their families. For example, during the school week, many of Dorothy’s
students go directly from their classes to jobs or child-care obligations.
Although she gives homework during the school week, she usually saves
assignments that require more time, thought, and/or effort for the weekend.
ELL students who attend her school often hold small-group, informal
tutorials with each other during their lunch break. Students who are too
tired to attend afternoon classes sometimes come to their teachers to receive
information or homework assignments they missed, and Dorothy regularly
posts class presentations and assignment answers on a Web site that students
can access at home or at the library.
Targeted Strategy 7: Allow students to make up work.

Students who are absent because of family obligations can be allowed to make
up any assignments or tests that they missed. Encouraging students to let
teachers know ahead of time if they will be out can help students and teachers
work together to develop a plan for making up work or providing an alternate
learning experience.
The parents of my ELL students are resistant to

Situation 12
their children receiving mental health services.
Mental illness is a taboo subject in many parts of the world, including North
America. To suggest that an individual has a mental illness may be insulting,
stigmatizing, or incomprehensible to members of many cultures, to whom
behavioral disorders may be viewed as spiritual problems or a physical illness.
Care should thus be exercised in conveying any suggestion of mental illness
or psychiatric disorder as an explanation for problematic behaviors.
Targeted Strategy 1: Meet with the parents and a mental health worker.
If you suspect that a student has a mental health condition, it is important
to consult with the parents and ask if they have noticed the behavior(s)
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causing concern. If they say yes, ask them to explain what they think is the
cause of these behaviors. Explanations may include spirit possession, in
which case, families should be encouraged to seek the assistance of traditional
healers in the community. Traditional healers are best equipped to work
within a family’s belief system, but are usually sensitive to the need to refer
people to other medical services. Teachers and school mental health workers
may want to read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Fadiman, 1998)
for a sensitive and insightful account of the misunderstandings that can
occur between people with traditional views of illness and those who follow
Western medicine.
Parents who deny the existence of any untypical behaviors might be
reacting to years of maltreatment from repressive political regimes in their
home country. In these cases, it is best to encourage the parents to be alert to
signs of the behavior(s) and to seek permission to have their child evaluated by
an appropriate professional. Make it clear to parents that you are looking out
for their child’s best interest and that treatment may include traditional
healers or caregivers from the family’s native culture.
Targeted Strategy 2: Contact ethnic community groups.

Ethnic community groups are one of the best places to gather information
about how to address mental health issues in schools. They can also provide
referrals for traditional healers.
Targeted Strategy 3: Contact local refugee and immigrant agencies.

Refugee and immigrant agencies are also helpful resources about mental
health issues. It is likely that these groups are dealing with similar issues
with their client families, and it is best for all groups to work together with
local mental health providers to best serve the needs of immigrant and
refugee populations.
The families of my ELL students use practices

Situation 13 that are culturally different (for example,
coining) or illegal in North America (for example,
female genital mutilation/cutting).
While we must be alert to any instances of child abuse or neglect and act
accordingly, it is helpful to be aware of culture-specific medical and other
practices that may appear to be abusive but are simply reflective of different
medical practices. For example, coining, a common healing practice in
Southeast Asian communities, leaves bruises on the back and other parts

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of the body, and it has led to instances where parents have been falsely
accused of child abuse.
On the other hand, other practices that are common in the cultures of
some ELLs are illegal in North America. For example, female genital
mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), which refers to a number of practices that
involve cutting away part or all of a girl’s external genitalia, is practiced on
very young girls as well as adult women in several countries in Africa and a
few areas of the Middle East and Asia. It is considered a human rights violation
of women and children by the United Nations, World Health Organization,
UNICEF, and other global human rights agencies. This procedure is often
done before a girl is 15 years old, so it is possible that ELL girls from countries
in which this practice is common (e.g., Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia) have
undergone this operation. Since it can result in irreversible lifelong health
risks and possible psychological effects, particularly for immigrant girls who
live in Western societies in which FGM/C is not practiced (Toubia, 1994), it is
important for school personnel to be aware of the health and psychological
implications for their ELL students and to collaborate with cultural and health
agencies that are sensitive to and familiar with this issue to refer students and
their families when necessary.
Targeted Strategy 1: Learn about the cultural practices of students.

Cultural profile resources mentioned previously (www.cal.org/topics/rc/index.html)
include information about customary practices, including health practices, of
refugee and immigrant populations. In addition, the University of Washington
in Seattle offers an excellent Web site (www.ethnomed.org) that contains
information about cultural beliefs, medical issues, and other issues pertinent
to the health care of recent immigrants to North America. At its Web
site (www.who.int/en) the World Health Organization has a great deal of
information about female genital mutilation/cutting and other health issues
that may affect ELL families. Two books that offer insights into cultural
aspects of health care are Culture, Health and Illness: An Introduction for Health
Professionals (Helman, 1994) and Refugee and Immigrant Health: A Handbook
for Health Professionals (Kemp & Rasbridge, 2004).
Targeted Strategy 2: Address issues in parent orientations

and handbooks.
Parents of ELL students need to know how traditional healing practices may
be misunderstood. They also need to be aware that some practices, such as
beatings, may be culturally acceptable in their countries but are illegal in
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North America. This information should be provided in the native language

of the parents.
Targeted Strategy 3: Work with parent liaisons or community groups.

Teachers and schools can work together with community groups and other
social and law enforcement agencies to help parents understand the legal
implications of unacceptable practices. At the same time, these groups can

work together to prevent misunderstandings on the part of social support
agencies, law enforcement officials, and health care practitioners. Parent
liaisons, in particular those who are members of the same ethnic group, can
play a crucial role in these cultural-awareness activities.
Communication With Parents

Parents of ELL students care deeply about their children’s education,
well-being, and future (Huss-Keeler, 1997; Samway & McKeon, 2007). In
fact, many immigrant and refugee parents say they know their lives in their
new country will always be difficult, but they have come to give their children
a better future. It is important for teachers and others in schools to recognize
that parents of ELLs may be dealing with enormous issues: meeting the
challenge of a new language, dealing with past traumas, struggling to survive
in a new culture, and adjusting to new standards of education and behavior
while supporting the home language of their children.
Communicating with parents of ELL students is not always easy. The lack
of a shared language is one of the challenges faced by schools and parents, but
it is not the only one. Finding the time to interact with school personnel is
difficult for many parents. They may work long hours, sometimes at more
than one job; go to school themselves; deal with social services agencies and
medical appointments; and take care of younger children. Also, cultural
expectations around parent/school interactions may be different. For example,
in some countries, school and family life are separate, and parents may not be
expected to take an active role in their children’s educational experiences, or
the role parents take may be very different from the role expected from them
in North America.
Some families, particularly refugees, may be dealing with the aftermath of
traumatic events or current issues of domestic violence or substance abuse.
Negative experiences with government officials in their home countries or
current undocumented status in this, their adopted country, may lead family
members to fear anyone with official status, including school authorities.

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In addition, lack of transportation and child care, illness or disabilities, and

limited language skills may leave many families socially isolated and reluctant
or unable to leave the safety of their homes or ethnic communities to venture
out into the schools or community at large.
Despite these difficulties, parents of ELL students are eager for their
children to be successful in school, and often value contact with the school.
Parents of ELL students also welcome opportunities to share information
about their native country and culture. We have found that they appreciate
home visits by teachers and other school staff, and generally have tremendous
respect for their children’s teachers.
General Strategies
................................
Visiting families in their homes, providing parents with a welcoming school
environment, and making sure that oral and written communications,
including school or district Web sites, are translated in their home languages
are the keys to good communication with parents of ELL students.
Schools can address the language needs of parents by offering or working
with community-based organizations to offer adult ESL and literacy classes
with homework help for students (Adger, 2000). Parents should also feel
that the school supports their home language and culture by its inclusion
of bilingual books in libraries and school-wide cultural events, such as
international food festivals, dances, talent shows, plays, or fashion shows.
These events provide ELL families with opportunities to be experts in an
environment in which they are not typically viewed as experts.
The parents of my ELLs don’t speak English

Situation 1 and I don’t speak their languages, so
we can’t communicate.
Targeted Strategy 1: Arrange for translators.

Many school districts have a central office that arranges for translators to
assist with written and phone communications and parent/teacher conferences.
These translators are the best option, since they have usually been carefully
screened for language ability and professionalism.2 If this type of service is
2 For guidelines on how to interact successfully with parents and translators see
www.thecenterlibrary.org/cwis/cwisdocs/translate.html.
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not available, or if the language of the ELL student is one for which a
translator is not available, other translators can often be found through
community organizations or groups, such as the following:
c Refugee resettlement agencies and agencies that deal with immigrants.
c Specific ethnic or language community groups or organizations.
c Former Peace Corps volunteers.

c College or high school foreign language departments or organizations.
ELL students themselves should not be asked to translate for their parents
or other adults. It is embarrassing for the parents, and neither the teacher nor
the parents are likely to feel free to discuss sensitive issues.
Targeted Strategy 2: Have parents bring a trusted

friend or family member.
If an official translator is not available, or if the parents are not comfortable
with a school-assigned translator, invite them to bring a trusted family
member or friend to translate.
How do I communicate with parents

Situation 2 who are illiterate?
Targeted Strategy 1: Assess the degree and nature of illiteracy.

Find out if the parents are illiterate only in English or in their native language
as well. If they are literate in their native language, arrange to have letters
or notes translated. Even if a teacher knows that parents are illiterate, all
written communication should be sent home, as a friend or family member
may be able to read or translate the material for them.
Targeted Strategy 2: Offer telephone support.

Offer telephone translations for important documents sent home from
schools. Put a graphic of a telephone and a phone number to call at the
top of the document, so parents can call to hear a recorded message of the
document’s essential information in their native language. For low-incidence
languages or languages for which a translator is not available, the message
can be left in English for parents who are able to understand spoken English
but who are not very literate.

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Targeted Strategy 3: Have students create calendars.

Teachers can work with students to create calendars with pictures and a few
words for important events happening in that month. Encourage them to take
the calendars home to display in a prominent place, such as on the refrigerator.
The parents of my ELL students
Situation 3 decline a translator, but we have
a hard time communicating.
There are many reasons why parents might choose to decline a translator.
Some may involve the parents’ feelings about language translation in general.
For example, they may be embarrassed that they are not fluent speakers of
English and feel that using a translator would make them less highly
regarded. Other reasons might have to do with the particular translator. For
example, ethnic communities can be close-knit, and parents may be sensitive
about others in their community being privy to personal issues. Sometimes,
translators, although they may share the same language, might come from
conflicting tribes or ethnic groups in the home country, or from different
social classes. Parents should never feel forced to accept a translator with
whom they do not feel comfortable. Their decision to decline the services
of a translator should be respected and, at the same time, every effort
should be made to ensure that parents and teachers are able to understand
each other.
Targeted Strategy 1: Ask about acceptable translators.

If parents decline the use of an official school translator, teachers can ask
if they know of someone else who could translate for them at meetings
and/or conferences.
Targeted Strategy 2: Communicate effectively.

If parents prefer to meet without a translator, keep these points in mind
during meetings or conferences:
c Smile.
c Express regret that you don’t speak their language.
c Speak slowly and clearly, but not loudly or in an exaggerated way.
c Avoid complex sentences (for example, “This is the book that Suma is
reading” vs. “Suma is making tremendous progress, and I think it’s partly
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related to her liking to read, including rather complex texts like this one,
which is part of a series that has won lots of awards”).
c Use more common language (for example, use talk instead of communicate).
c Use gestures.
c Pause frequently to give parents time for processing and ask if they
have questions.
c Show samples of the child’s work.
c If parents are literate, keep a bilingual dictionary handy to use for
key words.
c Draw sketches of important content words or concepts.
c Make a list of talking points that parents can take with them; they may
want to ask someone to explain them later.
My students’ parents say they’ve been told

Situation 4 not to speak their native language at home so
their children can learn English, but they can’t
communicate with their children in English.
The parents of my ELL students don’t speak

Situation 5 English at home, and I wish they would so
the children could learn English more quickly.
Although these two situations may seem totally different, they are, in fact, two
sides of the same coin, so we are addressing them together.
Sometimes well-meaning school staff or community members think they
are helping parents of ELL students by advising them to speak English with
their children, instead of their home language. Their thinking is that the more
English the students are exposed to, the more quickly their English will
develop. However, this advice runs contrary to research about linguistic and
academic development. Parents should be communicating with their
children in their native language in order to support cognitive and linguistic
development (King & Fogle, 2006).These cognitive and linguistic skills
transfer from one language to another, so to deny this cognitive and linguistic
scaffolding is potentially harmful to students. Also, it is harmful for students
not to be able to communicate fully with their parents.

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Parents of ELL students sometimes express the belief that they are
helping their children by speaking only English in the home, but teachers
should urge all parents of ELL students to use their native or home language
to support the retention and use of the native language.
Targeted Strategy 1: Educate parents and school personnel.
Provide parents and school personnel with literature about the benefits of
bilingualism and the transfer of skills from one language to another.
Targeted Strategy 2: Support native language use at home.

Encourage parents to support their native language at home in the
following ways:
c Talk a lot with their children in the home language.
c Tell stories in the home language and encourage their children to join
in with the storytelling.
c Talk to their children about what they did at school or after school.
If they use English words, repeat what they have said using the
home language.
c Take their children to meetings and cultural events, such as concerts,
plays, poetry readings, and films, where they will hear people using
the native language.
c Find out if there is a community language school where the native
language is taught.
c Look for books written in the home language.
c Express pride in the native language.
c Don’t laugh at or tease children because of their accents or when
they make mistakes in the L1.
Targeted Strategy 3: Support native languages at school.

Teachers and schools should support the native languages of their ELL
students by including books in the native language in the classroom and
school libraries, participating in book clubs that offer bilingual books, inviting
bilingual guest speakers into the classroom, and holding international
language weeks or international festivals. In addition, teachers should speak
regularly about the advantages of being bilingual and routinely include
readings about bilingual people in their curriculum.
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Some parents won’t let their

Situation 6 children go on field trips.
Parents of ELL students may not allow their children to go on field trips
because they cannot afford the expense involved. Also, parents may not be
accustomed to the idea of field trips and view them as a frivolous waste of a
school day instead of a valuable educational experience. In some cases parents
may object for cultural or religious reasons. Dealing with parents who choose
not to allow their children to go on field trips must be handled sensitively and
respectfully, and in a way that does not cause stress for the student.
Targeted Strategy 1: Discreetly find reasons for objections.

Teachers should try as discreetly as possible to find out why the parents have
refused to allow their children to participate in a field trip. The students
themselves may be forthcoming about the reason, but if they don’t volunteer
a reason, do not press them to provide one. A phone call or a visit to the
parents should be made by someone the parents trust, such as the teacher,
parent liaison, or a translator. Parents may be embarrassed to admit that they
cannot afford to pay for the field trip, and in such situations, the school
should establish ways to help pay for trips.
Targeted Strategy 2: Support ways for students to pay for trips.

It is important for schools to seek ways to make funds available for low-
income families who cannot afford to pay for field trips. The best approaches
allow for students or parents to contribute to the fund-raising process in order
to save them from feeling that they are accepting charity. Here are some
fund-raising activities in which parents and/or students can participate:
c Bake sales.
c Car washes.
c International buffets.
c International cookbook sales.
c Auctions of students’ art.
c Craft and plant sales.
In addition to fund-raising activities, teachers can help students anticipate and
save for field trips. For example, knowing that many of their students would
find the field trips planned for the spring a financial hardship, teachers at a
school in Rochester, New York, instituted a “savings bank.” Each student was

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given a savings passbook and encouraged to bring in 50 cents to deposit in

their account every Monday. Teachers recorded the deposit and stamped
the date in their passbook. At the end of the year, the students had saved
enough money for their field trip, and often had saved a little extra, which
the teachers returned to them as spending money for souvenirs or snacks on
the trip. Parents were delighted with this system, which helped their children
fund trips without taking a large chunk out of the family budget at one time,
and it also instilled in the children the importance of saving (Zimmer, 1992).
Targeted Strategy 3: Have a translator explain a trip’s

educational purpose.
Translators or parent liaisons can be very helpful in explaining to parents
the educational purpose of the field trip and how it is connected to the
curriculum. If parents still decline, teachers should indicate that they respect
the parents’ decision.
The parents of my ELL students express concern

Situation 7 about behavioral problems with their children
since coming to the U.S.
The parents of my ELL students tell me that

Situation 8 their children threaten to report them to social
agencies or schools if they chastise the children.
Many school systems outside of North America have strict rules of behavior,
and teachers are treated with great respect. For example, students may stand
up when the teacher enters the classroom and when they respond to a
teacher’s questions. In some schools, corporal punishment is an accepted
practice. Parents of ELLs often see North American classrooms as out of
control and North American students as ill-behaved and disrespectful.
Conflicts within a family can arise when ELL students begin to pick up what
parents perceive to be lax mannerisms and rude behavior. The children, on
the other hand, may rebel against what they see as overly strict rules, and
sometimes take advantage of their parents’ lack of familiarity with North
American customs by threatening to report their parents to social agencies.
Schools should not shy away from these issues; instead, they should work
with parents, students, community agencies, and ethnic groups to address
these issues.
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Targeted Strategy 1: Work with parent liaisons.

Parent liaisons, especially those coming from the same ethnic community
and language background as the families, are in the best position to explain
to parents a school’s behavioral expectations and help parents understand
cultural differences when showing respect or disciplining children in
North America.
Targeted Strategy 2: Invite speakers from agencies.

Speakers from social services agencies, such as child protective services, can
be invited to parent orientations or other meetings. Translators should be
available at these meetings, and time and space should be provided so parents
can ask confidential questions.
Targeted Strategy 3: Translate local laws about minors.

Provide translations of laws pertaining to minors, such as how long they can
be left unattended, the local definition of child abuse and maltreatment, and
when minors can legally work and for how many hours.
Targeted Strategy 4: Help parenting support groups.

Schools can provide organizational assistance and facilities for parent support
groups. These groups meet on a regular basis to discuss parenting issues
(for example, how to handle children who want to wear clothing that parents
consider inappropriate, how to deal with children who are disdainful of their
parents because they don’t speak much English). The school can help locate
translators and speakers from local community and nonprofit organizations.

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C HAPTER 2
Listening
Situations
L
istening is often viewed as a passive skill. However, listening requires
active processing of the sounds, stresses, intonations, grammar, and
meaning of the message being conveyed. Listening can be one of the
more difficult demands of learning a new language because the learner cannot
always plan for or anticipate the topic being discussed. Although the results of
listening are not always obvious, it is imperative that teachers pay particular
care that their ELL students are understanding what is being taught since, in
the normal course of a day, listening is used nearly twice as much as speaking
and four to five times as much as reading and writing (Rivers, 1981). In
addition, listening can affect speaking and literacy, including vocabulary
development and comprehension (August & Shanahan, 2006; Fillmore &
Snow, 2000; O’Malley & Valdez-Pierce, 1996). Students who can’t hear
sounds will almost certainly have difficulty producing them in speech or
writing or decoding them when reading.
Teachers of ELL students should keep in mind the following key issues:
c ELL students are more likely to listen actively if they are interested in or
have background knowledge of the topic.
c Colloquial language and reduced forms, such as didyaknow?, can make
comprehension difficult.
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c Visual support (gestures, pictures, videos, realia1) fosters comprehension.

c ELL students benefit from moving from one-step or other simple
listening tasks to more complex, multistep tasks.
c Cultural expectations can affect listening efforts (for example, a student
who has recently arrived from a refugee camp may misunderstand when
a teacher is talking about camping).

c Anxiety can affect a student’s ability to listen.
Students Don’t Understand

or Don’t Show They Understand
Recognizing whether newcomer ELL students understand what is being said
to them is particularly challenging since many students go through a silent
period lasting from one to six months or longer in which they do not respond
orally. These silent newcomers can sometimes get lost in the busyness of
classroom routines and instruction; however, it is essential for ELL students’
language development that teachers communicate with them during this
silent phase. Rather than pressuring the student to speak before he or she is
ready, teachers can use other ways to gauge whether the student understands
them. As ELL students move from the silent phase to oral communication,
teachers can help them understand by using various speaking strategies
and visual supports. Stephen Krashen (1985), one of the leading experts in
second-language acquisition and development, describes the need to provide
second-language learners with “comprehensible input + 1” (often referred
to as i + 1). In other words, the ELL student should understand what is
being said, and then be challenged slightly to extend or expand upon that
understanding. Following are some ways in which teachers of ELL students
can support this understanding and growth.
General Strategies
.................................
c Speak clearly, using a slightly slower pace than when speaking with
native speakers—but make sure not to exaggerate your speech or increase
the volume.
1 Realia refers to three-dimensional objects from real life that are used in classroom instruction,
including tools, materials, utensils, furniture, food, and clothing.

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c Provide visual cues through gestures, drawings and pictures, video, facial
expressions, and realia writing.
c Encourage students to respond physically by pointing to or moving
objects, acting, or role-playing.
c Say things in more than one way. Sometimes students may recognize one
word for an object or concept and not another.
c Don’t avoid colloquialisms or reduced forms, but take the time to stop
periodically and give short summaries of key topics in which speech
is slowed slightly and enunciated carefully. However, do not use
unnaturally stilted language or speak louder.
c Write key words or phrases on the board.
c Whenever possible, avoid background noise or white noise, which can
interfere with comprehension when listening to a less familiar language.
c Place students in a quiet location where you can easily make eye contact
with them.
c Assign partners and encourage partner or pair shares.
c Provide listening activities on the Internet or on audiotapes. We
recommend the following Web sites where teachers can begin to collect
listening activities for ELLs:
• Starfall.com: This Web site includes alphabet listening activities
and stories with audio files, text, and pictures, including nonfiction
(for example, penguins and wolves; fables and Greek mythology).
• http://larryferlazzo.com/english.html: Larry Ferlazzo is an English
and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in
Sacramento, California. His Web site, which contains thousands
of activities, includes many listening links for ELL students at all
levels and on many different topics.
I’m not always sure if my ELL student

Situation 1 understands me. How can I or others
in the school check for understanding?
Targeted Strategy 1: Demonstrate understanding through TPR.

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method of developing language and
vocabulary through actions (Asher, 2003). The teacher (or another student)
recites a series of actions while performing them and invites the ELL student
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to do so as well (Stand up, Sit down, Sit on the chair, Sit on the rug, Jump, Jump
on the rug, Pick up a pencil, Put the pencil on the chair, Put the pencil on the rug).
Putting actions to words helps students retain them. Some books that provide
TPR activities, usually with pictures included, are:
c Action English Pictures: Activities for Total Physical Response by Noriko
Takahashi and Maxine Frauman-Prickel (Alta Book Center
Publishers, 1999).
c Do As I Say: Operations, Procedures, and Rituals for Language Acquisition
(originally published as ESL Operations) by Gayle Nelson, Thomas
Winters, and Raymond Clark (Pro Lingua Associates, 2005).
c Live Action English Book by Contee Seely and Elizabeth Kuizenga Romijn
(Command Performance, 1989).
Additional ideas for TPR activities can be found at the following Web site
devoted to such exercises: www.digischool.nl/oefenen/hennyjellema/engels/tpr/
voorbladtpr.htm. After doing the activities with teachers, peers, or volunteers,
students can follow up with listening exercises in which they match the
activity to the sentence that they hear.
Colorforms (reusable vinyl stickers) or magnetic boards are useful tools
for setting up more complex TPR scenarios, such as going to the airport or
choosing food at the cafeteria.
Targeted Strategy 2: Have students retell.

Ask ELL students to retell a story they have been told or describe a
familiar process. When asked to retell a story using pictures, students
working at a basic level may only give one word or short phrases for each
picture, while more advanced ELLs can be asked to recap the story without
visual aids.
Targeted Strategy 3: Translate into the native language.

One of the most expedient ways of transmitting important directions or key
points when teaching is to translate them into the ELL student’s native
language. Many teachers believe that using a student’s first language will
inhibit development of English. On the contrary, the use of the first language
can mediate tasks, so that students are better able to complete a task in the
second language (Samway & McKeon, 2007; Storch & Wigglesworth, 2003).
Some key issues to keep in mind when translating for ELL students include
the following:
c Translators can be the teacher, an aide, or a peer who speaks the
same language.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Translation should be used mostly for beginner ELL students, and then
only to get across key concepts or essential instructions.
c Plan times when translation can be built into instructional time.
Think-pair-shares (Lyman, 1981), described on page 67, or table talks in
which students explore new ideas or summarize materials presented, are
good times to encourage the translation of important ideas.
c Expect and allow for the use of the native language when two or more
students share a language.
c Don’t overburden peer translators, and never ask a peer translator to
translate sensitive or confidential information.
Targeted Strategy 4: Ask students to draw.

Have students draw pictures or symbols to demonstrate an understanding
of school rules and classroom norms, classroom instructions, content-area
information, or even emotions. For example, a teacher working on animal
classification might ask students to fill in a chart by placing the names of
the animals under their correct classification. While native-English-speaking
students would typically write the word for the animal on the chart, the ELL
student, who might not know the names of these animals in English, could
draw a picture of the animal.
Targeted Strategy 5: Have students write.

Students who are unable to express themselves orally can sometimes express
themselves in writing. Asking a student to write a short summary of a
concept taught or make a list of important words can be particularly helpful
to older students, especially if they are able to use a bilingual dictionary or
electronic translator.
When I ask my ELL students if they understand,

Situation 2 they often nod or say, “Yes,” but I then find
out that they didn’t understand.
ELL students can be embarrassed to admit that they don’t understand

something, especially if they think everyone else understands it or if they
come from a culture in which it is considered negative to ask questions or
appear different in any way. In some cases, students actually think they did
understand, but because of their cultural background or lack of linguistic
sophistication, they did not get a full or accurate understanding of the
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message. Rather than asking ELLs if they understand, teachers can

implement the strategies described earlier to ensure their ELL students
have understood them. What follows are some additional strategies for
making sure ELL students understand, without embarrassing them in front
of their peers.
Targeted Strategy 1: Provide private time.

Provide a regular time in the day when the ELL student or students can
work with the teacher, the aide, or a volunteer tutor. Encourage the students
to note questions or areas of confusion that can be discussed at this time.
In addition, the teacher or tutor can use this time to go over any problems
the student has encountered in class.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use think-pair-share.

Think-pair-share is a cooperative discussion strategy (Lyman, 1981).
1. Students are prompted by the teacher to think about a question or
observation. For example, a teacher introducing a unit on Antarctica can
show it to students on a map and ask, “What do you think the climate is
like in Antarctica?”
2. Pairs of students talk about their answers or thoughts. For example, if the
ELL student does not recognize the word climate, he or she can ask his
or her partner.
3. The pairs share their thinking with the rest of the class. Because they
have had the opportunity to clarify the task, ask about unknown
words, and talk about this topic with partners, ELL students may feel
comfortable enough at this stage to share what they think with the
whole class. If they do not want to share with the whole group, they
will still have had the opportunity to participate in the activity and
express their thoughts with a smaller audience.
My ELL student constantly says, “I don’t

Situation 3
understand,” or says, “I don’t understand”
before I even finish the sentence.
The ELL student who tells you he or she doesn’t understand, without
appearing to make an attempt to understand, may be an anxious student.
Anyone who has entered a new environment in which the culture or language
is unfamiliar can understand the feelings of fear that ELL students sometimes

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
experience. Research has shown that the less anxious and more relaxed the
second-language learner, the easier it is to learn the language (Dulay, Burt,
& Krashen, 1982). Hence, the first step in dealing with anxious ELL
students is to put them at ease. Rather than barraging the student with
additional questions or information, it is better to smile and show that you
are not concerned. Reassure the student that being able to express that
one doesn’t understand is actually a positive sign of developing language.
The following strategies can help put ELL students at ease and move
communication forward.
Targeted Strategy 1: Use peer partners.

Ask peer partners to help the ELL student, as in the following scenario:
Teacher: Ali, you can go to the computer now and use the headphones to listen
to The Rosetta Stone.
Ali: I don’t understand.
Teacher: (Turning to one of Ali’s peer partners) Brian, can you please help Ali
load The Rosetta Stone and show him how to use the headphones?
(Brian joins Ali at the computer and uses words and gestures to explain
what to do.)
Targeted Strategy 2: Have students retell.

Ask ELL students to retell a story or account. The teacher can encourage
the retelling by pointing to illustrations and asking, “And what else?” or
“Can you tell more?”
Targeted Strategy 3: Ask students what they heard you say.

More advanced students who appear to be using “I don’t understand” out of
habit can be asked, “What did you hear me say?” This question will also help
the teacher better understand where communication broke down.
Students Don’t Understand Directions

When ELL students enroll and enter their first North American classroom,
there are many aspects of school life they might find confusing. Beginning
ELL students typically do not have the language to express that confusion or
ask for clarification. If the teacher does not share the ELL student’s native
language, explaining or giving directions to that student can be difficult.
ELL students entering the classroom with little or no English will commonly
develop an understanding of directions in four stages. (See Figure 2.1.)
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Stage 1 Understands little or no spoken English, but can

understand pictures, gestures, dramatizations, and
translations of directions into the native language.
Stage 2 Understands simple directions with continued

support of pictures, gestures, and dramatizations;
understands best when sentence structures and words

used are simple, and repetition and paraphrasing are
used frequently.
Stage 3 Understands complex directions broken down into

simple steps; understands best when given time
between each step to check for understanding and
to clarify any confusion.
Stage 4 Understands complex directions with little or no support.
Figure 2.1: Stages in Understanding of Directions
Movement from one stage to the next is not always straightforward and
depends on many factors, such as the background knowledge or familiarity
the ELL student has with the task at hand or how much of the vocabulary or
how many of the key concepts the student recognizes. Even ELL students
who come to the classroom with some facility in English can become confused
at times because of cultural differences between how schools and classrooms
work in their native country and North America. For example, in some
countries, students would never be asked to work in pairs or small groups,
whereas in other countries, all class work, including tests, is a collaborative
effort. Hence, an ELL student’s look of confusion when asked to perform
some tasks may not be because the student does not understand the
directions, but may simply be because he or she has never been asked to
do the task in that way.
General Strategies
................................
Using consistent classroom routines and language can help ELL students
understand what is happening in the classroom (Curran, 2003; Tabors
& Snow, 1994; Wong-Fillmore, 1985). The following routines are
particularly helpful:
c Keeping to a scheduled time for activities (for example, writing workshop
is held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) helps students know what
to expect.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Designating specific locations for certain activities, such as conferring

during writing workshop under the whiteboard or group reading
instruction around the round table, adds to the ELL student’s sense of
security about what to do in each location.
c Marking scheduled times for activities on the board and conspicuously
noting any changes to the schedule.
In addition to these classroom routines, teachers can help ELL students
understand oral instructions in the following ways:
c Using repetition or redundancy when giving directions. For example,
“You need to interview a family member tonight about his or her earliest
memory . . . so, choose one of your parents . . . or a grandparent, a
brother, a sister, an aunt or an uncle; someone in your family (walk over
and point to a bilingual chart of family members on a wall). And ask them to
think back (put finger to temple in the sign for thinking) to their earliest
memory (point backward while emphasizing earliest memory). Was it
when they were a baby? (Point to a picture of a baby on the chart.) Was it
when they were a young student? (Point to a picture of a young person on
the chart.) And then ask them to tell you about it. And keep notes (use a
gesture to indicate writing on a sheet of paper) on what they told you so you
can share with us tomorrow (point forward while emphasizing tomorrow).”
c Use simple structures and avoid complex structures, such as, “Today it’s
raining. Eat lunch in the cafeteria. Then come back to the classroom,”
instead of, “Since it’s raining today, don’t forget to come back to the
classroom after you’ve eaten lunch in the cafeteria.”
c Leave time so you can give your students the chance to ask questions.
In addition to these general guidelines, the following specific
strategies address particular issues that may arise in the different phases
of understanding we referred to earlier in this chapter.
My ELL student doesn’t understand

Situation 1
simple directions.
Targeted Strategy 1: Teach standard gestures for directions.

As mentioned previously, ELL students may not recognize standard North
American gestures for directions, such as “come here” or “stand up.”
They may have learned a different set of gestures for these commands.
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The ESL Miscellany (Clark, Moran, & Burrows, 1981) is a valuable resource
of standard gestures for many common commands.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use pictures, gestures, or realia.

Demonstrate what it is you want the students to do through pictures,
gestures, or realia. For example, a social studies lesson with one or more
beginner ELL students might begin in this way:

Teacher: Take out your social studies books. (Holds up social studies book.)
Teacher: Open your books to page twenty-six. (Opens book and holds it up to
show the correct page.) That’s page twenty-six. Two (pause) six. (Writes
page number on the board, then walks around the room, making sure
students are on the correct page.)
Teacher: Today we’re going to continue to learn about the Great Depression.
You’ll need your think-aloud reflection journals. (Holds up a journal.)
Please take out your journals. (Walks around the room, making sure
everyone has a journal.)
Teacher: We’re going to do think-alouds with a partner while reading this section
about migrants from Oklahoma coming to California. (Points to a map of
the United States from the book that is projected on the overhead, and
traces a line from Oklahoma to California and labels the states.) When
you are listening to your partner, please record the type of think-aloud
strategy your partner is using. (Points to a chart on the wall that lists
the various think-aloud strategies that the class has identified so far.)
The teacher points and demonstrates like this at each step, and then walks
around the room, listening to the students as they engage in think-alouds and
clarifying the directions in a couple of situations when students are confused.
Targeted Strategy 3: Write directions.

When giving oral directions, also write them on the board. Designate a
specific area for homework instructions (for example, in the top right
quadrant of the whiteboard) and ask students to write these assignments
in a homework notebook.
Targeted Strategy 4: Follow a set of directions.

In order to strengthen ELLs’ listening comprehension, ask them to complete
a task by following a set of directions given orally. Sample situations include
the following:
c Putting a letter to parents folded into three into an envelope and
closing it.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Filling a student’s reading basket with five new books.

c Making a book cover.
My ELL student doesn’t understand

Situation 2
complex directions.
Due to the linguistic and cultural demands of working in a new language,
ELL students often need more time than native-English-speaking students
to process information. This is especially true when ELL students are
learning content material that is unfamiliar to them. If ELL students are still
working to understand the beginning of a complex set of instructions, they
will not be able to pay attention to any information that follows and can
easily become lost or confused. In addition to the strategies mentioned
earlier, teachers can use the following strategies to help their ELL students
navigate complex directions.
Targeted Strategy 1: Teach clarification strategies

and when to use them.
Teach ELL students how to ask for clarification or how to express that
they don’t understand. Make a poster with common expressions, including
the following:
c Excuse me. I didn’t understand.
c Can you repeat that, please?
c Can you explain what ____ means?
c Can we go back to number ____?
Practice using these expressions, and also practice when it’s
an appropriate and inappropriate time to ask for clarification (for example,
it’s usually not a good idea to interrupt and ask for clarification when
the teacher is already clarifying another point or when another student
is speaking).
Targeted Strategy 2: Break down directions into smaller steps.

Complex directions are easier to follow if the teacher breaks them into
smaller steps and checks for understanding at each step. It also helps to use
terms such as first, second, third to make the steps sequential. For example, to
complete an experiment about how plants store water, the teacher can begin
with these step-by-step instructions:
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1. Take a cup from the table.

2. Go to the sink.
3. Fill the cup with water.
4. Return to your desk.
5. Wait until everyone has his or her water.

After everyone has water, the teacher continues giving directions.
Targeted Strategy 3: Describe a drawing.

This activity is often done in student pairs. However, the teacher or a student
can give directions to a small group of students or the whole class. Only the
person giving the instructions sees the picture or set of symbols, which he or
she describes as the other students draw in response to the directions. For
example, as Student A looks at the picture shown in Figure 2.2 and describes
it to Student B, they might negotiate understanding as follows:
Student A: Draw circle.
Student B: (draws a large circle in the middle of the page)
Student A: Not so big. Make it little smaller. Move it down the paper.
Student B: (draws a smaller circle)
Student A: Draw a small circle on top of big circle—like a head.
Figure 2.2: Circle Drawing

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Student B: (draws a small circle on top of the larger circle)
Student A: Put two (pause) like this (draws a triangle in the air).
Student B: Triangles?
Student A: Yes! Draw two triangles inside small circle—like eyes.
The conversation continues until the drawing is complete.
Targeted Strategy 4: Read maps.

Sharing a map, the teacher or a student guides a partner or group members
from a starting point to a destination, as in the following example:
You are at the gas station.
Turn left out of the gas station onto Davis Street.
Turn right onto West Avenue at the post office.
Go through the intersection at West and Elm.
Stop at the building on the left, next to the school.
Where are you?
See other activities for pairs in Back and Forth: Pair Activities for Language
Development (Palmer, Rodgers, & Olsen, 1985).
Targeted Strategy 5: Give a simplified summary.

When giving directions that are likely to be difficult for ELL learners to
follow, stop periodically and give a more simplified summary to help them
stay on track. The bold text in the example below shows what the teacher
added for the benefit of ELLs:
Next week, when we go on the field trip to the Museum of Science, we
won’t begin at our usual time. The bus is leaving at 8:00, so you should
be here by 7:30. Let me repeat. Monday we go to the Science
Museum. Come to school early. Come to school at 7:30 in
the morning.
You should wear comfortable shoes because we’re going to be there
for several hours and it’s a large museum. There are more than 30
exhibits and you won’t be able to sit down. So remember—wear
sneakers or shoes for walking. (Teacher points to sneakers
and demonstrates walking and getting tired.)
At the museum, we will divide into groups of four. Everyone will
have an opportunity to see all of the exhibits. We won’t be back in time for
lunch, but you can either bring your lunch or buy food at the cafeteria at
the museum. Bring your lunch or bring money for lunch.
When we return at 2:00, we’ll go to our classroom to wait for
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dismissal. We come back to school at 2:00 in the afternoon. Do you

have any questions?
In this scenario, important information should also be written on the
board and sent home to parents, preferably in their native language.
My ELL student doesn’t pay attention

Situation 3 when I’m giving directions.
ELL students often become accustomed to tuning out of classroom

conversations, especially when they are not actively engaged in learning.
The best way to get them to tune back in is to actively involve them. Most
of the above strategies for understanding directions require some kind of
action on the part of the student. In the following strategies, students are
also actively involved.
Targeted Strategy 1: Assess background knowledge.

Elicit from students what they already know about the activity before
beginning to give directions. If the ELL student has a general idea of what
he or she is supposed to be doing, it will be easier to follow directions or
instructions. For example, if students are expected to read information or
watch a video about Martin Luther King, Jr., and make a timeline about his
life, hold up a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ask students if they
know who he is. Write his name and other facts contributed by the students
on the board.
Targeted Strategy 2: Model steps and the final product.

Show students what you expect them to do and what a finished product, or
similar finished product, should look like. In the example of the Martin
Luther King, Jr., timeline mentioned above, after eliciting information about
Martin Luther King, add dates to some of the facts. Draw a timeline on the
board, and demonstrate how dates and facts can be added to it. Then ask a
couple of students to come to the board and add more dates and facts.
Targeted Strategy 3: Introduce jigsaw listening.

Jigsaw listening is an activity in which each student has only one part of a set
of directions and must work with a group to construct the complete set
(Gibbons, 2002). (See Chapter 3, pages 105–106, for more information and
an example of a jigsaw activity.)

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Students Don’t Understand

Content Material
Teachers of ELL students are often perplexed when their students converse
easily with other students in the cafeteria and have no difficulty understanding
and answering questions about weekend or after-school activities, but appear
lost and confused during content-area or language arts lessons. Researchers in
second-language acquisition have found that students learn social language
more quickly than academic language (Cummins, 2000). The first set of skills,
basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS), is what students use when
they chat with friends or teachers about subjects they are already familiar
with and hear about every day. Students usually acquire these skills within
the first two years of using the new language. Developing cognitive academic
language proficiency (CALP) involves a deeper and more demanding task of
understanding content-area material with which ELL students may have had
little or no exposure, even in their first language. These more cognitively
demanding academic skills can take up to ten years to acquire. It is important
for teachers to understand why seemingly bilingual students struggle with
subject matter, and how to support them in their development of academic
language. The following strategies are for helping ELL students with
content-area listening tasks.
General Strategies
................................
c Write key words or phrases on the board. Since cursive writing is often
difficult for ELL students to read, it’s best to print.
c Provide a prelistening activity that explains the purpose for the listening
activity, draws on students’ background knowledge of the topic, and
introduces the key words and phrases to be heard. For example, before
showing a video about tornadoes, a teacher can demonstrate the meaning
of rotate by asking a student to turn around. The teacher can draw a
picture of clouds and show a diagram of clouds forming into funnels
while writing the words rotate, clouds, and funnel on the board. The
teacher can also ask students if they have ever seen a tornado in person
or on television and ask them to describe what they have seen.
c One way to provide an active listening role for learners is by asking them
to respond physically (for example, raise their hands or hold up a card),
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or in writing (e.g., put information on a pictorial input chart2 or fill gaps

in a cloze exercise3).
c Encourage students to make audio recordings of lessons.
c Provide support in the native language whenever possible. For example,
translate key words or phrases, or help students who are literate in their
first language to find translations of the reading materials in their native

language.
c Provide students with different kinds of listening activities, such as
small-group and pair work. For example, students can work in small
groups to place a symbol for “frequent tornado activity” on a map.
Working in pairs, they can draw before-and-after pictures showing the
impact of tornadoes, with one student drawing “before” pictures and
the other student drawing “after” pictures.
Situation 1 My students don’t understand my read-alouds.
Targeted Strategy 1: Give background information.

Before beginning the read-aloud, go over key ideas or words from the story.
If it is a chapter book, bring in pictures of important characters or scenes.
Targeted Strategy 2: Do a story walk-through.

Begin a read-aloud by walking students through the book. For example, while
many North American students may be familiar with The Yearling (Rawlings,
1938), many ELL students are not. A walk-through of the book, beginning
with the cover, will help establish the Florida backwoods where Jody lives and
the names of the animals that he encounters (e.g., hound, fawn, snake).
Targeted Strategy 3: Focus on illustrations.

Pointing to various objects and characters as you read picture books captures
ELL students’ interest and helps them learn the words that describe what
they are seeing in the book. As a teacher reads chapter books or short stories
to a large class, overhead transparencies of illustrations or scanned pictures
on a computer help make the read-aloud more comprehensible to ELLs. For
example, an ESL teacher we know was reading Holes (Sachar, 2000) to a
2
See Chapter 4, pages 185–186, for details about pictorial input charts.
3
A cloze activity is one in which students predict words that are missing in a written passage and fill in
the blanks with words. See Appendices G–K for examples of cloze activities.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
group of students, and she showed an overhead transparency of the dry, flat
wasteland of Texas (the setting for the book) and a picture of children digging
several holes (a key element in the book).
Targeted Strategy 4: Watch the video.

Teacher read-alouds often include books that have been made into movies
that many native-English-speaking students have seen, but ELL students
may not have. It is helpful to provide time prior to the read-aloud for ELL
students to view the movie of the book in its entirety, or in segments, if it’s a
longer book. The students will especially benefit if a fluent English-speaking
partner views the movie with them and helps clarify things, when necessary.
If a dubbed or subtitled version of the film is available in the student’s L1, it
is a good idea to view this version before watching it in English.
Targeted Strategy 5: Encourage reading along during read-aloud.

When students have access to a copy of the book being read aloud, they can
follow along in their own copy, which gives them insights into many features
of written text and reading aloud. For example, they can see how fluent
reading sounds, how sound/symbol correspondences work, and how words
and phrases look and are pronounced. This is particularly important for
ELLs. We have seen a teacher use this strategy very effectively. She has
several copies of the read-aloud book available and students take turns
following along in a copy. What usually happens is that a great many students
cluster around the student whose turn it is to hold the book and follow along,
too. If the ELL student is literate in his or her native language, it is also
useful to encourage the student to read a translation, if it is available.
Targeted Strategy 6: Listen to books on tape.

Make audiotaped versions of books that will be read aloud available to
students. Commercially produced audiotapes or CDs come with copies of
the book and usually include a signal to indicate when to turn the page.
However, it isn’t necessary to purchase tapes or CDs if the teacher or a
volunteer is willing to record books. Books and tapes/CDs can be stored
in plastic storage bags and should be clearly labeled. A tape recorder or CD
player with a headset needs to be available for listening in the classroom.
Some teachers we know have received small grants to purchase inexpensive
machines that students borrow so they can listen to the books on tape at
home, while following along in the print version.
Targeted Strategy 7: Preview and summarize or paraphrase.

For books or sections of books that have especially difficult language, it helps
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to preview the scene or section in a few short, easy phrases. For example,
we observed a teacher reading Any Small Goodness: A Novel of the Barrio
(Johnston, 2003). She prepared the students for the description of the teacher,
Ms. Pringle, by alerting them to abstract terminology she thought her
students might have difficulty with. She also asked them to be prepared for
a related follow-up conversation, as the following excerpt shows:
Teacher: Listen carefully while I read this section about Arturo’s teacher,
Ms. Pringle. He says that “she’s got ‘excessive sparkle.’” Something that
sparkles is very shiny or bright. As I read this section, think about
why he describes her that way. What else does he say about her?
My ELL students understand me when I talk

Situation 2 about things that they are familiar with, but
they look totally lost when I teach abstract
ideas or unfamiliar content.
Targeted Strategy 1: Preteach or provide background information.

Bring in pictures or objects to help students understand key vocabulary and
concepts prior to beginning a unit. For example, an ESL teacher we know
did the following with her ELL students prior to beginning a unit on the
Jamestown colony:
c Showed the students a map of the world.
c Helped students locate England and Virginia, and wrote these place
names on chart paper.
c On the map of the world, moved pictures of ships from England to
Jamestown, while talking about events surrounding this movement.
c Showed pictures of the English settlers—again, writing important words
on the chart paper (John Smith, John Rolfe, James River, settlement, settlers).
c Had a conversation with students about how they had come to
North America.
c Asked students to compare their arrival to the arrival of the English settlers.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use pictorial input charts.

The teacher introduces a topic (for example, volcanoes, photosynthesis,
westward movement) through talking while drawing a picture in front of the
students (a pictorial input chart). In this way, students have access to both

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
auditory and visual input. (See Chapter 4, pages 185–186, for more
information about using pictorial input charts.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Introduce hands-on activities.

Hands-on activities help ELL students acquire knowledge and vocabulary,
and can help enormously in the development of reading and writing skills.
Hands-on learning can also be used for assessment purposes by enabling
teachers to measure both factual knowledge and comprehension. See Figure
2.3 for hands-on subject-area projects and activities that have proven to be
particularly helpful in supporting ELLs.
Targeted Strategy 4: Allow time for pair shares and table talks.
It is very important to provide time for students to talk with a partner or in
small groups about what they have just learned. For a lesson on the Amazon,
for example, the teacher might begin by holding up a picture of the Amazon
jungle and asking, What do you see here? Subsequent pair-share questions or
table discussions could focus on Which animals are you familiar with? What
kind of place is this? Where might we see a jungle like this? Why are there so many
plants in the jungle?
Targeted Strategy 5: Use charts and graphic organizers.

Charts and graphic organizers, such as KWLH (What I Know, What I Want
to Learn, What I Learned, and How I Learned What I Learned), Venn diagrams,
and timelines help students focus their listening. (See Chapter 3, pages
125–126, for further discussion of KWLH charts.) For example, students
watching a video about the Amazon jungle can complete a KWLH chart
prior to watching the video, and then complete a Venn diagram after they
have watched it. (See Figure 2.4.)
Math counting, measuring, weighing, estimating, sorting
Social Studies taking photos, painting or drawing pictures

and murals
Science conducting experiments, going on scavenger hunts,

recycling, caring for animals, classifying information
Language Arts creating books, making puppets, collaboratively

developing skits
Figure 2.3: Subject-Area Hands-On Activities
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Animals
City Rain forest
Figure 2.4: Venn Diagram for Amazon Jungle
Targeted Strategy 6: Have students work with sentence strips.

One way to actively engage ELL students in learning content material is
through an activity in which they are given a series of sentences to put in
the correct order. Sentence strips can be used in science to help students
understand the order of processes, such as an experiment, or in social studies
to reference dates and time. For example, when studying the conditions
needed for plants to grow and thrive, Dorothy did the following with a small
group of students:
1. Explained the purpose of the experiment.
2. Demonstrated how to plant a bean seed in a small container.
3. Asked the students to plant their own bean seeds.
4. Discussed with students the steps they took to plant their seeds.
5. Recorded these steps (not necessarily in the correct order) on
the chalkboard.
6. Gave each student a sentence strip and asked them to record one
sentence on the strip (a different sentence per student).
7. Asked students to put the sentences in the order in which the experiment
was conducted. (See Figure 2.5, page 82, for an example of unscrambled
sentence strips.)
8. Gave each student a strip to memorize.
9. Took away the strips and asked the students to put themselves in the
correct order by listening to the other students recite their sentences.

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I soaked the seed.
I put dirt in the cup.
I put the seed in the dirt.
I put water on the dirt.
I put the cup next to the window.
Figure 2.5: Sentence Strips Arranged in Order
Targeted Strategy 7: Work with sentence halves.

To build comprehension of subject matter material and learn key facts,
it can be helpful to ask students to listen for their sentence partners or
other halves.
1. Give one half of a group of students the beginning of factual sentences
and the other half the end of these sentences. (See Figure 2.6 for an
example of sentence halves, which comes from a unit on Thomas Edison.)
2. Student 1 reads the beginning of a sentence out loud.
3. Students with ending sentences must listen carefully to know if they have
the end of that sentence. The student with the ending for that sentence
reads it out loud.
4. This process continues until all of the sentences have been read.
5. After pairs read all of the sentences, have them physically put sentences
together on matte board or a poster.
Sometimes I look at my ELL students’ faces

Situation 3 and they are blank, exhausted, and/or
confused—as if they’ve stopped listening.
Entering a new culture and learning a new language is physically, cognitively,

and emotionally demanding. In addition to the stresses of the school
environment, ELL students may be experiencing similar tensions at home,
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My name is Thomas Edison.
I was born in 1847.
When I was 14, I published my own newspaper.

I invented the lightbulb and the phonograph.
My nickname was the Wizard of Menlo Park.
When I died, the lights in the U.S. were dimmed for one minute.
Figure 2.6: Sentence Halves: Thomas Edison
as parents and siblings do their own adjusting to their new environment.

In addition, refugee students may be suffering symptoms from traumatic
events they’ve experienced. (See Chapter 1 for an in-depth discussion of
sociocultural issues affecting ELLs.) Common physical reactions to these
stresses include tiredness, sleeplessness or oversleeping, headaches and
stomachaches, and susceptibility to illness. The emotional effects can include
anxiety, irritability, aggressiveness, and depression. As mentioned previously,
stress and anxiety can have a significant effect on an ELL student’s language
development. When ELL students show signs of listlessness, irritability, or
anxiety, it is best to provide them with a time-out from the more rigorous
demands of learning.
Targeted Strategy 1: Use physical activity.

Students who have spent little or no time in a classroom and are unaccus-
tomed to sitting for long periods of time often benefit from physical tasks,
such as the following:
c Stapling papers.
c Running errands.
c Tidying a closet.
c Collecting or distributing books.
c Posting information on a bulletin board.
c Putting pictures on the wall.

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Care must be taken, however, that ELL students do not spend unnecessarily
long periods of time doing these tasks once they are accustomed to school life
and/or when they no longer need emotional time-outs.
Strategy 2: Offer a less linguistically demanding activity.

From time to time, invite students to do something they especially enjoy or have
done before with fewer linguistic demands than typical school tasks. Some less
linguistically demanding activities include:
c Computer games.
c Word searches.
c Listening to stories.
c Watching videos.
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C HAPTER 3
Speaking
Situations
T
he oral development of English language learners progresses in stages,
as do all other aspects of second-language development. The first
stage for many ELLs is silence, followed by one- or two-word
utterances, phrases, sentences, and finally complex discourse. (See Figure 3.1
on the next page for an overview of second-language production stages.)
It is important to understand that although these stages and time frames
provide a rough framework of ELLs’ oral language development, there is
considerable variability, particularly with older students. Teachers may find
that some students begin to speak immediately or move quickly from
nonverbal responses to phrases or sentences. For example, Dorothy taught a
newcomer middle school student who picked up the phrase Oh my God within
the first few weeks of his arrival in the U.S. and used that phrase, almost
exclusively, with great facility and varying intonation depending upon the
circumstance (gleefully, fearfully, woefully, and so on) for the next several
weeks until he began to use sentences and more complex conversation.
How and when students move through these stages depends upon a number
of factors, including age, personality, cultural background, and learning
environment. In addition, context plays a large part in ELLs’ language
production. Students may speak fluently when using greetings and other
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Stages Characteristics Approximate

Time Frame
Preproduction Responds nonverbally. 0–6 months
Single-word Responds with a single word 3 months–1 year

production (e.g., Yes, No, Come).
Early production Combines two or three 6 months–1 year
words (e.g., Pencil on floor,
Where teacher? ).
Speech emergence Uses phrases (e.g., I see it 1–3 years

there. Where you going?
Time for lunch.).
Intermediate fluency Uses sentences. 3–5 years
Advanced Uses complex discourse. 5–10 years
Figure 3.1: Stages of Second Language Production (The Natural Approach [Krashen & Terrell, 1983])
basic phrases in routine interpersonal situations, but speak haltingly when

constructing sentences to express more complex ideas. In addition, the
student who is discoursing in fluid sentences in an ESL pull-out classroom
or sheltered content class may revert to silence or short responses when
mainstreamed with native-English speakers.
In order to develop English language fluency, ELLs need daily
opportunities to learn and practice oral English. They learn by listening to
language used around them, and often use context to figure out what is being
said. Although ELLs may be silent at first, their oral language development
depends upon rich sources of oral language from those around them. As
learners begin to speak, they need to hear and read meaningful language that
is progressively more complex. They also need to participate in social and
academic conversations. Because their ability to use the phonological system
and grammatical structures in English is not fully developed, their speech
may be ungrammatical, accented, and contain limited English vocabulary.
As a result, ELLs may feel self-conscious about speaking, especially in large
groups. It is important that they know that those around them will make
every attempt to understand their offers of communication with interest
and questions, rather than with criticism or harsh corrections. In addition,
ELLs need to know that, as they are developing full academic and social
competence in English, their home language is supported and respected.
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Students Aren’t Speaking English

The first stage of language development is often referred to as “the silent
period” since ELLs may communicate with actions (e.g., responding to a
request to sit down or open a book), gestures (e.g., pointing to the apple
instead of the orange to indicate their choice), or facial expressions (e.g.,
smiling or frowning) rather than words. During the silent period (referred
to as “Preproduction” in Figure 3.1), the learner is listening, observing, and
absorbing the language, but is not yet ready to produce oral language.
Although learners are not producing oral language at this stage, it does
not mean that they are not processing it. Observant teachers may note how
emergent language learners closely watch their classmates, mimicking their
behavior or silently mouthing words and phrases to themselves. In fact,
parents of ELL students have reported to Dorothy that this stage can be one
of the most exhausting periods of language learning as the learners carefully
monitor everything around them while they try to blend in and assimilate to
their new environment. Teachers can help their ELL students at this stage of
language development by including them in classroom activities in nonverbal
ways, such as asking them to point to a picture, close the door, or hand out
papers. Pressing ELLs to speak in this early stage of learning will not speed
up the language-learning process. Rather, students benefit most from a
classroom environment in which they feel safe enough to take the risk of
speaking when they are ready. Nonverbal communication, such as smiling,
learning a few words in the student’s home language, and developing a system
of friendly, helpful classroom partners to act as peer support will not only
make ELL students feel more comfortable and foster their receptive language
learning, but also provide the kind of safe environment in which they feel free
to risk speaking when they are ready.
General Strategies
.................................
General Strategy 1: Ask students to do classroom
tasks that are physically active.
It is important to engage ELLs who aren’t yet speaking English in the life of
the classroom, and asking them to complete tasks that do not rely on talking,
but on physical actions, is one way to accomplish this goal. For example, they
can pass out paper, collect books, or hand out equipment in P.E. class.
Through these activities, students learn vocabulary and come to feel they
have a meaningful presence in the classroom. At first, it may be essential to

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accompany the request with gestures and a demonstration in order to make

the task comprehensible. Also, the teacher and student may complete the
task collaboratively the first time it is done in order to make the task clear.
General Strategy 2: Develop a partner system.

Assigning a few partners to the new student is a strategy that we have
found to be very worthwhile. Partners can include students who share the
emerging speaker’s language, but a shared language is not necessary. Also,
it is advisable to assign more than one partner to a newcomer student—
partners can be assigned for different activities, different times of the day, or
different classes. For middle school and high school students who change
classes, one important partner role is to help beginner ELLs navigate from
class to class and understand procedures in such places as gym locker rooms
and cafeterias. It is important that partners are taught how to work with
ELLs. Helpful hints for setting up a buddy system to work with newcomer
ELL students are available at www.everythingesl.net/inservices/buddies.php.
General Strategy 3: Employ art, science, drama, and P.E. activities.

These activities are particularly helpful because they require high levels of
physical activity and don’t require nearly as much expressive language as
other subjects. Keep in mind that demonstrations and gestures will still be
required when explaining tasks to newcomer ELLs.
I have students who have been in the country

Situation 1 for a few months, and they still rarely speak in
class, or answer with only yes/no answers.
It is not uncommon for newcomer ELLs to not speak for several months or
respond in short, one-word answers. At first, teachers can communicate
with newcomer ELLs in nonverbal ways. As their language comprehension
increases, students can be encouraged to expand their responses and even
initiate conversations by providing them with situations where they can
authentically produce a more extended response. Sometimes a yes or no
answer is indicative of caution, so ELLs need to be in an environment
where they feel they can increasingly take risks. It is important that the
activities and communication are focused on the extension of speech, not
correction. The following strategies can help facilitate communication
during these early stages of preproduction and emerging language.
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Targeted Strategy 1: Post pictures of classroom routines and objects.

Posting pictures of classroom routines and objects will allow both students
and the teacher to point to what they need or what action is called for. For
example, a teacher can ask ELLs to point to a picture of a lunch bag or a
cafeteria tray to find out if they have brought their lunch. If a student appears
to be sick, a teacher can use a labeled picture of the human body, and point to
the part that is typically associated with a medical condition while using facial
expressions and gestures to show pain (for example, pointing to the stomach
and saying “Do you have a stomachache?,” pointing to an ear and saying
“Do you have an earache?,” or pointing to the throat and saying “Do you
have a sore throat?”). The student can point to where it hurts. Drawings
should be culturally diverse and include situations or objects that ELL
students will recognize (for example, rice balls, beans and rice). Teachers may
want to keep pictures or boxes of sanitary napkins available out of the public
eye for adolescent females who may need them. Male teachers will want to
negotiate such interactions through a female peer partner or a female teacher
since to discuss issues of menstruation with a man would be taboo in the
cultures of many English-language learners.
Targeted Strategy 2: Introduce hands-on projects.

Hands-on projects, such as science experiments, designing or building
structures, and making papier mâché figures, are excellent activities for ELL
students during their silent period. Through these activities, students can
learn content-area vocabulary and demonstrate their understanding of oral
directions. A number of hands-on activities for science and social studies can
be found in Building Science Skills for Social Studies (Nelson, 1999).
Targeted Strategy 3: Take photos.

Students can use inexpensive cameras to take photos of family members,
friends, and/or neighborhood locations. They can then point to items such
as the tree, their house, their mother, their baby sister. Alternatively, the
teacher or a partner can point to items and ask questions, such as “Is this
your little brother?”
Targeted Strategy 4: Build scenarios on magnetic or felt boards.

Magnetic or felt boards allow students to build entire scenarios while still in
the preproduction stage of speaking. Teachers or peer partners can give
instructions for manipulating objects (“Move the airplane onto the runway”;
“Put the carrots in the grocery cart next to the peas”). As students’
understanding increases, they can answer more complex questions and follow

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more complex directions. For example, when working with the magnetic
board of a house, the teacher can ask questions such as, “Where do you think
the baby should sit?” Or, when working with a board of a desert environment,
students can be directed to add some animals that can live in a desert.
Targeted Strategy 5: Tell a story while manipulating Cuisenaire rods.
A set of Cuisenaire rods consists of several wooden, four-sided, multicolored
rods that range in size from one square centimeter to ten centimeters; each
size has a designated color. They were developed for use in schools to teach
fractions and other aspects of math. Gattegno (1972) introduced them as a
language teaching tool in a methodology he termed the Silent Way, which
is grounded in the theory that language is best learned when the teacher
intervenes as little as possible. Teachers using the Silent Way communicate
with just a few words and occasional mimed actions and gestures, but
encourage their students to create and manipulate language through the use
of Cuisenaire rods and/or color charts. Rods can represent sounds, words,
grammatical points or people, places, and objects. The rods give students a
visual reference and something to physically manipulate without fear of
overly critical responses from teachers. Usually a small group of students
manipulates the rods. For example, we observed a teacher use the rods in
the following way:
c The teacher laid out several long rods horizontally in a rectangle and
said, “Cafeteria.”
c She placed several yellow rods vertically in a row inside the rectangle and
said, “Cafeteria workers,” and handed them to a few students.
c She pulled out a few purple rods, handed them to students and looked at
the group quizzically. The students responded, “Students.”
c The teacher spread out her hands to the students and to the table to
indicate that they should begin to manipulate their rods.
c The students with the purple student rods lined them up in front of the
yellow cafeteria workers.
c One of the students took a yellow cafeteria worker rod and said,
“You want spaghetti?”
c A student with the first purple student rod replied, “Yes, I want spaghetti.”
c Another student took a second yellow cafeteria worker rod and asked,
“You want meat?”
c The student with the purple student rod replied, “No, no meat.”
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c Students proceeded to take rods representing cafeteria workers and

students and created additional questions and replies about food. A student
took several black rods and placed them horizontally inside the large
rectangle cafeteria and announced, “Tables,” after which other students
placed the purple student rods next to them. The teacher moved
conversation along occasionally by pointing to student rods and looking
inquisitively at the ELLs to invite them to initiate additional conversations.

Cuisenaire rod activities allow ELL students to use their imaginations
while working with the words and structures they know and building language
cooperatively with other learners.
Alternative
Students in the preproduction stage of language development can manipulate
Cuisenaire rods silently as the teacher tells a story (for example, a familiar fairy
tale, fable, or myth).
Targeted Strategy 6: Make use of chants, songs, and poems.

Some English-language learners are more comfortable expressing themselves
in choral chants, songs, or poems. These group activities allow students to
develop the rhythms, stress, and intonation of English. Carolyn Graham (1978,
1993, 1999, 2001) has created books of rhythmical chants, songs, and poems to
illustrate the natural stress and intonation patterns of conversational American
English. In a typical lesson, students listen to the recording, go over any
unknown words, and then practice reciting the chant line by line. After they are
comfortable with the words and rhythm, they recite the whole chant chorally
and can add clapping or other forms of rhythm (for example, patting the desk
or tapping pencils together). Many of the chants have choral responses so that a
group can be divided in half for call-and-response types of experiences. Also,
students or pairs of students can do solos or duets. After working with jazz
chants, students can modify or create their own jazz chants. For example, a
modification of Graham’s chant, “A Bad Day,” which can be recited chorally or
as a call-and-response, follows:
I missed the bus
’cause I was late.
Called to the driver,
but the driver wouldn’t wait.
When I got to school,
the teacher said,
There’s a test today,
on the book we read.

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Took out my pen,

my pen wouldn’t write.
Wanted to go back to bed,
and turn out the light.
Many poems, songs, and books lend themselves to excellent practice with
the rhythms and sounds of English. For example, Shel Silverstein’s poems
can be enjoyed by students of all ages. Students who are familiar with poetry
or songs in their language can be encouraged to share these as well. (See
Appendix B for a list of poetry titles.)
Since hip-hop music is a form of poetry and music, it is an excellent
way to introduce adolescent ELLs to the sounds and rhythm of English.
One good Web site for this purpose can be found at Genki English
(www.teachersfirst.com/getsource.cfm?id=8467). This Web site contains a
collection of English-learning hip-hop songs with interactive quizzes. The
songs can also be downloaded as MP3 files. In addition, each song includes
picture worksheets for manipulation while listening to the lyrics in class.
With judicious selecting, teachers can, of course, use lyrics from real hip-hop
singers. In fact, Alan Sitomer, a teacher in an urban East Los Angeles high
school, uses hip-hop to help students recognize symbolism, imagery, and
irony in hip-hop music, and connect it to classic literature. In “Yo, Hamlet!
Using Hip-Hop with Your Students,” Sitomer suggests that teachers begin
with a specific learning objective (for example, subtext, historical content,
irony), then teach the history of hip-hop (Whelan, 2007). He also comments
that teachers who know little about hip-hop can let their students educate
them by bringing in examples of “clean” excerpts of hip-hop and explaining
why it is of literary value. Teachers will want to preview any hip-hop lyrics
that their students plan to share with the class, since ELL students, especially,
may be unaware of offensive or inappropriate language contained in the
lyrics. Also see Sitomer’s own book, Hip-hop Poetry and the Classics (2004)
available from www.alanlawrencesitomer.com/books.htm.
Targeted Strategy 7: Provide wordless picture books.

Illustrations in wordless picture books provide a rich backdrop for ELLs to
add their own words. For some ELLs, the absence of words in a book frees
them to produce their own.
Although some wordless picture books are oriented toward young
children, there are many books that can be appreciated by middle- and
high-school age students. (See Appendix D for an annotated list of wordless
picture books appropriate for older ELLs.)
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Ivan, he watch TV late He wake up too late. He do homework

at night. long time.
He go to school Teacher, she yell at Ivan. He no watch movie. He sad and crazy.
too late. He have big (points
to head to indicate
headache).
She give Ivan lots Ivan go home.

of homework.
Figure 3.2: Ivan’s Wordless Picture Book With Sentence Frames
After looking at picture books such as The Silver Pony (Ward, 1992),
one of Dorothy’s eighth-grade newcomer students, Ivan, created his own
wordless picture book and narrated it to Dorothy and the other students.
(See Figure 3.2.)
Targeted Strategy 8: Do information gap activities.

Information gap activities are usually done in pairs. They are activities in
which one student has information that the other student doesn’t have; or
each student has information that the partner doesn’t have. Students must
negotiate the communication to gather all of the information needed to
complete the activity. These activities provide structured ways for ELL

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students to begin extending speech, and can take many different forms,
including the following:
Describe a drawing.
One student looks at a simple picture and describes it to his or her partner.
The partner draws the picture that the student describes. (See Chapter 2, pages
73–74, for an example and a detailed description of this activity.)
What’s the difference?
Partners look at pictures of scenes that are almost identical, but have slight
differences, without looking at each other’s pictures. For example, in Student A’s
picture, a woman is wearing a striped dress. In Student B’s picture, the same
woman is wearing a flowered dress. Students must describe their respective
pictures to find the differences and then circle each difference, as the following
example illustrates:
Student A: I have woman in my picture. Do you have woman in your picture?
Student B: Yes. Is the woman wear thing in her ear?
Student A: No. Does she have dress?
Student B: Yes. Does the dress have little round thing on it, to close?
Student A: Yes. (The students continue in this way.)
Usually, the teacher tells students the number of differences so partners

know when they have found all the differences. Also, it helps if the teacher walks
around the room to provide support and suggestions if students get stuck. These
conversations generate a lot of vocabulary that may need to be clarified later (for
example, the “thing in her ear” is called an earring and “little round thing on it,
to close” is a button). An alternative for students who may find this activity too
difficult is to have them look at their pictures together and collaboratively locate
and list the differences. The following sources for “what’s the difference” (also
known as “spot the difference”) activities are helpful:
c Look Again Pictures (Olsen, 1998) is filled with “what’s the difference”
scenarios.
c Back and Forth (Palmer, Rodgers, & Olsen, 1985) includes several
reproducible pages of short, interactive information-gap activities divided
into four parts: pronunciation and listening discrimination, describing a
picture, describing abstract forms and shapes, and language or word puzzles.
c Life: Picture Puzzle: Can You Spot the Differences (Editors of Life Magazine,
2007) is a three-book series that includes “spot the difference” puzzles
originally from Life magazine, in which two photos have slight differences.
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As with all “what’s the difference” activities, the puzzles are quite useful
for developing vocabulary within a specific context. Picture Puzzles can
also be found at the Life Web site (www.life.com/Life).
c Spot the Differences: 50 Mind-Bending Photographic Puzzles (Reguigne, 2003)
is a collection of “spot the difference” puzzles arranged in categories such
as seasons, animals, travel, and holidays. This author has also published
Spot the Differences: Animals (2004) and Photo Puzzle Hunt: The Ultimate
Spot-the-Differences Challenge (2007), which includes 100 photographs, also
arranged by categories, some of which are included in her earlier books.
c Spot the Differences: 100 Challenging Photo Puzzles (George Eastman
House, 2008) is another collection of spot-the-differences based on
photographs from the George Eastman House archive. The photos
portray historical figures, famous buildings, landscapes, and animals, and
include well-known works of renowned photographers. These photos
can help students develop vocabulary and learn about content areas, in
particular, history.
c A Web site of “spot the difference” photos can also be found at www.spot
thedifference.com.
After students become familiar with “what’s the difference” photos, they
may want to use cameras and/or photo editing software to create “what’s the
difference” photos of their own. For example, students can take a picture of
a student wearing a hat and scarf, and then the same student can take off the
hat and change the color and design of the scarf and the students can take
a second photograph. These photos can be exchanged among groups of
students for “spot the difference” activities.
Targeted Strategy 9: Select topics for corner talks.

Students can share their knowledge about a given topic through corner talks.
1. The teacher chooses a topic that has at least four dimensions (for
example, favorite seasons, styles of painting, best political candidate).
2. The teacher announces the topic and then assigns a corner to each
dimension (for example, impressionism, cubism, abstract, and realism
art styles).
3. Students consider the choices and then choose a corner.
4. Students talk with corner partners about why they selected that corner
and generate two or three reasons why they selected that corner.
5. A reporter for each group reports back to the whole class.

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Alternative
An alternative to this activity is to assign pictures, words, or sentences on
cards to each student, related to each corner (Vogt & Echevarría, 2008).
Students then walk around the room sharing and discussing the information
on their cards until the teacher tells them to choose a corner that best
represents the information on their card. For example, in a biology class, a
teacher might include four systems of the human body (such as skeletal,
cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous). Students are given pictures of
organs or structures (for example, heart, lungs, brain, and spinal cord) and go
to the corner that they think best represents the organ’s or structure’s most
important function. As students share their pictures, they can discuss whether
their organ or structure belongs in that corner. If the students decide a
picture does not represent an important function of that system, the student
with that picture can be directed to the appropriate system. Finally, students
from each corner describe their organ and system to the whole class, and
explain how it functions as part of their corner’s system.
I can’t communicate with my ELLs because we

Situation 2
don’t have a shared language yet.
One of the questions ELL specialists are asked most frequently is, “Do you
speak all of the languages of your students?” This is closely followed by,
“How do you communicate with them if you don’t?” There is no question
that speaking the same language as one’s students is ideal. That is why it is
important for schools to have bilingual support specialists and parent liaisons
who speak the same language as ELLs. However, to acquire English, ELL
students also need opportunities to communicate in their new language.
Providing a supportive relationship that accepts the stages of language
development and helps students move forward through these stages is
an important role for teachers to play for their ELL students. Anxiety is
an inhibitor to language learning; hence, the most important initial
communication tactic is to ensure that students are comfortable with the
teacher, their classmates, and their surroundings. Teachers should closely
monitor their ELLs for signs of comprehension, and can use the following
strategies to make sure they are connecting with students.
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Targeted Strategy 1: Have plenty of visual support.

Photographs, pictures, posters, realia, and gestures are all ways that help
ELLs see what you want them to do or what you are referring to. Pictures
or posters relating to important classroom events (for example, removing
objects from backpacks, going to the cafeteria for lunch, changing
classrooms) can be displayed on the wall so that teachers can refer to them
as needed. A teacher who notices that a student has a dull pencil can explain
what to do by accompanying the verbal directions with gestures (for example,
touching the student’s pencil, going over to the pencil sharpener and
pointing to it, beginning to sharpen a pencil to show how it works, and then
pointing to the student’s pencil and the pencil sharpener). Whenever
possible, anticipate specific communication needs and provide some kind
of visual support—it can make a big difference in whether newcomer ELLs
understand even a little of what is happening around them, or whether they
are completely confused.
Targeted Strategy 2: Provide picture dictionaries

and bilingual dictionaries.
Picture dictionaries are essential tools for communicating with newcomer
ELL students, and they are often helpful at much later stages of language
development, as well. Several publishers of books for ELL students publish
picture dictionaries with pages grouped around specific themes, such as
school, health, or clothing. Some of these picture dictionaries provide
bilingual versions (for example, Spanish-English or Vietnamese-English).
(See Appendix E for a list of picture and visual dictionaries.) Students who
are literate in their native languages can use bilingual dictionaries to look up
words they want to communicate, or a teacher can look up a word he or she
wants to communicate and point to the word in the student’s language. Keep
in mind, however, that dictionaries have somewhat limited use in the many
instances where one word has several meanings (for example, cool, meaning
not warm and excellent.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Observe students and focus on

the present and the concrete.
It is difficult for beginner ELL students to talk about the future or the past in
English because they often don’t have the necessary language. For example,
Dorothy, who lives in Buffalo, New York, doesn’t usually try to initiate a
conversation with her ELLs about snow in June, but in November or
December when it begins to snow she brings scarves, gloves, boots, and

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
hats into the class and talks about vocabulary for winter clothing and where
to find them. During the first snowstorm, students sometimes don their
winter clothes and go outside to make a snowman.
Pay careful attention to ELL students’ faces to monitor their feelings.
Notice what an ELL student is interested in and what he or she may know
or want to talk about, and then select a conversation topic that is meaningful
to that student. Intake interviews with parents and students can provide
information about a student’s interests. For example, a teacher we know
discovered that one of his ELL students, Akol, was interested in painting and
art. The teacher brought in books showing the work of a variety of artists,
which the student flipped through, pointing to works that he especially liked,
and mentioning the artists by name. Then Akol opened his cell phone and
showed his teacher some photos of a drawing that he had done of Bob
Marley. Other students gathered around the photo. Some of them recognized
Bob Marley and asked Akol if he liked reggae music. Other students asked
Akol what he used to make the picture—paint or pencil? The teacher
facilitated these conversations by pointing to pictures of paint brushes and
drawing pencils in a picture dictionary and writing words on the board as the
students discussed them. Akol’s teacher used his interest in art to initiate a
conversation with him, and he and the other students continued to interact
with him, despite the fact that he used minimal language. They used pictures
and gestures to ask questions that Akol could easily respond to with a nod, a
shake of his head, or a one-word response.
Targeted Strategy 4: Use actual names of people and

objects rather than pronouns.
Make a point of learning the correct pronunciation of ELL students’ names
and use their names frequently when speaking to them or about them. In the
example in the previous strategy, Akol’s teacher initiated the conversation by
using his name (“Akol, would you like to look at this art book?”). The teacher
regularly referred to specific artists by their names as they looked in the book
or pointed to each object and person and named it, rather than saying “it” or
“this one” or “that one.”
Targeted Strategy 5: Establish a morning greeting and

afternoon leave-taking routine.
ELL students flourish with routines (as do all students). A good way to make
connections with ELLs is to establish a routine for morning greeting and
afternoon leave-taking. For example, some teachers greet students at the
classroom door or shake hands with them as they enter the classroom in the
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morning. The teachers then do something similar at the end of the day,
expressing explicit gratitude for what each student accomplished that day
(“Thank you, Javier, for taking care of the math books”; “I appreciate how
hard you worked in science, Mari”; “Make sure to tell your mom and dad
about what you typed on the computer today, Lai”).
When greeting and interacting with ELLs, it is important to be aware of
cultural norms that may differ from our own. For example, touching and
hugging students is not always acceptable in some cultures.
Students Are Reluctant to Speak

As ELL students emerge from the silent and one- or two-word production
stage, they may still be reluctant to speak in some settings. There can be
many causes for this reluctance, including shyness, not having the words or
grammatical structures for certain situations, or fear of making a mistake.
General Strategies
................................
ELL students generally feel most comfortable speaking when they know
something about the topic under discussion, and feel that they won’t be
laughed at. Reluctant speakers often feel safest when in structured situations
with clear guidelines or patterns. Teachers can gradually transition reluctant
speakers from these more structured activities to ones that require
increasingly more spontaneous, unstructured talk.
I have intermediate/advanced
Situation 1 students who don’t talk in class.
Targeted Strategy 1: Set up small groups.

ELL students who are reluctant to speak to a whole class are often more
willing to contribute to small-group discussions and pair shares, especially
when they are carefully paired with other students, including ELLs, friends,
and other students who speak the same language.
Targeted Strategy 2: Thank students for their work.

A colleague of Dorothy’s makes a point of regularly thanking her students
for their hard work. Acknowledging that volunteering to read or speak or
contribute an opinion is a courageous act and is appreciated can motivate

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students to volunteer again. It also seems to inspire other students to

contribute as well. Teachers should be specific about what they are thanking
students for (“Helping to stop litter is a great reason why recycling is
important. Thank you, Juan.”). Of course, all students in the class should be
thanked on a regular basis for their contributions, not only ELLs.
Targeted Strategy 3: Treat questions with respect.
Teachers often implore students to ask questions if they don’t understand. In
reality, questions can be disruptive and annoying when asked at inopportune
times, such as just before the bell rings or when the teacher wants to quickly
finish up a lesson. Every question doesn’t need to be answered immediately,
but every question should be treated with respect. As with volunteering,
asking a question, especially in front of other students, can require bravery
on the part of any student, particularly ELL students. When a student asks a
question, it is a good idea to acknowledge the value of the question (“Thank
you, Omid, for asking that question. Probably other students don’t know
what the word environment means. Let’s find that word in our reading, and
then we’ll see if we can work together to figure out what it means.”).
If teachers do not have time to address a question when it is asked, they
can still acknowledge that the question is important and emphasize that it will
be answered, just not right at that time.
Not all questions that ELL students ask need to be addressed with the
whole class. For example, ELL students may have questions about words or
cultural issues that English-speaking North American students would be
familiar with (“What’s an amusement park?” or “What does chimney mean?”).
In these cases, it’s best to establish a consistent routine, one that addresses
ELL students’ need to know, but doesn’t disrupt the class. Ways to handle
these more ELL-specific questions include the following:
c Set aside 15–20 minutes each day to meet with ELLs.
c Refer students to a picture dictionary.
c Ask students to jot down questions to ask their partners or the teacher
later. (Quick sketches and/or words in the L1 or English can help jog
their memories later.)
c Using frequent think-pair-shares1 can also address ELL students’
questions.
1
Think-pair-share is a cooperative discussion strategy in which students are prompted by the teacher to
1) think about a question or observation; 2) talk about their answers or thoughts with a partner; and
3) share their thinking with the rest of the class. This strategy is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2,
page 67.
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Targeted Strategy 4: Take advantage of picture talks.

Pictures give ELL students a visual support and focus for their talk. Some
activities for ELL students involving pictures include the following:
c Talk about what’s happening in a poster or pictures.
c Create a series of sequential pictures using digital photography. Students
can put the photos in the correct sequence and describe what is
happening. Some activities that lend themselves to this type of sequential
picture taking and discussion include making a sandwich or tortilla, and
conducting a science experiment.
Targeted Strategy 5: Put a poem in your pocket.

Poem in Your Pocket Day was started in New York City in 2003 to recognize
National Poetry Month in April, but it is now celebrated around that time in
many schools around North America. Named after the poem “Keep a Poem
in My Pocket” by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers (White, Moore, & de
Regniers, 1988), celebrants are encouraged to carry poems in their pockets
and share them with friends, family, coworkers, and classmates.
On Poem in Your Pocket Day (or on any day of the year), students select
a favorite short poem, practice reciting it, and then share it with the class or a
small group of students. After reciting the poem, students explain why they
chose this particular poem. They can select poems in English, a language
other than English, or bilingual poems. (See Appendix B for books of poetry
about diverse cultures.)
Targeted Strategy 6: Show books, pictures, and

videos of familiar content.
ELL students are more likely to speak about topics with which they are
familiar. Showing books, pictures, and videos of familiar content (for example,
about the native lands and cultures of ELL students) is one way of drawing
out ELL students. It is important to read books or show videos to students
that reflect multiple realities and experiences. (See Appendix B for a list of
books about diverse cultures.) One follow-up activity is to create class books
that capture students’ family celebrations and experiences and could focus on
one of the following:
c How marriages are celebrated around the world or across families.
c How birthdays are celebrated around the world and across families.
c How the end of a season is marked around the world.
c Celebrations that are particular to just one family. (We know a family

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that has a pig roast when a family member leaves for another country.
Another family goes to a local restaurant when a child graduates from
elementary school.)
Targeted Strategy 7: Go on field trips.

Field trips can serve important purposes for ELL students. They can
introduce students to new activities and places they have not had an
opportunity to visit, particularly since many families of ELLs work long
hours and have little money to go on excursions. For example, Dorothy and
the other ESOL teachers at her school took a group of ELL students to visit
the National Museum of African Art and Freer and Sackler Galleries at the
Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Later, the classroom teacher of
one of the children told Dorothy that when the student returned from the
field trip, he talked excitedly for an hour about what he had seen and done
on the visit, mentioning Whistler’s “The Peacock Room,” Japanese scrolls,
and African sculptures and masks. The teacher commented that this student
rarely spoke or shared information in class, and that this was the most
animated he had ever been in class.
Paying for field trips is often a hardship for families of ELL students.
(See Chapter 1, pages 59–60, for ideas about how to pay for field trips.)
Targeted Strategy 8: Create dialogues.

Ask students to collaborate in creating dialogues, which can be written and
then read aloud. Topics can be selected from a student-generated list of
possible topics, or assigned by the teacher. For example, students may be
asked to generate a list of situations for role-play conversations (such as
taking the driver’s road test, disputing a grade with a teacher, planning a
movie date with a friend). Teachers can assign topics related to content areas,
such as the negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase, Galileo defending his
theory of a sun-centered universe, or the conversation between Rosa Parks
and bus driver James Blake. After creating the conversations, all students or
selected students can be asked to role-play them.
My students are reluctant to make errors,

Situation 2 so they only say what they’re sure of or
don’t speak at all. They’re overly cautious.
I have students who ask other students

Situation 3
to speak for them.
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Although these two situations manifest themselves in slightly different ways,

both the causes and the strategies for addressing them are likely to be similar,
so we are discussing them together. Reasons for hesitancy in speaking may
be grounded in the individual’s personality or cultural norms. Even though
personality has not been found to have a long-term effect on second-language
acquisition (Lightbown & Spada, 1993, 2006), research has indicated that low
anxiety and a tendency to be outgoing do have a positive effect on L2 learners

(Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1985; Wong-Fillmore, 1985). Self-confidence leads
to sociability, which in turn results in communicative fluidity. Hence, an
introverted or anxious student may be more reluctant to spontaneously
engage in conversation than an extroverted or self-confident one.
Cultural factors may also come into play in a student’s hesitancy to
speak in the L2. Some ELL students come from learning environments in
which accuracy is valued above experimentation. Particularly when learning
another language, students may be used to reproducing accurate translations
of texts and reciting scripted dialogues, rather than formulating opinions
and responses, and realizing that making errors is part of the language-
development process. In addition, in some cultures, girls do not attend school
or share classrooms with boys, and are expected to be silent in school and
other public settings.
The most important way that teachers can help ELL students overcome
their reticence and/or fear of making mistakes is to show that their attempts
at communication are appreciated by both the teacher and the class. The
activities for building classroom community in Chapter 1 (pages 20–22)
can help students learn to respond in supportive, uncritical ways that don’t
discourage their ELL peers from speaking for fear of making a mistake.
In addition, many of the strategies described in Situation 1 may encourage
students to extend their speaking beyond rote responses. The following
activities also help transition students from structured to more
unstructured speech.
Targeted Strategy 1: Try to speak the student’s native language.

On occasion, ask the student how to say words or phrases in his or her
native language. Label the room with words and phrases in the languages of
ELL students and practice saying these words. When you mispronounce the
words and make other mistakes, this will show ELLs how normal it is to
make mistakes.
Targeted Strategy 2: Encourage PowerPoint presentations.

Students can create PowerPoint presentations about some aspect of their lives

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
(for example, their family, where they live, their friends), their native land (for
example, geography, music, history), or a content area (for example, causes of
World War I, important inventions). Dorothy’s students have particularly
enjoyed creating PowerPoint projects about their native city or a city that
they have spent time in. The slides of the presentation provide ELL students
with a focus for speaking, but when classmates ask questions, students have
the opportunity to speak extemporaneously. Extremely shy or reluctant
students can give these presentations with a partner.
Targeted Strategy 3: Assign real-life projects.

Carlyn Syvanen (2000) provided a real-life learning experience for her
intermediate and advanced ELL students through a school-wide recycling
program. She designated one of her classes as the Recycling Team, whose
responsibility it was to make presentations to other classes about the
importance of recycling—explaining how to do it, distributing recycling
containers, and collecting recyclables once a week. Speaking roles for the
students included the following:
c Persuading others to recycle (for example, through class presentations).
c Communicating with teachers and office staff about the recycling
schedule.
c Politely interrupting classes when collecting the recyclables.
c Requesting needed supplies.
c Informally chatting with office staff as they collected the recyclables.
Other kinds of real-life learning experiences might include planting
and maintaining a school garden and running a school supply store.
Targeted Strategy 4: Play the Liar’s (or Actor’s) Club.

This activity provides students with an enjoyable pretext for speaking,
as well as a way to learn about each other. It integrates many skills, all
centered around practicing and using English (Wheeler, 1994). We have
found that it works well to follow this procedure:
1. Explain to students that they are going to see how many good liars
(or actors) there are in the class.
2. Provide an example by writing three sentences about yourself on the
board (one of which is true and two that you make up), and asking
the class to decide which is true and which two are not true. For
example, Dorothy might write:
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• I rode an elephant in India.

• I learned to ride a bicycle when I was 40.
• I lived in the Amazon jungle.
3. Ask everyone to vote once for the sentence they think is true.
4. If the class does not guess the true sentence (in the above example, the
final sentence, I lived in the Amazon jungle, is the true sentence about
Dorothy), this proves that the student (or teacher) is a good liar/actor
and can be a member of the Liar’s (or Actor’s) Club.
5. Once students understand the principle of the game, ask them to write
three sentences about themselves—one true sentence and two that are
not true. The teacher might want to give some examples of sentences
that are too outrageous to believe, too easy to believe, or already known
about them (I visited the moon or I am in the eighth grade).
6. Students take turns writing their three sentences on the board and
reading them out loud. The rest of the students vote on which sentence
they believe to be true. If a majority of the class was not able to choose
the true sentence, the students’ names are recorded as members of the
Liar’s (or Actor’s) Club.
This activity usually generates many follow-up questions about the true
sentences, since good ones are usually a little offbeat. (See Chapter 1, pages
20–22, for additional activities that help students get to know each other.)
I have students who talk in class only

Situation 4 during structured activities, such as
listen-and-repeat activities, reading
aloud, and sharing completed activities.
Many of the activities listed in Situations 1–3 in this section can be useful for
helping students express themselves beyond structured activities. Following
are some additional activities that can help students express themselves
more extemporaneously.
Targeted Strategy 1: Build in jigsaw activities.

Jigsaw activities can be used with most content areas.
c To begin the process, the class is divided into small groups, and each
home group is assigned responsibility for learning about one portion
of a whole lesson. For example, if the whole lesson is for students to

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
understand the events leading up to World War II, each group could be
assigned one important event to cover (for example, Japan’s invasion of
Manchuria, the Nazi party’s rise to power, Germany’s invasion of Poland).
c After each member of the group understands the assignment, the group
decides how best to represent the information to others and prepares
index cards, maps, illustrations, timelines, or other material to use in
their explanations.
c The teacher rearranges the students into new groups (jigsaw groups),
with one member from each home group assigned to a jigsaw group.
(Students can be numbered off so that all ones join one group and all
twos join another group.)
c Students share what they have learned about their particular area in their
jigsaw groups.
c The jigsaw group completes a project or product to share with the class.
In this example, one group could put together a chronological timeline
showing the events leading up to World War II, while another might
create a map showing how an event in one country affected another event
in another country.
In the end, each student has been responsible for becoming an expert on
one particular aspect of a topic, communicating that information to others,
and learning from others in order to show understanding of the whole topic.
Targeted Strategy 2: Buy your seat.

This activity works particularly well in a homeroom or conversation class, but
can be modified to work in many different kinds of classrooms. Upon entering
the classroom, students are asked to “buy” their seat by providing a piece of
information before they sit down. The information can be about the students’
personal or school lives (for example, they won their soccer game the day
before), a local event (for example, there is a big sale at Macy’s), a news event
(for example, there was an earthquake in Turkey), sports or weather news (for
example, the Super Bowl is this Sunday; it’s supposed to rain tomorrow). No
news or information can be repeated, so if students repeat something that has
already been reported, they have to think of something new. For this reason,
students are encouraged to come to class with a couple of ideas for “buying”
their seat. In content-area classrooms, students may be asked to limit their
responses to a particular subject. For example, in a math class they can talk
about how they used math that day (for example, to count change for the bus);
or, in a science class they can be asked to provide a review of something they
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learned or did on a previous day in that class (for example, I learned H2O is
the symbol for water).
Alternative
Buy your exit: As they leave, each student has to provide information in order
to leave.
Targeted Strategy 3: Talk on self-selected topics.

Ask students to prepare a series of cards on which they list or draw topics they
know a lot about. Working in small groups, students take turns selecting one
of their cards. They talk briefly about the topic on the selected card and
answer any questions.
Targeted Strategy 4: Put questions in a can.

A teacher we know used this activity as an icebreaker, as a warm-up at the
beginning of the class, or when there was a little free time at the end of class.
She asked the students to make a list of open-ended questions they would like
to discuss with their classmates (e.g., What do you like to do on the weekends?
What do you like about this school? How is where you come from different than this
city? What do you think is a good way to learn to speak English?). After generating
many questions, they are written on strips of paper and placed in a can.
Periodically, students form small groups, take out one of the strip questions,
and have a conversation about the topic question. If time allows, the teacher
asks groups to share their questions and answers to the whole class. Students
have indicated that they sometimes find this sharing helpful because it gives
them good ideas (for example, about what to do on the weekend or new ideas
about learning English).
Alternative
This activity can be done in content-area classes as a review to a unit recently
completed or as part of a current unit. For example, during a unit on ancient
Egypt, students can create questions (e.g., What are hieroglyphs and why did they
disappear in Egypt? What is the process of mummification?) and include them in
the can. When students are answering questions, teachers can make books,
maps, picture dictionaries, and other reference materials available for students
to consult.
Targeted Strategy 5: Encourage open-ended role-plays.

Open-ended role-plays offer a collaborative learning experience that can lead
quiet students to develop enough confidence to speak up. As students work in
pairs to create scripts in response to a prompt provided by the teacher, and as

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
they listen to these scripted conversations, they learn to develop useful

schema for similar situations in the future. Some possible role-playing
situations include the following:
c Tell the school nurse that you don’t feel well.
c Introduce your parent or guardian to the teacher.
c Explain to a store owner or clerk that you received the wrong change.
c Set a time to meet a friend at a movie.
c Explain to a teacher why you don’t have your homework.
c Call 911 to report an emergency.
It is possible to assign the same prompt to all pairs and then compare
their scripts, or pairs can be assigned different prompts.
Some of my ELL students are very

Situation 5 reluctant to share opinions.
In some cultures, rote learning is stressed, and students may never be asked
to express an opinion. Also, some students from countries with oppressive
regimes may be fearful of the repercussions of giving opinions. These
students may require time before they feel safe enough to offer an opinion on
what they consider to be controversial topics. In addition, there are cultures
in which it may be considered unfeminine for women to express strong
opinions, or in some countries or cultures, women never articulate opinions
in front of men. Learning how to express and defend opinions is a standard
dimension of North American education, and teachers will want to help their
ELL students learn how to do so effectively and without fear.
Targeted Strategy 1: Create a safe environment for opinions.

Students who have their opinions or observe other students’ opinions
harshly critiqued, rebuked, or rejected will be reluctant or unwilling to
express themselves in the future. It is imperative for teachers to set up
guidelines for responding to comments or remarks that allow for no
put-downs or rude responses. (See Chapter 1, pages 18–32, for
specific strategies.)
Targeted Strategy 2: Provide words and phrases

for expressing opinions.
In class, brainstorm words and expressions for introducing an opinion (e.g.,
I think ____; I believe ____; In my opinion ____;) and words and expressions for
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agreeing (e.g., Yes, I agree with you, and I also think ____; That is my belief, too)
or politely disagreeing with someone (e.g., I understand what you are saying,
but I believe ____; I disagree with what you said because ____; That’s an interesting
opinion, but I think ____). Practice using these expressions in class with “safe”
subjects, such as opinions about favorite foods, animals, or sports.
Targeted Strategy 3: Initiate polls or oral questionnaires.

Students can be asked to answer questions and collect information about
topics, such as favorite sports or how they get to school, and to create charts
or graphs representing the information they collected. The National Center
for Educational Statistics provides an easy-to-use system for creating many
different kinds of graphs at its Kids Zone Web site (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/
createagraph/default.aspx) As a follow-up to these polls, students can explain
their answers more fully in small groups or as a whole class and discuss
why some responses may be more popular than others (for example, why
more students prefer soccer to volleyball).
Targeted Strategy 4: Build in think-pair-shares.

Students are often more willing to share opinions in pairs or small groups.
Teachers can encourage students to share their opinions by regularly
including think-pair-shares in which teachers ask a question, give students
time to think about the question and share their responses with a partner,
then share their responses with the whole class. For example, when reading
The Bluest Eye (Morrison, 2005), a teacher might ask students if they
think the character Pecola would have wanted blue eyes if she came from
a loving family.
Targeted Strategy 5: Set up a value line.

After discussing an issue in which opinions may vary, the teacher can ask
students to place themselves on an imaginary value line to represent their
position on the subject (Vogt & Echevarría, 2008). The value or position can
be about current issues or historical topics. For example, Buffalo, New York,
is currently discussing the issue of whether to allow gambling casinos. In this
example, after reading and researching information about the proposal and its
pros and cons with her class, Dorothy asked two students representing
opposing viewpoints (opposed to casinos and supporting casinos) to stand on
either end of the value line and take turns persuading students to join their
end of the value line. After both students expressed their sides of the issue,
students placed themselves on the value line according to their position (for
example, how strongly they supported or were opposed to gambling casinos

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
in Buffalo). In order to place themselves correctly, students needed to discuss

the opinions of others as they assumed their positions on the line. After all
the students had found a position on the line, some students explained their
positions on the line. Teachers should keep in mind and allow for the fact
that students’ first languages may be used, especially with newcomer students,
as students discuss the complexities and subtleties of the issue. Also, if
students appear to be reluctant to express their opinions, teachers can ask
students to assume the role of a specific character or historical figure and
justify that person’s position on the value line.
Targeted Strategy 6: Start opinion blogs.

Opinion blogs give students an opportunity to see how people express
their opinions. In blogs (Web logs), authors write about a topic and invite
readers to comment on what has been said. The TeachersFirst Web site
(www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogbasics.cfm) includes a good description
of how to use blogs. Teachers can create blogs on any topic and invite
students to add their comments. Students can share their own blogs with
classmates or may choose to read blogs of other students. Examples of
classroom blogs can be found at Classroom Blogs and Wikis (www.my-ecoach.
com/online/webresourcelist.php?rlid=4992#2).
Grammatical Structures
Making grammatical errors is a normal part of language development and
learning. Research has shown that most errors that second-language learners
make are not the result of their native language, but the developmental order
in which English is acquired, and this is shared across languages. Some of
these errors are similar to those that young children make learning their first
language (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1985). As ELLs begin to speak, they
gradually develop an understanding of grammatical structures (for example,
tense endings, plural markers, negative sentences, and question order).
Analysis of second-language learners’ development shows that these
structures are acquired not in the order in which they are taught, but in a
developmental sequence of acquisition common to English-language learners.
For example, ELLs usually acquire the ordering of subject, verb, and object
in a simple sentence (I throw the ball) and the -ing ending (She’s sleeping) very
early, but other structures, such as the third person singular –s (He runs) and
the present perfect (I have been there before) are typically attained much later.
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(See Figure 3.3 for an outline of the general pattern of grammatical

acquisition of English-language learners.) This process of acquiring language
is by no means static; language learners are continually adding to their
knowledge base of how language works as they receive and interpret
additional data in the form of language input through listening, reading, and
writing in the new language (Krashen & Scarcella, 1982; Lightbown &
Spada, 1993, 2006; Oller, 1979).

The following are some of the grammatical structures that teachers of
ELLs say they are concerned about:
c Students misuse pronouns (e.g., saying he when they mean she).
c Students omit articles (e.g., I have book for I have a book or I have the book).
c Students omit verb endings/inflections, such as the final –s, –ed, –ing
(e.g., I walk to school yesterday for I walked to school yesterday, and My dog
play in yard for My dog plays in the yard).
c Students mispronounce inflections (talk-ed for talk+t) (e.g., He talk+ed to
me after school for He talk+t to me after school).
Word Order (in simple declarative sentences)

Nominative & Accusative Case in pronouns (he, him)
Plural (excluding long plural –es, e.g., boxes, dishes)

Copula (to be, e.g., is, are)
Progressive (–ing)
Irregular Past (went)

Possessive (’s)
Conditional Auxiliary (would)
Long Plural (–es, e.g., boxes, dishes)
3rd Person Singular (–s, e.g., He sings.)
Perfect Auxiliary (have, e.g., I have eaten.)

Past Participle (–en, e.g., I have eaten.)
Figure 3.3: Grammatical Acquisition Order of ELLs

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Students overuse the present progressive tense marker -ing (e.g., He

walking to the bus every day for He walks to the bus every day).
c Students omit modals (e.g., I go to the game for I can go to the game).
c Students mix up modals and other verb forms (e.g., I can will do that for
I can do that or I must to not do that for I must not do that).
c Students have difficulty conveying meaning because the grammar is
confusing (e.g., Ball no here. I can no where for The ball isn’t here. I don’t
know where it is).
c Students use double negatives (e.g., I don’t never go there for I never go there).
c Students have difficulty forming negatives (e.g., I no want play for I don’t
want to play).
Correcting these grammatical errors will not automatically change ELL
students’ language patterns, nor will explaining the differences between
English and the native language. However, an awareness of the basic order in
which English is acquired, and an understanding between languages will help
teachers understand what to expect as the students’ knowledge of the English
language develops; it can also help teachers decide which grammatical
structures to focus on.
General Strategies
................................
Although direct instruction of specific rules of grammar may have a
measurable effect on tests that focus on form, research has shown that the
effect is short-lived (Krashen, 1992). In addition, correction has not been
found to be reliable in helping students overcome errors (Dulay, Burt, &
Krashen, 1982; Guillén, 2007; Krashen, 1992). Correcting students’
grammatical errors should be handled judiciously; it is much more useful to
focus instruction on a frequently occurring structure, particularly a structure
that causes confusion for the listener. It is especially important that teachers
do not correct students’ errors as they are emerging from the silent period and
in situations in which they might be embarrassed in front of their peers or
others. For example, in the following interaction, the teacher’s response is
likely to cause embarrassment and may make the student reluctant to speak
any further:
Student: He have a book.
Teacher: No, that’s not right. It’s she has a book. Say that after me.
A more effective way of dealing with the error is to clarify the
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confusion and model the proper usage, as the following illustrates:

Student: He have a book.
Teacher: Who has the book? He? (pointing to Juan) Or she? (pointing to Patricia)
After this exchange, the teacher would be wise to make a note that
pronoun differences (she/he) and subject/verb agreement (have/has) would be
good teaching points . . . and to follow up on them later.

Asking questions to clarify meaning in a conversation or instructional
interaction is the most natural way to address grammatical confusion. For
example, if an ELL student says, “I go to doctor. I miss class,” the teacher
might ask, “Do you mean you went to the doctor yesterday, and that’s why
you missed class?” (pointing to the day of the week corresponding to yesterday
on the calendar or using the frequently used gesture used to indicate yesterday:
pointing behind his or her shoulder), or “Do you mean you will go to the
doctor today, so you will miss class today?” (pointing to that day on the
calendar or pointing down to indicate today). These negotiations for meaning
may not have an immediate effect on the ELL students’ use of language, but
as their language develops, they will begin to recognize the importance of
subtleties in verb tense, correct pronoun use, and other aspects of grammar,
and apply them in their own speech.
Since ELLs acquire language by understanding messages—in other
words, through receiving comprehensible input—teachers can play an
important role by providing a rich array of language experiences. These
experiences should be natural, not artificial, and include activities that
students enjoy, opportunities to play with language, and opportunities to use
language to process, create, and express ideas in ways that are cognitively
stimulating. Some older ELL students may find comfort in the explicit
teaching of grammar points, especially if their previous learning of languages
has focused on form and structure rather than communication. However,
grammar drills should play a limited role in the classroom. In the following
situations and strategies, we address some of the common grammatical errors
found in ELL students’ speaking.
My students misuse pronouns. For example,

Situation 1 they say “he” when they mean “she.”
Targeted Strategy 1: Talk about families.

Invite students to bring in pictures of family members and share information
about them. Students tend to naturally correct each other or ask for

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
clarification. For example, a student in Dorothy’s class, Akiro, brought in a

picture of her sister. She told the class: “This is my sister. Her name is Junko.
She is 12 year old. He is in sixth grade.” At this point, Eduardo asked Akiro,
“Is Junko a boy or a girl?” Junko responded, “She is a girl. She is in sixth
grade. She like to play the piano. She play piano very good.”
A teacher we know asks her students to talk about the oldest member of
the family or the youngest member of the family. Keep in mind that many
ELL students view grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and close friends of
the family as members of their immediate family. Also, they may refer to the
children of aunts and uncles as brothers or sisters, rather than cousins.
Targeted Strategy 2: Create a gender Venn diagram.

Students read a book or watch a movie that has a sharp contrast between a
male and female character. They then create a Venn diagram delineating the
roles of the male and female characters. For example, after reading Romeo and
Juliet, students can watch the modern version of the play, West Side Story.
After watching the film, students can make a Venn diagram about Maria and
Tony. (See Figure 3.4.)
After creating the Venn diagram, students can share information about
what Tony did, what Maria did, and what they both did as a result of their
problem (e.g., Tony used to be a member of the Jets. He didn’t want to fight any
more. Maria worked with Anita in the bridal shop. She met Tony at the dance. They
fell in love).
Tony Maria
• was a member Tony and Maria • works at a

of Jets bridal shop
• go to the
• kills Anita's • is friends
dance
brother with Anita
• fall in love
• is shot by
Chino
Figure 3.4: Venn Diagram for West Side Story
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Targeted Strategy 3: Do an oral cloze.

In a typical cloze activity, students predict which words are missing in a
passage and fill in the blanks with words that make sense. Cloze passages are
frequently used in reading instruction to help students focus on vocabulary
and context. (See Chapter 4, page 195, for more information about cloze
activities.) However, teachers who want to focus on one element of grammar
or pronunciation can do an oral cloze, in which they or other students read

the passage out loud and stop where the blank would normally go; one
student, a selected group of students, or the whole class then orally fill in the
missing word. Following is an example of an oral cloze from the chapter
“Marin” from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros—places where
the missing subject pronouns would go are underlined and in italics. Note
that the subject pronoun she is not deleted at the beginning of the third
sentence because either he or she would make sense there.
Marin’s boyfriend is in Puerto Rico. She shows us his letters and makes us
promise not to tell anybody they’re getting married when she goes back to
P. R. She says he didn’t get a job yet, but she’s saving the money she gets
from selling Avon and taking care of her parents.
When using an oral cloze, it is important to give the students an
opportunity to read the text, including the blanks, ahead of time, so they can
understand the context of the whole passage. Teachers can begin by doing a
whole-class oral cloze. Later, selected groups of students (for example,
students sitting at Table 1 or Table 2) can take turns filling in words. Or the
teacher can begin by pointing to one student to fill in the first word, that
student points to another student to fill in the next word, and so on until the
passage has been completed. As the passage is read aloud, the teacher or a
student can fill in the missing blanks on an overhead projector.
My students often omit the plural

Situation 2 ending –s (for example, they say
three book instead of three books).
Targeted Strategy 1: Use singular/plural flashcards.

Students or teachers can create flash card pairs in which one object is singular
and the other is plural. In pairs, students lay out the flash cards. One student
says the word (e.g., boots) and the other student points to the flash card with
the correct singular or plural objects (e.g., the picture of two boots). Students
take turns saying the words, until they have used all of the flash cards.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Targeted Strategy 2: Teach a modified version of Simon Says.

A modified version of the game Simon Says is an enjoyable activity that helps
ELLs discriminate between singular and plural forms of words. The students
have to listen carefully to what Simon says. (The teacher initially takes this
role.) If the teacher says, “Touch your ears,” they have to touch both ears.
Students who touch only one ear are out. If the teacher says, “Touch your
knee,” they have to touch only one knee. Students who touch both knees are
out. After playing a few rounds, students can play the part of Simon.
My students have trouble

Situation 3 pronouncing past-tense inflections
(talk/t/, rain/d/, and want/Id/).
Targeted Strategy 1: Discuss past activities.

On Mondays, Dorothy makes a point of asking her students what they did
over the weekend. As students talk about their activities, she writes the
past-tense forms on the board. If students seem to be having difficulty with
the past-tense inflections, she places the verbs in three columns according to
the sounds generated by the past-tense inflections. For example, one day,
students generated the following sentences:
Eugenio: I played soccer.
Marta: I watched a good movie.
Marie: I braided my sister’s hair.
Tran: I visited my cousins.
Mai: I walked to the store with my sister.
Nadine: I learned how to drive.
When she wrote the verbs on the board, Dorothy listed them in the
following way:
played watched braided
learned walked visited
She repeated the words and asked students if they could figure out why
they were in three different columns and what the words in each column had
in common. After eliciting that the ending –ed sounds were different, she
added the sound at the top of each column and reviewed the rules for –ed
pronunciation, which are as follows:
c /d/ if a verb ends in a voiceless sound
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/d/ /t/ /Id/
played watched braided
learned walked visited
smiled kissed waited

rained worked wanted
bowled cooked added
Figure 3.5: Students’ List of Words With Different –ed Sounds
c /t/ if a verb ends in a voiced sound

c /Id/ as an extra syllable if a verb ends in the letters d or t
Students practiced voiced and unvoiced sounds by putting their hands
to their throats—the vocal chords vibrate with voiced sounds, but not
with unvoiced sounds. Finally, students added words to each column.
(See Figure 3.5.)
Targeted Strategy 2: Hold up a card.

Each student makes three cards to represent each final –ed sound (/d/, /t/,
/Id/) with one color representing each sound (blue = /d/; green = /t/; red =
/Id/). The teacher pronounces a verb with an –ed ending and students hold
up the card that represents that sound. To make this activity a little more
competitive, students can all stand up and only students who were correct
remain standing, until only one student remains standing.
My ELL students often confuse verb tenses.

Situation 4 For example, they use the present tense
instead of the past tense (I go to school
yesterday) or overuse the present progressive
tense (I am washing my face every day).
Targeted Strategy 1: Introduce focused talks.

On Fridays, the teacher asks the ELL students to draw a picture or talk about
what they are going to do that weekend, as the example below shows:
Teacher: What are you going to do this weekend?

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Deng: I going to park play soccer (holds up a drawing of himself playing soccer
in the park).
Teacher: That should be fun. If the weather is nice, I’m going to the park,
too, but I’m not going to play soccer. I’m going to take a walk in
the park.
Marisol: I go shopping with my friend for new shoes (holds up a picture of her
friend, herself, and a pair of shoes).
Teacher: Oh, you’re going shopping with your friend. I hope you find some new
shoes.
On Monday, the teacher reviews the pictures and asks students if they did
what they planned to do.
Teacher: Let’s look at your drawings and see if you did what you planned to do.
What about you, Marisol?
Marisol: Yes, I buyed new shoes.
Teacher: You bought new shoes? Are they shoes for school?
Marisol: Yes, I bought new shoes, but they are shoes for church.
Teacher: Deng, what about you?

Deng: I no can go park because it raining.
Teacher: Oh, that’s a shame that you couldn’t go to the park because it was
raining. I didn’t go to the park either. I hope we can go next weekend.
In the example above, the teacher provides opportunities for students
to use the future and past tenses, but she does not overtly correct
their errors.
Targeted Strategy 2: Play irregular past-tense bingo.

Learning irregular past-tense forms can often be difficult for ELLs.
Following is an enjoyable way to focus on them by playing bingo:
c Brainstorm a list of irregular past-tense verbs (went, sat, got, had) and
write them on the board.

c Give students a blank bingo board, and ask them to choose nine of the
irregular past-tense verbs and write one verb in each square of the bingo
board. Make sure that all students do not choose the same verbs or place
them in the same squares. (See Figure 3.6.)
c Play bingo by calling out base forms of the verbs (come, fight, get, have) as
the students place their chips on the irregular form of that verb (came,
fought, got, had). The first student to fill in all three squares across, down,
or diagonally calls out “bingo.”
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went made wrote

had sat bit
did came left
Figure 3.6: Sample Irregular Past-Tense Bingo Board
My students misuse or overuse the

Situation 5
present tense or present progressive tense
(He walking to the bus every day instead
of He walks to the bus every day).
Many native speakers of English assume that the present-tense form of verbs
is one of the first and easiest verb tenses for nonnative speakers to learn. On
the contrary, the final –s on the third person singular verbs (She plays) in the
simple present tense is acquired later, while the –ing verb ending (She’s playing)
is usually learned very early (See Figure 3.3, Grammatical Acquisition Order
of ELLs, on page 111). As a result, teachers should not be surprised to hear
ELL students using what sounds like the present progressive tense to describe
daily routines (“She’s never absent. She’s coming to school every day,” instead
of “She’s never absent. She comes to school every day”). Since this order of
acquisition has been found to be the natural learning route that second-lan-
guage learners typically take, correction, overtly or through modeling, and
grammar drills may change the ELL student’s speech patterns temporarily, but
are not likely to have any long-term effect. When ELLs use the -ing form of a

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
verb instead of the present tense, the best course for teachers is to concentrate
on the communication and clarify any misunderstandings. However, teachers
can provide opportunities for students to hear and use the present tense and,
when they are developmentally ready, they will begin to use it.
Targeted Strategy 1: Let students conduct interviews
about daily routines.
Pairs of students interview each other about their daily routines or activities.
The students take notes about their partner’s activities and report back to the
class (“Teshome gets up every day at 7:00”; “Miguel plays soccer on
Tuesdays”). As a follow-up, teachers can orally quiz students to see how much
they remember (“Who plays soccer on Tuesdays?”; “How many students get
up before 8:00?”)
Targeted Strategy 2: Play the circle game.

This circle game gives students an opportunity to use the present tense in its
positive and negative forms. As a whole class or in small groups, students sit
in a circle. The teacher explains that each student will draw a sentence from
a box and read it out loud to the person to his or her left. The purpose of
the game is to decide if the sentence is true or false (“The earth revolves
around the sun”). If it is true, the student on the left simply agrees (“Yes, it
does”). If it is false (“The earth revolves around the moon”), the student
replies “no,” and explains what is true (“No, it doesn’t. The moon revolves
around the earth”). If a student replies incorrectly, he or she is out of the
circle. The game continues until only one student is left in the circle. If
the student uses the incorrect verb form (“The moon revolving around the
earth”), the teacher confirms that the answer is correct while supplying the
correct verb form (“That’s correct. The moon revolves around the earth”).
My students have difficulty forming negatives

Situation 6 (I no want play for I don’t want to play).
Targeted Strategy 1: Play the chain game.

In the chain game, the first person begins with a sentence, such as “I want
to go to ____ (for example, Katharine might say, “I want to go to Nepal”).
The second person either agrees with the sentence (for example, Dorothy
might say, “I want to go to Nepal, too”) or disagrees and adds what he or she
wants to do (for example, Dorothy might say, “I don’t want to go to Nepal. I
want to go to Mexico”). This game can be played with many categories of
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words, including countries, food (I want to eat ____), sports activities (I want to
play ____), clothing (I like to wear ____), and TV shows (I like to watch ____).
Although not all students will necessarily be using the negative in this game,
they will have many opportunities to hear the negative being used.
Targeted Strategy 2: Generate confirm-or-deny sentences.

This activity can be done as a unit review. In small groups, students generate
sentences based on a topic they have been studying (for example, presidents of
the U. S., provinces of Canada, Albert Einstein) and write positive and negative
sentences about the topic that may or may not be true (George Washington
wasn’t the first president of the United States; Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta;
Einstein was born in Australia). The teacher reviews the students’ statements and
makes sure the group understands whether the statements are accurate or not.
Two groups face off. A student in one group reads one of his or her sentences
to the students in the other group (for example, “George Washington wasn’t
the first president of the United States”). Students in the opposite group
either confirm the statement (“That’s right, George Washington wasn’t the
first president of the United States”) or deny it (“No, that’s not right. George
Washington was the first president of the United States”). The group gets a
point for a correct response. The groups take turns reading until all of the
statements have been read. The group with the most points wins the game.
This activity provides students with practice in a content area, using positive
and negative statements, and statements of confirmation or denial.
Situation 7 My students have difficulty forming questions.
Forming questions is a difficult task for many ELL students, especially

newcomers. When conversing with ELLs, it is important to address the
content of the questions first, rather than frustrating students by insisting
that they form questions perfectly before answering them, as in the
following example:
Humberto: We go home early today?
Teacher: Humberto, are you asking if today is an early release day? Do you go
home early today?
Humberto: (shakes his head yes) Sí.
Teacher: Yes, you go home early today. You go home at 1:00, right after you
eat lunch.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Notice that, in this example, the teacher does not ask Humberto to
repeat the question correctly because she does not want to discourage him
from asking questions in the future. However, the teacher may want to
provide focused practice on forming questions later in class. The chain game
described on pages 120–121 can be modified to include questions (I want to go
to Nepal. Where do you want to go?). Additional strategies for helping students
form questions follow.
Targeted Strategy 1: Create a poster of common questions.

Students can help create a poster of questions they often ask in class.
Creating the poster will help them form questions and, with pictures for
visual support, can serve as a resource for newcomers to refer to when they
need to ask questions. Some useful questions that teachers have included on
posters include:
c Can you repeat that?
c May I go to the bathroom?
c Can I borrow a pencil?
c Did you say ____?
c Where is the ____?
c How do you say this word?
c What page are we on?
Targeted Strategy 2: Make a question word chart.

Some ELL students have difficulty distinguishing between question words
(for example, who question words are asking about people, where question
words are asking about places). A poster with these words, some visuals, and
examples can help ELL students know which word to use when they want to
form questions. (See Figure 3.7 on page 123.)
Teachers can also refer students to the poster when they become
confused. For example, if a teacher asks, “Who picked up the book?” and a
student answers “On the shelf,” the teacher can point to “Who” on the
question word chart.
Targeted Strategy 3: Manipulate Cuisenaire rods.

A common mistake that ELL students make when forming questions is
reversing the order of the subject and verb. A visual way to help students
become aware of that word reversal is to assign parts of speech to different
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Question Word Poster

Question Word Function of the Word Example
Who People Q: Who is the teacher?

A: Mr. Torres
What Things
Y Q: What is on the table?
A: a book
Where Places
B Q: Where is the school?
A: on Maple Street
dYo
When Time Q: When did you get up?
A: at 9:30
Why Reason
? Q: Why did you stand up?
A: to get a drink of water
How Process Q: How did you get the sum of 4?

2+2=4 A: adding 2 + 2
Figure 3.7: Question Word Poster
colored Cuisenaire rods.2 Students then manipulate the rods to show an

understanding of the subject-verb reversal. The following is taken from a
lesson in which a teacher used Cuisenaire rods to demonstrate how to form
questions beginning with a declarative sentence:
c The teacher says, “Luis is going to bed.”
c The teacher picks up a red rod and says “Luis,” and sets the rod on
the table.
c The teacher picks up a white rod, says “is,” and sets it on the table next
to the red rod.
c The teacher picks up a green rod, says “going,” and sets it next to the
white rod.
2
See pages 90–91 for more information about Cuisenaire rods and how to use them for language
development and practice.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c The teacher picks up a purple rod, says “to bed,” and sets it next to the
green rod.
c The teacher says the complete sentence again: “Luis is going to bed.”
She points to each rod as she says the word or words it represents.
c Next, she asks, “Is Luis going to bed?”
c As she asks this question, the teacher moves the white rod from its place
between the red rod and the green rod, places it in front of the red rod,
and repeats, “Is Luis going to bed?” as she points to each rod.
c The teacher follows this demonstration by saying a similar sentence
(“Mary is eating lunch”). She sets the rods in their original pattern
(red-white-green-purple) and repeats the sentence, pointing to each
rod the word represents.
c Then she says, “Is Mary eating lunch?” and points to the rods, gesturing
to indicate that one of the students should move the white rod.
c One of the students moves the white rod to the front of the sentence.
c After practicing these sentences a few times, students can work in small
groups with the rods to create their own sentences and ask questions.
c Teachers can follow up by asking students to write sentences and
questions similar to the ones they have been forming with the rods.
Alternative
An alternative to using Cuisenaire rods is to use colored cards with words
written on them, and to manipulate the cards. A small group of students can
practice manipulating the colored cards on a table, and as a follow-up, line up
the cards in front of them to form a sentence. As the teacher or the students
recite the questions, the student holding the auxiliary verb (for example, is)
then physically moves to the front of the line with the card.
Targeted Strategy 4: Play Jeopardy.

Students can play the popular game show Jeopardy, in which answers must be
provided in the form of a question within specified categories. For example,
if the category is Continents and the clue is two countries that are located entirely
in the southern hemisphere, the answer is What are Australia and Antarctica?
Teachers and students can make up their own games or use some of the many
games that are available as board games, DVDs, online games, and so on.
Two Web sites that offer Jeopardy games on many different topics for K–12
students are www.hardin.k12.ky.us/res_techn/countyjeopardygames.htm and
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http://teach.fcps. net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm. Both of these Web sites also provide

templates so that teachers or students can create their own Jeopardy games
using Microsoft PowerPoint.
Targeted Strategy 5: Brainstorm and create role-plays.

This activity works best if students brainstorm role-playing situations that are
meaningful to them, rather than having a set of role-plays given to them. The
teacher begins by asking students to think of situations in which they need to
get information from someone. Here are some situations students might
come up with:
c Getting college information from the school counselor.
c Talking to a doctor or nurse about symptoms and/or treatment.
c Asking a pharmacist about a prescription to be filled.
c Getting information about recreational activities in the town.
c Talking to parents about a potential babysitting job.
c Talking to the manager of a store or fast food restaurant about a
possible job.
c Trying on shoes in a department store.
In pairs, students can create dialogues and present the role-plays to the
whole class.
Targeted Strategy 6: Use KWLH charts.

A KWLH chart is a graphic organizer that helps teachers and students identify
prior knowledge about a particular topic (What I know); ask questions about
what they want to learn about the topic (What I want to know); record what
they have learned (What I learned); and record how they obtained the
information (How I learned). Some teachers include only the first three
headings and refer to KWL charts, but we feel that it is important for students
to see how information is obtained, so we regularly include H in KWLH
charts. Also, many teachers hold off on completing this chart until after
students have been immersed in the topic for a couple of days (for example,
through read-alouds, watching DVDs or videos, or having a guest speaker).
c Teachers begin a unit of study by recording the information on a large
KWLH chart on the board or on a poster. They usually start by
introducing the topic, and then students brainstorm what they already
know about the topic, which is recorded in the What I Know column of
the chart.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Next, students ask questions about what they would like to learn about
the topic. As teachers record this information on the chart, they can elicit
information about how to correctly form the questions on the chart. For
example, when Dorothy was working with her students on a KWLH
chart while introducing a unit on the Titanic, the following conversation
took place:
Eduardo: We know some peoples died, but we not know how many peoples.
Dorothy: How will we write that question on our chart? The answer will be a
number, so what question words do we start with?
Rosa: How many! How many did die?
Dorothy: Yes, Rosa. If we start our question with “How many” it will be clear
that the answer is a number. (Dorothy writes “How many” on the
board, but not on the chart.) Should we make it clear how many
whats? How many chickens? How many . . . ?
Aarya: How many people.
Dorothy: Yes, let’s include “people” to make that clear. (She adds “people” to
the question she started on the board.) “How many” replaces the
subject in this question, so we don’t need to use “did.” We can go
straight to our verb, but we have to put it in the past tense since
this happened many years ago. What verb will we add to finish
the question?
Eduardo: Died! How many people died?
Dorothy: That’s right, Eduardo. (She adds “died” to finish the question on the
board and then adds the question to the KWLH chart.)
The students continued by brainstorming where they could find the
answer to that question, and adding other questions to the chart. (See
Figure 3.8 on page 127.)
My students’ speech is confusing because

Situation 8 of their grammar (Sister he no look she
bus go away for My sister missed the bus).
It’s important to recognize that these types of misunderstandings result from

the student taking the linguistic risk of trying to share information that is
beyond his or her ability to communicate in English at that moment.
Focusing on communication during these breakdowns is absolutely crucial for
supporting ELLs because if we abandon the conversation, we are telling them
that what they have to say isn’t important or that they are somehow deficient.
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What I Know What I Want to Learn What I Learned How I Learned It
The Titanic sank.
Many people How many 1,518 Internet: R.M.S.

died. people died? Titanic
The captain died.
Some people How many people 705 Internet: R.M.S.

lived. lived? Titanic
It hit an iceberg.
Were Jack and Rose No. They were Internet: Jeremy

really on the Titanic? not real people. Skarr’s Titanic Page
How big was it? It had 9 decks Finding the Titanic

and it was as tall by Robert D.
as an 11-story Ballard
building.
How did they get They used water Internet: Sailing

water? maker machines Thru Science
to take salt out
of the ocean
water.
Where did it sink? Close to Internet: Titanic:

Newfoundland, Raising a Legend &
Canada Exploring the
Latitude 40° Titanic by Robert
44' N D. Ballard
Longitude 49°
55' W
How many lifeboats did 20 lifeboats Drawing the

it have? Titanic by
Andrew Staiano
Figure 3.8: KWLH Chart for the Titanic
Targeted Strategy 1: Listen and paraphrase.

When communication breaks down, try to figure out what the speaker means
by picking out key words and concepts and paraphrasing what the student
has said. Ask questions, and once the confusion is sorted out, respond to the
content of the student’s comment, as illustrated in the following interaction.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Student: Sister he no look she bus go away.

Teacher: Your sister?
Student: Yes.
Teacher: She went on the bus?
Student: No.
Teacher: She’s not on the bus?
Student: Yes. Not on bus.
Teacher: Did she want to take the bus?
Student: Yes (nods vigorously).
Teacher: Did the bus come to the bus stop?
Student: Yes. Bus go away.
Teacher: But your sister wasn’t on the bus.
Student: Yes.
Teacher: Ahh. Your sister missed the bus? (The student nods.)
Teacher: Your sister missed the bus? Okay. But you (points to the student) say,
“My (points to self) sister missed the bus.”
Student: (nods) My sister missed the bus.
The teacher continues with the conversation, asking, “What happened

to your sister?” and “Could she take a later bus?” Now that the teacher
understands the gist of what the student is trying to say, she can deal with the
situation of the sister missing the bus and its consequences. In other words,
the teacher can figure out what the student wants to convey.
I correct my students’ grammatical errors, but

Situation 9 they continue to make the same mistakes.
It’s a natural reaction for many people, including teachers, to try to correct a
student when he or she uses incorrect grammar. However, it is important to
remember that second-language learners typically acquire grammatical
structures in a certain order (see Figure 3.3, Grammatical Acquisition Order
of ELLs, on page 111). Also, studies show that simply correcting grammatical
errors is unlikely to be effective. Teachers can best help their students by
providing mini-lessons on targeted grammatical structures appropriate for
their level of development, and language enrichment activities, such as those
described previously in this section.
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Pronunciation
Research shows that people who learn to speak a language at an early age
usually speak without an accent. On the other hand, L2 learners who begin
learning a language at the onset of adolescence and beyond, often do speak
with an accent (Derwing & Munro, 2005; Oyama, 1976; Piske, MacKay, &
Flege, 2001). The causes underlying this phenomenon are not known, but
ELLs learning a language from about 12 years of age and beyond may benefit
from focused attention on pronunciation. Teachers should keep in mind that
the nature and degree of ELL students’ accents can vary greatly, and that
second-language learners and their parents may have strong feelings about
their accents. Some ELLs consider their accent to be part of their identity
while others strive for accentless spoken English (Jenkins, 2006). Teachers
will want to respect the feelings students have about their accent as they help
them learn to speak so they can be understood by others.
In order to help students improve their pronunciation, teachers need to
understand the elements of pronunciation, which are usually broken down
into the following categories:
c Intonation: how and when the voice rises and falls (for example, You’re
done, expressed with a falling pitch, indicates a statement, while You’re
done?, expressed with a rising pitch, indicates a question or surprise).
c Stress: how much emphasis is placed on a syllable in a word. For example,
with the word record, the stress is placed on the second syllable when it is
a verb (recórd), and on the first syllable when it is a noun (récord). Also,
where the stress occurs in a sentence can affect meaning (He HIT me vs.
HE hit me).
c Rhythm: where pauses take place and how words and phrases are linked
together. Often, stress and intonation play a part in rhythm. Dorothy’s
students always laugh when she illustrates this by saying the following
sentence with two different rhythms and intonations, to convey two very
different meanings:
What’s that# in the road ahead?$
What’s that# in the road$(pause) A head?#
c Sounds: how we articulate and produce the individual sounds that make
up language. Phonemes are the smallest unit of speech that distinguish
meaning. For example, in English, the words bit and bet are different
because the phoneme /I/ in bit and the phoneme /E/ in bet make them

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
two different words. Different languages have different phonemes, which

is why it is sometimes difficult for nonnative speakers to distinguish
between two sounds that are not phonemes in their language.
While native-language grammatical structures have limited influence
on second-language learners, the phonology, or sound system, of an
ELL’s first language does influence the new one, so it will help teachers if
they know something about the differences in phonemes, stress, and
other elements between their students’ native languages and English.
Two good Web sites that provide information about phonological
differences between English and other languages are:
• www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/l1all.html: a Web site created by a
former ESL teacher in England. This site contains common
pronunciation problems that speakers of many different languages
experience when speaking English. Although there are differences
in pronunciation between British and American English, they are
insignificant in this Web site.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-native_pronunciations_of_English: this
Wikipedia Web site provides pronunciation differences between
English and some of the major spoken languages. This article
links to another one, which gives information about pronunciation
problems that native-English speakers have when speaking other
languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglophone_pronunciation_
of_foreign_languages).
General Strategies
................................
Auditory processing and discrimination of sounds, stresses, and rhythms
of language almost always precedes production. When working on
pronunciation, teachers will want to provide opportunities for:
c Hearing both isolated sounds and sounds within context.
c Producing by physically making the sounds.
c Expanding the sounds and other features of speech in longer passages
within specific contexts.
General Strategy 1: Invite students to listen carefully

to and/or record spoken English.
Encourage students to listen to native speakers of English and focus on the
sounds they hear, how stress is placed on certain words, how speakers pause
to put ideas together, and how the body and facial expressions support
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speech. Once they have permission, students can record different speakers in
a variety of situations and attempt to mimic small segments of speech. Many
nonnative speakers who speak English clearly have told us that they have
succeeded through a combination of concentrated effort and mimicry.
General Strategy 2: Take on a different character.

Sometimes playing the role of a different character makes students less

self-conscious about speaking and frees them to attempt new forms of verbal
expression. Students can be given a short passage and asked to read it aloud
in the role of a well-known person, such as the president of the country or
other political figures, famous actors or singers, cartoon or comic book
characters. They can also be given short role-plays in which they take on an
identity such as that of a young child, an elderly person, or a person who is
frustrated, angry, sad, or elated. Teachers will want to avoid situations in
which students appear to be mocking or mimicking specific people in a cruel
or negative way. Prior to producing the speech, students can listen to and/or
view excerpts of speeches of their “character.” Ask students to analyze what
makes that person’s speech unique or identifiable (for example, does the
person tend to slide two vowels together, as in the typical southern U. S.
dialect, or does he or she add a rising “eh” at the end of sentences to ensure
that the listener agrees or is interested, as is common in Canada? Is the
speech rapid, with few pauses? Do the sentences tend to rise or fall at the
end? How does the person move his or her body when speaking?). Following
the speech, the class can identify the strategies that the speaker employed,
and suggest additional features that the character or person uses.
General Strategy 3: Shadow or echo read.

Shadow reading is an activity specifically designed for practicing
pronunciation. The teacher reads a short passage and students follow along
and mark stresses, pauses, and intonation on their copies of the text. The
teacher reads the passage a second time and the students read along, or
shadow the teacher’s reading. Echo reading is a similar technique that is also
used with beginners as a reading strategy. (See Chapter 4, page 163.) The
teacher reads a short passage a little at a time, breaking it into phrases or
sentences, and the students repeat the phrase or sentence, mimicking the
stress and intonation of the teacher.
General Strategy 4: Use poetry.

Poetry is an excellent way for students to listen to the sounds, stress, and
rhythm of language. Students benefit if teachers share many different poems

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
and discuss how poets use meter and rhythm. (See Chapters 2 and 4 for more
details about using poetry in the classroom. See Appendix B for a list of poetry
books about diverse cultures. Also see information earlier in this chapter,
pages 91–92, about using chants, poetry, and songs, including hip-hop.)
General Strategy 5: Check regularly for understanding.
When speaking, it is important to check regularly to make sure that the
message is being conveyed successfully. Teachers can encourage students to
watch the reactions of people they are speaking to. ELLs can check for
understanding by:
c Watching facial expressions: If listeners are smiling and nodding
appropriately, they are probably understanding most of what is being
said. On the other hand, if listeners are frowning, squinting their eyes,
or just staring, they may be confused.
c Listening for appropriate comments: Comments such as “Yes, I agree”
or “That’s too bad,” or conversation fillers, such as “um hum” or “Is that
right?” are often indications of understanding. If listeners respond with a
comment that is not related to the topic or do not respond at all, they are
probably not understanding.
c Asking if they are being understood: When ELLs aren’t sure if someone
is understanding them or if they’re getting signals that they are not
being understood, they can ask the listener directly (“Have I said that
clearly?”; “Would you like me to say that again?”; “I’m sorry, English
pronunciation is difficult for me.”; “I said ____. Did I say it correctly?”)
By raising the issue of their pronunciation themselves, ELLs can invite
those who might be sensitive or embarrassed about not understanding to
ask for clarification and engage them in monitoring the conversation
for understanding.
When using these general pronunciation strategies or the targeted
strategies that follow, it is important for teachers to keep in mind that
preadolescence and adolescence are times when students are often very
self-conscious about all aspects of themselves—including their speech.
Lessons on pronunciation can single out individual students in a way that
might make them feel uncomfortable. Teachers will want to be sensitive to
this potential for embarrassment or discomfort and keep focused lessons on
pronunciation short and nonthreatening.
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Sometimes I can’t understand my ELLs

Situation 1
when they speak because of their accents.
Students’ speech may be hard to understand for a variety of reasons, such as

stress, rhythm, intonation, and articulation of sounds. For example, ELL
students may pronounce th as d or s (dis for this, sink for think), insert an e
before –s (espelling), use irregular stress (for example, putting the stress on the
first syllable of establish /és-ta-blish/ instead of the second syllable /es-tá-blish/),
or use irregular intonation (for example, using a lowered pitch at the end
of questions, such as, “Where are you?”$ instead of a rising pitch, as in
“Where are you?”#). These irregularities in speech are probably the result of
influences from the home language. In some cases, they may lessen or even
disappear after prolonged exposure to the new language without any direct
intervention from teachers. However, when communication breaks down
because of an ELL’s pronunciation, teachers can help get the conversation
back on track with the following strategies. As with breakdowns of
understanding because of grammatical structures, it is important to respond
to the content of the student’s comment once the confusion is sorted out.
Targeted Strategy 1: Keep listening.

Rather than interrupting students when they pronounce a word or phrase in
a way that you don’t understand, continuing to listen to them often clears
up the misunderstanding. For example, if a student responds to a teacher’s
question about what he or she did over the weekend with, “I do no sing,” the
confusion may be resolved by simply waiting for the student to elaborate or
encouraging the student to continue by responding, “Yes?” If the student
continues by saying, “It raining. I no play soccer. I no go to park. I do no
sing,” the teacher understands that the student wanted to convey, “I did
nothing,” and can respond appropriately.
Targeted Strategy 2: Ask strategic questions using

gestures or drawings.
When an ELL’s elaborations don’t resolve pronunciation misunderstandings,
teachers can ask questions and use drawings or gestures as in the following
conversation:
Sasha: My mom no let me eat snakes.
Teacher: Why is that, Sasha?
Sasha: She say they no good.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Teacher: Do you mean snacks, like potato chips (gestures eating potato chips from
a bag) or snakes? (sketches a picture of a snake and shows it to Sasha)
Sasha: I mean snacks, like potato chips. (gestures eating potato chips)
Teacher: Your mom is right. Snacks like potato chips are not good for you.
I have students I can understand perfectly
Situation 2 well when we’re having a one-on-one
conversation, but when they make formal
presentations, they are hard to understand.
The causes for this situation may vary. For example, the students may
not have sufficient background information and vocabulary for the more
formal academic task. (See Chapter 2, page 76, for an explanation of the
difference between basic interpersonal communicative skills [BICS]
and cognitive academic language proficiency [CALP].) It’s possible that
the student feels comfortable with the topic when reading and writing
about it, but has not had opportunities to orally express the words and
ideas before. Also, they may be nervous, which could affect their ability to
speak clearly.
Targeted Strategy 1: Provide opportunities for rehearsal.

Students need opportunities to rehearse their presentations with other
students, teachers, or aides. In addition to issues such as timing, content
appropriateness, and so on, which are addressed with native speakers as
they rehearse, ELLs will want to pay careful attention to pronunciation,
particularly of new or difficult words or expressions.
Targeted Strategy 2: Encourage visuals.

Although visuals will not improve a student’s pronunciation, they can make
understanding easier and give ELLs a focus for their talks. Visuals can
include pictures, diagrams, graphs, posters, and PowerPoint presentations.
Encourage students to point to these visual aides as they are making their
presentations. For example, when one of Dorothy’s students, Fatou, was
making a PowerPoint presentation about her native city, Dakar, the capital of
Senegal, she explained that it was an important city because it was next to the
ocean. Her pronunciation of ocean (o – see – an with three syllables and an /s/
instead of /sh/) made it difficult for Dorothy and some of the students to
understand. When one of the students asked Fatou to clarify why Dakar was
134
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
important, Fatou repeated, “because it is too close to the ocean” with the
same pronunciation of ocean, but this time she pointed to Dakar and the
ocean on the map of Senegal she had included in her PowerPoint
presentation. Several students responded, “Oh, it’s next to the ocean,” with
more accurate pronunciations of ocean. Fatou confirmed, “Yes, it’s next
to the ocean,” with an improved pronunciation of ocean.
Presentations that allow students to demonstrate a skill or provide a

hands-on activity (for example, henna hand painting, or how to change a tire)
enhance understanding and work particularly well with ELLs as well.
Targeted Strategy 3: Provide feedback and opportunities

for self-evaluation.
Feedback can help students improve their presentation skills, but only if the
student knows the form and content of the feedback ahead of time. For
example, if the teacher or peers will be completing a rubric, the students
should see and understand the rubric prior to preparing their presentation.
Teachers can use many different ways to provide feedback to students on
their presentations (for example, oral comments, videotaping reviews, rubrics,
and checklists). The Alaska Department of Education has a Web site that
provides excellent examples of rubrics for many different kinds of oral
presentations (for example, skit, narration, interview). It can be accessed at
www.eed.state.ak.us/tls/Frameworks/wrldlang/wlinstr3.html. Dorothy has found it
effective to discuss with students ahead of time one or two aspects that they
would like to focus on for improvement during their oral presentations (for
example, pronunciation of words, word stress, body language). Dorothy
and/or the students’ peers can then focus on these areas when
providing feedback to the student.
My ELL students have difficulty with particular

Situation 3 sounds, which makes them say the wrong
word (e.g., snake for snack, den for then).
Targeted Strategy 1: Teach aural distinction before

oral production of sounds.
Students must first be able to discriminate aurally between sounds in English
before pronouncing them correctly. There are a great many Web sites that
focus on different aspects of pronunciation (for example, vowel sounds,

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
syllable stress, sound differences). (See Appendix F for an annotated list of

good pronunciation Web sites.)
Targeted Strategy 2: Show students how to articulate specific sounds.

Teachers can explicitly demonstrate how lips, teeth, and the tongue are used
to create specific sounds in English (for example, to pronounce /th/ as in
thing, the tongue is placed between the upper and bottom teeth). Phonetics:
The Sounds of American English (www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/
frameset.html) provides animated articulatory diagrams, audio, and video of
each sound, spoken in context. Demonstrations of how to articulate sounds
should be short, and teachers should avoid intense drilling or repetition.
Targeted Strategy 3: Use minimal pairs.

Minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases that differ only by one sound (fan
– fin, bat – pat, lip – lid). Minimal pairs are particularly useful when working
with ELL students because they help students isolate and recognize the
importance one sound can have on meaning. For example, if the speaker
says “Fill this bag,” and the nonnative listener hears “Feel this bag,” confusion
can arise. In reality, context often clears up any misunderstanding resulting
from minimal-pair differences, but when combined with developmental
issues of grammar and vocabulary, these sound differences can affect ELLs’
understanding of spoken English and their ability to effectively communicate
their messages orally. Minimal pairs are a useful way to focus on isolated
sounds that can be problematic for ELL students. Two books that include
minimal-pairs activities are The PD’s: Pronunciation Drills for Learners of
English (Trager & Henderson, 1983) and Pronunciation Contrasts in English
(Nilsen & Nilsen, 2002). The latter book is especially useful because for
each sound contrast there is a list of languages that might not distinguish
between those contrasts. Some minimal-pair activities include working
with minimal-pair flash cards; playing minimal-pair bingo; and playing
minimal-pair card games, such as Go Fish. (See Appendix F for Web sites
with minimal pairs and minimal-pair listening activities.)
Targeted Strategy 4: Conduct pronunciation scavenger hunts.

This idea came from Sharon Widmayer and Holly Gray’s Sounds of English
Web site (www.soundsofenglish.org/tips.htm#scavenger). Ask students to find or
list as many objects as they can with a specific vowel or consonant sound. For
example, if the sound is /p/, students might include pen, pencil, projector, paper,
laptop, computer, paper clip, and so on.
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………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
My students sometimes add an extra syllable

Situation 4
or sound to their words (e.g., es-panish).
Consonant clusters, when two or more consonants are pronounced together

in the same syllable, are difficult for many ELL students because their
language may not have consonant clusters or may not have them in the
positions or combinations that exist in English. For example, initial
consonant cluster combinations (/sk/, /st/, and /sp/) don’t exist in Spanish,
which is why Spanish speakers often break up these clusters with an /e/ in
the initial position to form a separate syllable, so school may be pronounced
/es-kul/, similar to the Spanish pronunciation (escuela pronounced /es-kuela/).
This process is called phonetic transfer, and is common among second-
language learners. When older ELLs hear English sounds, they often process
and say them through the influence of their native language. If the sounds
in the native language are a close match with the target language, then the
transfer results in successful communication. When the sounds are not
closely matched, then pronunciation errors occur and communication can
break down. Teachers will want to be sensitive to how much time and effort is
devoted to working on these kinds of errors; however, consonant clusters are
a common issue among ELLs and can affect speaking, reading, and writing,
so teachers will likely want to address them with their students.
Targeted Strategy 1: Talk about language differences.

It is important for students to understand why pronunciation differences
exist. Invite students to talk about how sounds and syllables are put together
in their languages. Listening and trying to pronounce unusual sounds or
combinations of sounds in their languages may help them understand that
these are difficult tasks for anyone learning a new language and make them
less self-conscious about pronunciation errors in English.
Targeted Strategy 2: Listen to consonant clusters.

Teachers and/or students can make flash cards with consonant clusters and
work with a fluent partner to listen and repeat. The PD’s Pronunciation Drills
for Learners of English (Trager & Henderson, 1983) includes a section on
consonant clusters. (See Appendix F for consonant cluster listening practice
Web sites.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Play the consonant cluster game.

This board game can be played with four players, two against two. The

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
consonant cluster board has two start sides and two finish sides. Players
choose different sides and travel across a board filled with consonant cluster
cells to try to reach the finish line on the other side. Pairs take turns choosing
a card with different categories of words (for example, a kind of tree or plant,
something hard). They decide on a word that contains the consonant cluster
on the blank where they want to move forward. For example, if a consonant
cluster in front of their cell is gl and their card says something hard, they might
write down the word glass. After they verify from the other team that their
word is correct, they place their card on the gl block. The pair that reaches
the Finish block on the opposite side wins. A description of this game, the
game board, and cards can be downloaded at www.collaborative
learning.org/consonantclusters.pdf.
Targeted Strategy 4: Focus on specific needs and share strategies.

Since consonant cluster errors are often a result of students’ native languages,
students can be encouraged to focus on their specific pronunciation errors.
For example, Spanish speakers who have difficulty with the initial /sp/, /st/,
and /sk/ sounds may want to concentrate on this area of pronunciation. A
Spanish-speaking student we know told us that she eliminated the initial /e/
syllable by adding a longer /s/ sound when she pronounced words that began
with these clusters. For presentations, she would write the word with an extra
/s/ (sstart, sspend), to remind herself to elongate the beginning /s/ sound, thus
eliminating the extra syllable.
Targeted Strategy 5: Syllable pyramid.

Many students add extra syllables to consonant clusters by placing vowels
between the consonants. This activity will help students recognize when
they are adding extra syllables incorrectly. Give students a group of words
with consonant blends and ask them to build a syllable pyramid by placing
a one-syllable word at the top, followed by a two-syllable word, then a
three-syllable word, and so on. An example of a syllable pyramid follows:
black
brainy
estimate
concentration
disintegration
responsibility
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Students sometimes omit unstressed vowels

Situation 5
or syllables (sounds slide into each other).
Sometimes my students speak so

Situation 6 quickly I can’t understand them.
Many preadolescents and adolescents may be self-conscious about their

accents and/or think that speaking more quickly or running sounds together
helps them to sound more like native speakers. In Situation 5, it is possible
that students are not hearing the unstressed sounds. Whatever the cause, the
strategies below can help with both situations.
Targeted Strategy 1: Slow down.

Slowing their speech will help students focus on the sounds, rhythms, and
stresses of what they are saying. It will also help teachers to distinguish what
specific sounds or stresses students are struggling with, and they can then
implement some of the specific strategies for those issues.
Targeted Strategy 2: Practice with Web sites.

See Appendix F for Web sites that offer students opportunities to listen to
stress distinctions and do stress-discrimination activities.
Targeted Strategy 3: Have a syllable scavenger hunt.

This scavenger hunt is similar to the pronunciation scavenger hunt described
on page 136, but in this case the focus is on syllables instead of sounds. Ask
students to find words that have a certain number of syllables. This activity
can be a lot of fun if students are able to go outside to conduct their hunt.
For example, if students are asked to find words with three syllables, their list
might include bicycle, evergreen, basketball.
Alternative
Allow students to list words with any number of syllables, but assign points
with one point for each syllable (for example, one-syllable words receive one
point, two-syllable words receive two points).
Targeted Strategy 4: Play the humming game.

We’ve seen and played a couple of versions of this game, which helps students
focus on stress and intonation in sentences.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
c Version 1: Make two identical sets of cards with different kinds of

sentences and questions on them (for example, “Where are you going?”;
“You can come, can’t you?”; “It’s a sunny day today.”). Divide the class
into two teams. One student from each team comes to the front of the
class to be the listener. Listeners receive an identical set of the cards and
stand facing away from an overhead projector screen or large monitor.
The teacher projects one of the sentences from the cards on the screen
and the nonlisteners hum the sentence shown on the screen. The
listeners flip through their cards, and the first person to hold up the
matching card gets a point. Listeners are switched until everyone has
had a chance to play or all the cards are used up, and the winning team
is the one with the most points.
c Version 2: Students are divided into pairs. Student A has a set of questions
and Student B has a set of answers. Student A hums the questions and
Student B must choose the appropriate response. See the Sounds of
English Web site (www.soundsofenglish.org/tips.htm#humming) for some
good examples of questions and responses.
Vocabulary
ELL students develop vocabulary through repeated exposure to new words
and opportunities to use new words (for example, through a wide variety of
reading, intentional word-focused activities, and ongoing review) (Wallace,
2004). When first exposed to a new language, ELL students who lack strong
literacy skills in their home language will develop their vocabulary through
pictures, gestures, and actions. As teachers introduce ELLs to short texts
through picture books, poetry, and chants, they will begin to learn vocabulary
through these resources. Reading aloud to ELL students, with support to
ensure understanding (for example, pictures, gestures, explanations), is
essential to vocabulary development. Later, as students become literate in
English, they will begin to learn new words and the concepts that go with
them through literature and content-based texts. ELLs will usually develop
the vocabulary for basic interpersonal communication skills, known as BICS
(for example, the language used in the lunchroom, on the playground, and in
casual day-to-day conversations), before they develop vocabulary associated
with cognitive academic language proficiency, known as CALP (for example,
the language needed to fully understand age-appropriate subject-area content
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material) (Cummins, 1981a, 1981b). The following are some general

strategies to help ELL students develop the initial words they need for basic
social interaction, and to transition them into learning the more cognitively
demanding words they need for content-area studies.
General Strategies
................................
c At first, use gestures, pictures, realia, and labels to help students
understand the meanings of the words you are using. For example, point
to the chair as you ask them to sit down, hold up the red marker and the
black marker when you ask which marker they would like to write with.
c Talk to ELLs about concrete subjects and help them connect words to
objects (for example, point to the student’s coat as you say, “What a
pretty coat” or, as you point to something red that you are wearing,
“It’s a beautiful red color. I like red, too.”).
c Encourage students to draw to express themselves, and talk about their
drawings (for example, as you look at a drawing, say “I see the boy is at
the computer” while pointing first to the boy and then the computer).
There is no need to ask students to repeat the words (although you may
see them subvocalizing words after you say them). As students are
exposed to new words over time, they will process them and begin to use
common words and expressions when they are ready. (See the beginning
of this chapter, pages 85–99, for information about stages of language
acquisition and how to support students at the preproduction stage.)
c Give ELLs many opportunities to interact with other students (in pairs,
with peer partners, with younger or older students through cross-age
buddy reading, in small groups, as part of whole-group activities).
Provide many different contexts, including different subject area studies,
such as math and science; in electives, such as art, music; at lunch; and in
extracurricular clubs and sports.
c Read aloud to ELLs using many different kinds of texts, including
picture books appropriate for older students, poems, chants, fiction, and
nonfiction. (See pages 77–79 and 157–159 for specific strategies for
ensuring understanding during read-alouds.)
c Teach new words within conceptually related sets rather than as isolated
words. For example, in a unit on ecology, expose students to words about
the environment, such as biosphere, geology, meteorology, ozone, and words
about life forms, such as organisms, microbes, predators, prey. ELL students

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are more likely to remember these words and attach meaning to them if
they are exposed to the words in this contextualized way, rather than
simply learning a list of words taken out of context.
c Relate new words to words students already know. For example, to
introduce the word circumference, begin with the word circle to help
explain that circumference is the outer edge of a circle.
c Talk about prefixes and suffixes and relate them to root words. For
example, to introduce the word biped, explain that bi- is a prefix that
means two, and give the examples of bicycle (two wheels) and bilingual
(two languages).
(See Chapter 4, pages 167–168, for helping ELLs develop vocabulary.)
My students have difficulty expressing

Situation 1
themselves because they have limited vocabulary.
Targeted Strategy 1: Make picture dictionaries and

bilingual dictionaries available.
All newcomer ELL students should have age-appropriate picture dictionaries
as resources to help them communicate. Some picture dictionaries are also
available in bilingual editions (for example, Spanish-English, Russian-English).
Students who are literate in their home language often find these picture
dictionaries comforting and helpful. Students who are literate in their home
language also find bilingual dictionaries or electronic bilingual dictionaries
useful, especially to search for one or two key words that prevent them
from understanding a text or to help them convey important ideas. Three
precautionary notes on the use of bilingual dictionaries, paper and electronic,
are necessary, however:
1. Using a dictionary is a learned skill, and teachers should not assume that
all literate, bilingual students know how to use dictionaries or know how
to use them effectively.
2. Many words have more than one meaning and, even if examples of usage
are provided, students may still not locate the correct meaning and/or
use the correct word.
3. Using a bilingual dictionary for more than one or two key words is not
an efficient way to learn a language.
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If ELLs are using their dictionaries to look up virtually every word,

the text they are trying to read or the ideas they are trying to convey are
beyond their current language stage. Teachers should encourage such
students to express themselves in other ways, such as drawing or writing in
their native language, and give them more time and opportunity to develop
an understanding of the words in English that they need in order to articulate
more sophisticated ideas.
Targeted Strategy 2: Preview vocabulary.

As teachers begin a content unit of study, read-aloud, or literature study,
they should preview the words that students will be encountering so that
ELL students will be familiar with them in the context in which they are
being used. ELL students need to understand these words, including their
pronunciation, to fully participate in any discussion about the content.
(See pages 79 and 156–159 for strategies for previewing vocabulary.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Talk about cognates, false

cognates, and borrowed words.
Cognates, words in two languages that share the same root, have similar
meanings and often similar pronunciations and can be helpful to students
learning a nonnative language. False friends are words that have similar
pronunciations and spellings, and are often assumed to be synonymous in
English but they have completely different meanings (e.g., pie means foot in
English). See Chapter 4, pages 170–173, for information about how to help
students develop an understanding of cognates and false cognates.
Idioms, Slang, and “Dangerous English”

Nonnative speakers of a language often have enormous difficulty
understanding idioms, colloquialisms, and slang. In fact, many native speakers
have difficulty understanding the slang associated with a particular group in
which they are not members. For example, adults often do not understand
teenage slang, and native-English speakers from one English-speaking
country, such as the United States, may not understand the idioms used in
another English-speaking country, such as Australia. Idioms, slang, and
colloquialisms are related, but carry slightly different meanings:
c Idioms are expressions that cannot be understood from the individual
words used in the expression (for example, to lend a hand/to help). Idioms

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can come in and out of fashion; for example, people seldom say “It’s
raining cats and dogs” anymore, whereas other idioms remain popular
and are often used (for example, to be in hot water/in trouble). Idioms
are pervasive, and often native speakers don’t even realize they’re using
them. For example, when Dorothy asked a student to “lend her a hand,”
the student looked at her quizzically, which made Dorothy realize she’d
used an idiom.
c Slang is a casual form of language that typically has a short life and is
often restricted to a particular group, such as teenagers or sports fans.
An example is, “That was a wicked movie,” where wicked means terrific.
Teenagers and young adults are most likely to use the term in this way
than to connote its standard meaning.
c Colloquialisms are informal expressions that are accepted in normal,
familiar speech or are part of a regional or local dialect (okeydokey
or y’all).
Another aspect of informal English is what is often referred to as
“dangerous English,” (vulgarisms, obscenities, euphemisms for taboo
subjects). Older ELL students are likely to encounter these kinds of words,
and teenage ELLs in particular may need some guidance since these
words are pervasive in many high school settings.
Situation 1 My students don’t use idioms or slang correctly.
Targeted Strategy 1: Devote time to discussing slang or idioms.

Ask students to jot down times when they hear words or expressions used that
they think might be idioms or slang, and then spend some time once or twice
a week discussing them. Since slang is common among specific groups, such
as teenagers, teachers may not know what the term means, but they can ask
their students, other students in the school, or colleagues. For example, a
student in Dorothy’s school recently asked her teacher what bougy meant.
The student had heard a young woman use it in a cell phone conversation on
the bus, and relayed the gist of the conversation, which went something like,
“Well, that’s very bougy . . . Well, there’s more than one way to be bougy, you
know.” Neither the student’s teacher nor Dorothy recognized the word, so
Dorothy went next door and asked a class of native-English-speaking young
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people if they knew what it meant. They told her it meant stuck-up, someone
who thinks they are superior, as in bourgeois. When Dorothy relayed the
definition to the student, she said, “Yes, that fits the situation exactly.”
Teachers who invite questions about idioms and slang may be asked
questions about words or expressions that are often referred to as “dangerous
English,” and we discuss how to deal with this in Situations 2 and 3 on
pages 147–149.
Targeted Strategy 2: Create an idiom and slang reference book.

c Talk about idioms and slang with students, and ask them about times
these expressions have caused confusion. For example, a student of
Dorothy’s was confused one day when the cashier looked at him
and said, “Are you ready for me to ring you up?” The student replied,
“No, I don’t have a ring,” and the cashier explained that ringing
someone up meant using the cash register to total his merchandise and
take his money.
c After collecting many idioms, groups of students can work together to
create an entry for an idiom and slang dictionary. They can write the
idiom or slang word, write a definition for it, and explain where it
might be used or add anecdotes about times they were confused by the
slang or idiom.
c Pages can be gathered in a three-ring binder by situation, subject, or
alphabetical order, and added to regularly.
c The book can remain in the classroom as a reference; teachers may
want to use it periodically to teach idioms and slang, especially if many
new students arrive who may not be familiar with the ones that have
been collected.
Targeted Strategy 3: Find similar expressions in the L1.

Students locate expressions that have equivalents in their native language.
Family and community members can be very helpful in finding these
expressions.
The class keeps a running record of equivalent expressions in different
languages, which is posted in the classroom. (See Figure 3.9, page 146.)
Helpful Resources
c The Internet TESL Journal has a Web page devoted to idioms and slang
(http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Idioms_and_Slang). This page lists many other

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raining cats and dogs llover a cántaros (Spanish)

(to rain cats and dogs or pitchforks)
from the stone age (meaning very old) de la epoca de la pera (Spanish)
in the black no azul (Portuguese)

kuroji (Japanese)
on the same wavelength auf einer Wellenlänge (German)
Figure 3.9: A Classroom Running Record of Expressions in Different Languages
links, including the ones that follow. We recommend that teachers check
out these sites before referring students to them in case there is an
inappropriate word or term.3
c American Slang for ESL Students:
www.schandlbooks.com/AmericanSlang.html
c Animal Idioms and Expressions: http://doghause.com/idioms.asp

c Canadian/U. S. Slang Words and Phrases:
www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/5949/Help/canus1.html
c Commonly Used American Slang: www.manythings.org/slang

c English Idioms: www.idiomconnection.com
c ESL Idiom page: www.eslcafe.com/idioms
c ESL Idioms and Slang: http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Idioms_and_Slang
c ESL Slang page: www.daveseslcafe.com/slang/a.html
c The Idiom Connection: www.idiomconnection.com
c Idioms: www.answers.com/library/Idioms
c Eye on Idioms: www.readwritethink.org/materials/idioms/idiom_1.html
c Settlement.org: www.settlement.org/site/celebrate/idioms.asp
c Slang: www.englishdaily626.com/slang.php
3
Teachers will want to keep in mind that some idioms and slang expressions carry risqué or double
entendre meanings. We discuss how to deal with what is sometimes called “dangerous English” on
pages 147–149.
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My students sometimes mix up words

Situation 2 (e.g., horny for ornery) or misuse idioms
or slang (e.g., knock up).
My students use offensive language in

Situation 3
inappropriate situations, but I don’t think
they understand the meaning of the words.
It’s not unusual for students learning a new language to misuse it in ways
that may be offensive or inappropriate for the situation. Sometimes this is
because they are confusing two words that sound alike (horny for ornery), and
sometimes they put words together in ways that change the meaning (for
example, saying “I knocked her up,” which means to get someone pregnant in
American slang, but not in British or many other versions of English, where
it means to wake someone up by knocking on the door). There is even a dictionary
called Dangerous English (Claire, 2000), which is explicit and not really
appropriate for middle school or high school students, but can be useful to
teachers who work with ELL students when situations or questions arise
about words and expressions that fall into the “dangerous English” realm. In
other situations, ELL students may not understand the level of offensiveness
some words convey. For example, the student who tells her classmate to “shut
up” may not realize that she may be perceived as being rude; in fact, in some
situations, the expression shut up is used in a friendly way, as an exclamatory
expression of surprise. ELL students may not be attuned to the social
registers incorporated in language. For example, the ELL student who
learned the expression whatever from peers may not understand why the
teacher responds negatively to this word in the classroom.
Learning English from peers is an important part of language learning
and socialization for ELLs, but teachers must ensure that students understand
the social implications of offensive language or inappropriate language. How
to deal with issues of “dangerous English” in the classroom is a personal
decision for the teacher. Some teachers may recognize that their students
are mature enough to discuss this topic without too much embarrassment,
while other teachers may opt not to discuss these matters in class because it
would make them or their students very uncomfortable. Following are some
ways that we or teachers we know have dealt with this issue.

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Targeted Strategy 1: Appoint cultural ambassadors.

One role that partners can serve is that of cultural ambassadors to ELL peers.
They can look out for them in the lunchroom and at other unstructured
times, not only to make sure that they feel that they are part of the group, but
also to protect them from peers who might attempt to take advantage of their
lack of knowledge of social aspects of language by teaching them to swear or
make offensive hand gestures.
Targeted Strategy 2: Make a list of appropriate ways

of expressing anger or frustration.
All students in a class will benefit from a brainstorming session on ways to
appropriately express anger, including words and expressions that are
unacceptable, such as Math sucks, or I hate Rosa. A list of ways to express anger
from a brainstorming session might include:
c I’m frustrated because this lesson is hard.
c I can’t concentrate because Fran’s pencil tapping is bothering me.
c I’m mad at Ignacio because he took my juice.
The brainstorming session should include ways of politely negotiating
disputes or frustrations with peers, such as the following:
c Sarah, please don’t take my pen. I need it right now.
c Mohamed, your whistling is bothering me. Could you please stop?
c Wilfredo, I can’t see the board. Could you please move your head?
Targeted Strategy 3: Talk about “dangerous English”

judiciously and sensitively.
Teachers must make their own decisions about whether to discuss vulgarisms,
obscenities, or other kinds of “dangerous English.” There are various
contexts in which these terms may arise in class and those contexts will play a
role in helping teachers make decisions about how to address the terms. For
example, if ELLs innocently ask about or use vulgar terms, the teacher is
likely to respond differently than in a situation where the student seems to be
trying to embarrass him or her. The following strategies are ways that we or
teachers we know have dealt with this issue:
c Tell the students that the words they are asking about or have used are
inappropriate for a school setting, and that they should not use them
in school. If you do not feel comfortable discussing the terms further,
direct students to a person who can help explain the term and why it is
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inappropriate (for example, another student, a counselor, or a parent

liaison with whom they feel comfortable).
c Develop a consistent pattern of signifying possibly offensive words that
you write on the board (for example, with an asterisk or in red marker),
and regularly explain the system. Dorothy has used this system with adult
students, and always cautions students not to use any word with an
asterisk beside it unless they are VERY sure of what they’re saying.
c Write the formal, clinical, or polite word, or euphemism for taboo
subjects (for example, body parts or bodily functions), and direct students
to a bilingual or monolingual English dictionary.
c Work with a colleague of the opposite sex. Divide the class into males
and females and devote some time to questions and discussion.
Using the Native Language

Although researchers are still trying to decipher the cognitive mechanisms of
bilingualism, many studies have shown its cognitive advantages. For example,
bilingual speakers have been found to be superior to monolingual speakers in
divergent thinking, that is, the ability to generate many different ideas about
a topic in a short period of time, including brainstorming for story ideas
(May, Hill, & Tiakiwai, 2004). In addition, bilingual speakers appear to have
greater communicative sensitivity than monolinguals. In other words,
bilingual speakers, who need to be aware of which language to speak in which
situation, have an increased sensitivity to the social nature and communicative
functions of language (Cummins & Mulcahy, 1978). Overall, the availability
of two linguistic systems appears to give bilingual speakers enhanced
cognitive flexibility and social sensitivity. Consequently, schools and teachers
should do their utmost to support bilingualism among their ELL students
and families by encouraging the retention of the ELL student’s native
language in the home and providing bilingual support and bilingual resources
in the ELL’s home language at school wherever possible.
I don’t understand why the parents

Situation 1
speak English and their child doesn’t.
It is quite possible that some parents of ELL students speak English with
native or near-native fluency while their children do not. For example, some

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parents may have lived in English-speaking countries, where they learned

English, then returned to their homeland and had children. Sometimes
parents have preceded their children in coming to North America. Research
about linguistic and academic development supports the use of the native
language by bilingual parents. Studies show that parents should be
communicating with their children in their native language in order to
support the children’s cognitive and linguistic development (King & Fogle,
2006). For social and academic reasons, parents should be communicating
with their children in the language in which the parents are most
comfortable, no matter their level of fluency in English.
My students switch between English and their

Situation 2 native language, sometimes in the same sentence
and sometimes across several sentences.
Educators used to believe that this alternating back and forth between
languages, known as code-switching, indicated deficiencies in one language
or the other. However, researchers in psycholinguistics now recognize that
code-switching is a natural product of the interaction of bilingual speakers’
two languages (Heredia & Brown, 2004). Teachers should accept that
code-switching may occur and make no attempt to discourage it.
Targeted Strategy 1: Ask a question when you don’t understand.

It is very rare for bilingual speakers to code-switch with someone who does
not share their language. But if a teacher is involved in a conversation with
two or more bilingual speakers and code-switching occurs, the best response
is to ask questions about anything that is not understood (for example, “I’m
sorry. I didn’t follow that. Could you repeat it?” or “I didn’t understand.
What color is her dress?”).
Targeted Strategy 2: Read literature in which code-switching appears.

Reading literature in which code-switching appears, such as The House on
Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984), can make students feel more
comfortable about their own code-switching and can open up discussions
about interesting aspects of how language works for all students in the class.
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C HAPTER 4
Reading
Situations
E
LLs entering grades 6–12 do not share the same educational
experiences prior to coming to North America. Some students have
received a very sophisticated education in their native land, including
high levels of content-area instruction (for example, advanced mathematics
and science), and are accomplished readers in their native language and, often,
in other languages; they may be able to read some English. Other students
have had more sporadic schooling in their native land and may not be able to
read in their native language; unless they are placed in a bilingual program,
where they receive instruction in both the L1 and English, they may be
learning to read for the first time in English. In some cases, their native
language is different from the official language of the country, and their entire
schooling may have been in a nonnative language. Still other students have
fled from war-torn homelands, may have been schooled in English in a
refugee camp, and may be able to read some texts in English. The vast range
of prior experiences with schooling and literacy speaks to the very different
needs that ELLs have when it comes to reading and being taught to read.
Simply being an ELL does not make a student a struggling reader. We are
using the term struggling reader to refer to a student who has received reading
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instruction in the native language (English or another language), often from

the primary grades, but has difficulty decoding and/or understanding texts
and does not seem to be making much progress. An ELL may have difficulty
decoding or understanding texts in English as a consequence of being new to
the language, and just needs time to develop into a successful reader in
English; we do not consider this student to be a struggling reader. However,
there are ELLs who are struggling readers, and these are typically students
who have received instruction in their native language or English and don’t
seem to make much progress over time. Characteristics of older struggling
readers may include one or more of the following:
c May be able to decode, but have enormous difficulty comprehending
what they have decoded.
c May not realize that one reads to make meaning, and focus almost
exclusively on letter-sound correspondences.
c May overrely on a single reading strategy. For example, they may decode
words and produce either nonsense words or words that do not make
sense in that context.
c May not use background knowledge (schema) and context to confirm or
disconfirm their predictions about unfamiliar words.
c May not self-monitor. That is, they do not seem to realize that what
they decoded does not make sense and they do not repair miscues that
affect meaning.
c May read over or ignore punctuation marks and the role of punctuation
in helping readers make sense of a text.
c May lack knowledge about the meaning of key words/terms in texts,
thereby making comprehension of the text hard or impossible.
In any discussion about reading, it is important to first establish what
one means by reading. This is an especially important question given the
current reading instruction climate in the United States, where federal and
state mandates (for example, the No Child Left Behind Act) have led to
some schools and school districts mandating designated amounts of phonics
instruction, even in the upper grades, regardless of whether students
need instruction in phonics. An additional concern centers on how the
teacher-centered instructional practices that are increasingly prevalent
influence the kinds of reading-related school experiences that are available
to ELLs.
With the current heavy emphasis on the (often decontexualized) teaching
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of phonics, one might conclude that reading is simply decoding (for example,
making letter-sound correspondences). In fact, reading is a much more
complex process, one that is grounded in making meaning from symbols.
The degree to which readers are able to make sense of a text or written
message is very much affected by their prior experiences, that is, their
schema. For example, take a minute to read the following passage, and then
paraphrase what it says.
Today’s Cricket
The batsmen were merciless against the bowlers. The bowlers placed their
men in slips and covers. But to no avail. The batsmen hit one four after
another with an occasional six. Not once did a ball look like it would hit their
stumps or be caught. (Source: Tierney & Pearson, 1981)
Perhaps this was gobbledygook to you, even though you could decode it
easily. What reading textbooks typically do in these kinds of circumstances is
reduce the readability of the text by simplifying the vocabulary and sentence
structure, which is what Tierney and Pearson did in the following rewrite of
the text. Again, take a minute to read it and paraphrase what it says.
(Lower readability version)

The men were at bat against the bowlers. They did not show any pity. The
bowlers placed their men in slips. They placed their men in covers. It did not
help. The batsmen hit a lot of fours. They hit some sixes. No ball hit the
stumps. No ball was caught. (Source: Tierney & Pearson, 1981)
Unless you know something about cricket, the chances are that this
simplified text is still incomprehensible. That is, you may not have the
schema to know that the slips and covers are positions that fielders take in
cricket (and where they’re located on the field), and that fours and sixes are
the number of runs scored off a single bowl (ball)—a six being when the ball
passes over the outer limits of the field without hitting the ground first (like
a baseball home run), and a four being a ball that bounces on the ground
before passing over the outer limits of the cricket field. So, simplifying the
language and sentence structure to make it easier to decode probably wasn’t
much help to you in understanding the text. This difficulty is what ELLs who
can decode reasonably well in English encounter when they read about events

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and experiences that are unfamiliar to them. The necessity of a schema for
understanding text has implications for what we need to focus on when
teaching reading.
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the reading
achievement of older learners (Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, & Rycik, 1999),
including ELLs (Kong & Pearson, 2003; Olson & Land, 2007; Scarcella,
2002). Research indicates that, despite evidence that students are much more
effective readers when they are taught reading strategies that successful
readers use (for example, visualizing, predicting, asking questions, inferring,
and making connections), few students are actually offered such cognitive
and metacognitive learning experiences (Block & Pressley, 2002); this is
even more pronounced with ELLs (Vaughn & Klinger, 2004). In one of the
few studies that has investigated the impact of teaching adolescent ELLs
cognitive reading strategies, Olson and Land found that cognitive-strategy
instruction enhanced ELL students’ reading competence, achievement,
and confidence.
Vocabulary is a key factor in ELLs’ reading success and development, yet
very little attention is paid in school to vocabulary and the development of
word consciousness. Even when they can decode English words, ELLs may
not know what the terms mean, even in their own language. For example,
Inuits, who live in the Arctic, have many words to signify the subtleties of
snow; for someone learning Inuit, making sense of these multiple words for
snow would be enormously challenging because most of us lack the requisite
schema, even though we may have seen plenty of snow.
Recent national reports (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006, Report of the
National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth; National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000, Report
of the National Reading Panel) have identified vocabulary knowledge as an
important element in successful reading comprehension. Vocabulary
knowledge is also known to be a key element in a language development
program for ELL students (Nation, 2001; Meltzer & Hamman, 2005), and
integral to academic success (Cummins, 2000; Scarcella, 2002).
There are still other issues to take into consideration when teaching
ELLs to read, such as their possible lack of familiarity with grammatical
structures that help native speakers of English make sense of a text. For
example, when native-English speakers see the following sentence fragment,
When I drove to the store, I . . . , they intuitively know that what follows is
likely to be a verb/verb phrase (saw my friend, ate lunch, encountered a protest)
or an adverb (reluctantly, excitedly). In contrast, ELLs may not have
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internalized these grammatical sequences. In addition, even if the ELL knows

that what follows may be an adverb, verb, or verb phrase, the actual words
that follow may not be familiar (reluctantly, encountered, or protest).
There are also other realities that need to be taken into consideration
when teaching English reading to ELLs, particularly for students who
already read in their L1. For example, not all written languages are alphabetic
(for example, Chinese) and some languages, although alphabetic, do not have
the same written script as English (for example, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew,
Russian). This means that students who read and write in these languages
have to learn a new orthography (the written symbols used to represent the
sounds of a language). However, because they already have a schema for
reading, it is often easier for older ELLs who are literate in their L1 to
move into literacy in English than it is for their ELL peers who are not
literate in their L1.
Another consideration to be aware of is that many of the teaching/learning
practices that ELLs may encounter in North American classrooms may be
unfamiliar. In some countries there is a more didactic approach to learning
to read, and ELL students may not be accustomed to, for example, being
asked to infer or evaluate texts and may be frustrated when asked to do that.
If students have been taught to focus on extracting literal information from a
text, rather than inferring meaning, they may view being asked to infer as an
invalid request (for example, “But, it’s not in the text, so why are you asking
me to do this?”). This may occur, even when ELLs are able to make
inferences outside of school.
Some learners excel more in the printed form of a nonnative language
than in the spoken form. This was true of the Chinese-speaking students
from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan with whom Katharine worked in
a school for newcomer ELLs. They had been schooled in their native
lands and had been exposed to some English instruction (typically
through a grammar translation approach), but were more comfortable
reading and writing English than speaking it. In contrast, she observed that
Spanish-speaking students from Mexico and Central America, with limited
schooling in their L1, tended to be more confident when speaking English.
Regardless of variations in students’ preferred language modalities,
research shows that ELLs do not have to be fluent in English before they
can read and write in English (Reyes, 1991; Samway & Taylor, 1993b;
Urzúa, 1987). In fact, reading can support aural and oral language
development by offering ELLs exposure to more standardized and
sophisticated forms of English than they are able to produce at that time.

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It is very common when discussing reading to begin with decoding

and then progress to comprehension. Decoding is certainly a part of the
reading process, but it is by no means the most important part, as the earlier
activity involving a passage about cricket reveals. Although reading in
English usually requires some knowledge of phonics, it is important to
remember that ELLs do not always discriminate between certain sounds,
particularly some of the vowel sounds, and decontextualized phonics
instruction can be very difficult for them. (See Chapter 3, page 87, for
information about how an ELL’s first language may affect his or her
processing and production in the second language.) In this chapter, we focus
on comprehension, including vocabulary development, and do not pay as
much attention to decoding. This is a decision we made very consciously for
the following reasons:
c Comprehension and vocabulary are at the heart of successful reading.
One can decode lots and lots of words, but still have absolutely no idea
what one has decoded.
c Our experiences with upper-grade ELLs, as well as the experiences of
many upper-grade teachers with whom we have consulted, indicate that
reading struggles in the upper grades are most frequently grounded
in comprehension.
c Many North American schools already pay considerable attention to
decoding, beginning in the earliest years in school. So long as teachers
take into account that ELLs may not discriminate between certain
sounds in English or be able to distinguish between some similar-
sounding words, then the many useful decoding resources that are
available to teachers through professional books, workshops, and
conferences can be used successfully with ELLs.
In the pages that follow, we share some general strategies for
enhancing ELLs’ reading, as well as several targeted strategies that are aligned
with specific reading-related situations that teachers often comment on.
General Strategies
................................
ELL students need to experience success with English texts, and in this
section we focus on some strategies that foster a love of books and provide
scaffolded experiences for ELLs. Several of the strategies are more typically
found in primary classrooms, but we have found them to be extremely
successful with older learners who are becoming readers in English.
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Modifications are often needed, such as using texts that are appropriate for
and interesting to older learners.
General Strategy 1: Read-alouds.

Most people, including adults, enjoy being read to, particularly when it is
done well. Through read-alouds, teachers can extend their students’
knowledge of the world, vocabulary, and grammatical structures, as well as

introduce them to authors, genres, and content that they might not otherwise
read. One of the goals of good reading instruction is to turn students into
avid readers, and reading aloud to ELLs is one way to accomplish this. But
simply reading aloud is generally not sufficient. The following strategies can
support ELLs during read-alouds:
c Because students tend to be more responsive and engaged when teachers
integrate their students’ cultural backgrounds and experiences into their
teaching and students’ learning experiences (Ladson-Billings, 1995;
Yoon, 2007), select texts that include cultural information ELL students
are familiar with. (See Appendix B for lists of suggested books about
diverse cultures.)
c Activate students’ background knowledge by doing a book talk prior
to a read-aloud.
c Provide lots of support to ELLs so that the read-aloud isn’t a cognitive
overload for them. Support can include the following:
• Have extra copies available for students to follow along in, so they
have the added benefit of seeing the words on the page—often, an
ELL who is literate in the L1 is able to make sense of what she or
he hears being said, including in a read-aloud, from seeing words on
the page. This is particularly true of students who have received
some instruction in English prior to coming to North America.
• Refer to pictures, sketches, and objects (realia) to make meaning
more clear.
• Use lots of gestures and dramatic displays to make meaning clear.
c Briefly discuss any concepts, terminology, or grammatical structures
that you anticipate students may not be familiar with and that are crucial
to understanding the text.
c Hold a quick check-in (just a minute or so) before moving on to the
next part of a longer book.
c Read the same text more than once, particularly if it is a favorite—
familiarity can lead to increased understanding.

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c If an audio version of the text exists, make it available, along with a copy
of the text, for ELLs to use in school or at home for extra listening and
reading practice.
Additional issues to consider when preparing for and conducting a
read-aloud include the following:
c Read from a wide range of genres, including short stories, picture
books (fiction and nonfiction), poetry, and nonfiction magazine articles.
Shorter texts with good illustrations that really support the text can be
particularly effective with newcomer ELLs. Even comic books can lend
themselves to read-alouds (Bitz, 2004). For more information about
conducting nonfiction read-alouds, see Navigating Informational Texts by
Linda Hoyt (2003).
c Choose texts carefully—it’s essential when doing a read-aloud to be
familiar with the text. How many times have we randomly selected a
book for a read-aloud, even a book that we don’t know (or assigned an
unfamiliar book to a student teacher or volunteer to read aloud) and the
read-aloud bombed? Not all books lend themselves well to a read-aloud.
c It is generally best not to encourage students to do other things while
listening to the read-aloud, unless they are involved in activities directly
related to the reading, as students need to concentrate. For example, when
introducing a text, Katharine says something like, “I hope you’ll enjoy this
book as much as I do. I chose it because . . . . I’d like you to think about
the following as I read it to you: What does this book remind you of?”
c Students need time to talk about the text—even if it’s for just a minute or
two. For example, they can talk about what it reminded them of, ask
questions, discuss any puzzling parts or words, and/or explore what they
learned about writing from hearing the text just read to them. The talk
accompanying a read-aloud can be through pair shares or small groups,
or with the entire class.
c After reading aloud, it can be very useful to talk about the reading
and add to charts that focus on language and language usage, such as
the following:
• Unfamiliar words/terms.
• Interesting uses of language.
• Insights about writing.
Lester Laminack and Reba Wadsworth’s book Reading Aloud Across the
Curriculum: How to Build Bridges in Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social
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Studies (2006) provides a lot of useful information for teachers interested in

reading aloud across the curriculum.
General Strategy 2: Interactive read-alouds.

In contrast with a traditional read-aloud, in an interactive read-aloud, the
teacher stops at carefully determined points in the text to ask questions
that help students construct meaning, demonstrate strategies that effective

readers use and that students can also use, and give students opportunities
to discuss the text, thereby supporting their construction of meaning. See
Linda Hoyt’s Interactive Read-Alouds, Grades 4–5: Linking Standards, Fluency,
and Comprehension (2007) for more information on conducting interactive
read-alouds.
General Strategy 3: Shared reading/enlarged texts.

In shared reading, the teacher and students read an enlarged text that all
students can see; these can be commercially published or teacher-made big
books and/or charts. Texts include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, rhymes, and
chants. They are often highly predictable and written with rhythmic language
to support emergent readers, features that also support emergent ELL
writers. Although shared reading is most commonly found in literacy
instruction for young children, we have seen ESOL teachers use it very
effectively with older learners. Typically, these teachers have used songs,
poems, and nonfiction big books or charts, as many of the fiction big books
are not particularly appropriate, content-wise, for older learners. Sometimes,
teachers of older ELLs have used enlarged versions of popular storybooks
intended for much younger learners in units of study focusing on writing
books for younger learners, such as in a cross-age reading program.1
For more information about shared reading, see Janet Allen’s On the Same
Page: Shared Reading Beyond the Primary Grades (2002) and Mary Lee
Hahn’s Reconsidering Read-Aloud (2002), both of which address shared reading
with older learners.
The following is an adapted shared-reading procedure to support older
emergent ELL readers.
Procedure
1. When introducing a new shared-reading text, the teacher does a short
introduction, mentioning what it is about while pointing to appropriate
1
For information on establishing and maintaining a successful cross-age reading program, see Buddy
Reading: Cross-Age Tutoring in a Multicultural School by Samway, Whang, & Pippitt (1995).

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illustrations, sketching, and/or using gestures and pantomime to clarify

key concepts addressed in the text (for example, when introducing
a text on volcanoes, pointing to a picture of a volcano on the front
cover and placing the hands in an upward explosive movement to
demonstrate eruption).
2. Then, the teacher reads the text aloud at a normal to very slightly slowed
pace, using a pointer to touch each word while reading.
3. Students briefly discuss the text (for example, making text connections
and identifying unfamiliar words).
4. Students are then invited to join the teacher in reading the text together,
with the teacher continuing to point to the words.
5. Students may reread the text again, and the teacher may reduce the
amount of support provided.
6. One follow-up activity that supports readers involves using
sentence strips.
a. The teacher writes a sentence or a longer segment from the shared
reading text on a strip of paper, including the punctuation.
b. The text is cut up into phrases and/or individual words and
punctuation marks.
c. The students put the scrambled words/phrases/punctuation marks
in order.
d. The teacher and students talk about any difficulties encountered,
and about the knowledge or strategies they used to put the words in
order (for example, through being aware of mechanics, such as a
sentence beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period;
grammar, such as possessive pronouns usually going before a noun;
or schema).
General Strategy 4: Choral reading.

In choral reading, students and the teacher recite a familiar poem, chant, or
song together.
Procedure
1. Select a text that is relatively short, is of interest to students, and can
be decoded and comprehended. Choose a text that lends itself to oral
dramatizations. For example, it may have interesting sounds, including
alliteration and onomatopoeia; have two- or three-part renditions; and/or
have several characters for dialogue. It may also include words in the
native language of ELLs.
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2. Make copies of the text for the students.

3. Read the text to the students in an engaging, dramatic voice, while they
follow along in their own copies.
4. Read the text aloud with the students—it may be necessary to do this
several times, until students have memorized it (or almost memorized it).
A shared reading experience, as described earlier, can be very helpful.

5. Students practice reading it together in pairs; they can also alternate
reading lines aloud.
6. The students get together again to practice their performance,
which needs to be as engaging as possible. Some possible performance
formats include:
• Individual students, pairs of students, or small groups of students
(for example, everyone on the right side of the room) take turns
reading lines, stanzas, or sections of the text.
• Sound effects can be added in appropriate places (for example,
clapping, stamping feet, making the sound of trees swaying in a
storm or animals calling out).
• Key words or phrases are emphasized for effect.
• Soft and loud voices and high and low voices are alternated in
appropriate places.
7. The class or group may perform the piece for an audience.
For more information about choral reading, go to the Reading A–Z Web
site (www.readinga-z.com/poetry/lesson_plans/choral_poetry/choralpoetry_print.html).
Although the nursery rhyme examples are most appropriate for very young
learners, the general guidelines are very useful.
Poems for two or more voices also lend themselves to choral reading,
such as Paul Fleischman’s I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices (1985), Joyful
Noise: Poems for Two Voices (1988), and Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices (2000).
These poems are intended to be read aloud by two or more readers at once,
with readers taking different parts (for example, the left-hand part or the
right-hand part)—sometimes lines are spoken simultaneously. Fleischman’s
poems focus on the natural world and are rich in vocabulary and imagery, so
they lend themselves to lots of discussion.
General Strategy 5: Make time for independent reading.

Independent reading, also known as leisure reading, voluntary reading,
and recreational reading, and by acronyms such as SSR (Sustained Silent
Reading), USSR (Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading), FVR (Free

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Voluntary Reading), and DEAR (Drop Everything and Read), is something

there is very little time for in many schools. Research shows that time for
independent reading in school enhances students’ reading development and
attitudes toward reading (DeBenedictis, 2007; Holt, 1989; Ozburn, 1995).
Time should be allocated for it in grades 6–12. Some key maxims to keep in
mind when providing for independent reading include the following:
c Have sufficient books available so students have choices. When
Katharine was a new teacher, there were no library books in her
classroom, so she regularly visited the school and local libraries to
borrow books for her classroom library.
c Make sure that books are aligned with students’ interests, but also
introduce them to new genres, authors, and topics.
c Be prepared to do book talks as books are introduced into the
class library.
c Schedule time for independent reading on a regular and predictable
basis so that students can come prepared.
c Use the time when students are reading independently to confer
with students about their reading processes, goals, and needs; these
conferences should have a teaching point.
c Be prepared to teach students how to select appropriate texts (i.e., those
they can read with minimal support). Be alert to students who select
books that are much more complex than their command of English
suggests they can cope with, but also keep in mind that sometimes
the desire to read a particular text can compensate for it being
too difficult.
c If you are required to grade students on independent reading, do it
in such a way as to encourage the act of reading and thoughtful
engagement. For example, Nancie Atwell (1998) recommends grading
based on: coming prepared to class (e.g., having one’s book available
and getting to work right away); setting and meeting challenging, but
realistic, goals; and writing thoughtful reading journal entries.
c Assign independent reading for homework that is connected to a purpose
that students are interested in. For example, in Gail Whang’s class,
students read their literature study circle (LCS) books both at school and
at home so they could be prepared for the open-ended discussions that
would occur approximately one week to ten days after students selected
their books (Samway & Whang, 1996).
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c Allocate time for students to talk about their books with peers and make
recommendations—part of the joy of reading can be knowing that others
share one’s enthusiasm and reading preferences.
For additional information on independent reading programs, see:
c Jodi Crum Marshall’s Are They Really Reading? Expanding SSR in the
Middle Grades (2002).

c Douglas Fisher’s “Setting the ‘Opportunity to Read’ Standard:
Resuscitating the SSR Program in an Urban High School” (2004).
c Nancie Atwell’s The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled,
Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers (2007).
c The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Web page
devoted to independent reading (www.ncte.org/middle/topics/spotlight/
119312.htm).
General Strategy 6: Offer literature study circles (LSCs).

Literature study circles (LSCs) are similar to the book discussions that adults
often engage in. A group of students meets together or with the teacher two
or more times for an open-ended discussion about a book they have all read.
We have found that students of all ages can have successful LSCs, and we
have seen how LSCs can build students’ enthusiasm for books and reading
and help them see that reading is much more than decoding words. See
Samway and Whang’s Literature Study Circles in a Multicultural Classroom
(1996) for an in-depth discussion of how to establish and maintain LSCs.
Adaptations for newcomers and struggling ELL readers that we have had
success with include the following:
c Read picture books, magazine articles, or other short texts to the stu-
dents while they follow along in their own copy.
c Hold the first discussion right after reading the short text.
c Use texts that are grounded in the cultures of the ELLs.
c Pair more fluent readers with emerging readers, or let students pair
themselves.
c Expect that the discussion may focus on the illustrations; however, we
have found that this often leads to insights that more text-oriented
people, such as teachers, often miss.
General Strategy 7: Echo reading.

Echo reading provides emergent readers with the opportunity to hear

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fluent reading and practice reading fluently (i.e., with expression and normal
pacing). The more fluent reader, such as the teacher, reads a phrase or
sentence with expression and then the student or students repeat the phrase
or sentence.
General Strategy 8: Pair reading.
In pair reading, two or three students read the same text and then talk
together about it. This provides readers with a shared experience with
texts and peer support, and also introduces them to new authors, illustrators,
and genres.
Procedure
1. Select several texts for which you have two or three copies. The texts
should be interesting to students, short enough to be read in one session
(for example, in class or overnight), and selected from a variety of
genres—books of poetry, stories, magazine articles, essays, and
information picture books all work well.
2. Have more titles/copies than you have students so there is some choice.
3. Do brief text talks (for example, “This magazine article is about
climate change and the melting of the polar icecaps,” “This book of
poetry is written by high school immigrant students and it’s about their
experiences living in this country”).
4. Students select their texts and read them—sometimes students read
together softly and sometimes they alternate who reads aloud.
5. Students talk about their books in pairs or triads.
6. The whole class/group talks about the experience. For example, students
may discuss:
• Texts that they particularly liked and why they liked them.
• Difficulties they encountered when reading and strategies they
used to resolve them.
• What students learned from the texts and from working with
a partner(s).
• How their partner(s) helped them understand the text.
• Successful strategies the students used when reading together.
• Aspects of the text they didn’t understand.
General Strategy 9: Language Experience Approach (LEA).

First developed as a means to produce reading materials that emergent
readers could understand, the Language Experience Approach (LEA) involves
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students dictating a text, usually based on a familiar or shared experience

(Allen, 1976; Stauffer, 1970). It has proven to be a useful early reading
strategy for beginning ELLs (Rigg, 1989; Taylor, 1992). One approach to
implementing LEA with ELLs follows:
c The student (or students, if the text is developed by a group of students)
dictates a text.
c The teacher writes the text exactly as the student dictates it (for example,
the experiment we do about plant). If a group of students is dictating the
text, it is written on chart paper so that all the students can see the text.
c The teacher then goes through the text with the student(s), explaining
how to revise the grammar and word choices so that it is idiomatic, or
native-like, as the following example illustrates. Note that the teacher
does not change the content of the message:
Teacher: “The experiment we do about plant.” OK? (Repeating the first
sentence that the student generated.)
Student: Yes (nods head).
Teacher: OK. So, we need to write it in the past tense. It’s “we did” instead of
“we do.” “We do” means we do it every day. (The teacher writes the
revised text, The experiment we did, next to the original text and says
the words aloud while writing them.) And we need a verb between
“did” and “about.” It’s “was about” (emphasizing was while adding it
to the sentence). You said here (pointing to the text while reading),
“plant.” Because the experiment was about plants in general and not
just a single, specific plant, it’s the plural “plants.” OK?
Student: (Nods head vigorously). Yes, plants.

Teacher: So we’ll add an –s here (and does so, saying plants aloud while adding
the –s).
Teacher: OK. Let’s read this together. (Teacher points to each word while
reading the revised text with the student, The experiment we did was
about plants. The teacher and student read it together one or more
times and then the student reads it alone.)
The teacher and student(s) continue in this way until there is a

complete text, which is read many times over the course of a few days. This
text is then used for language and reading practice, which may include the
following activities:
c Create sentence strips. The words in the sentence are put on tag board
and cut up for the student(s) to put in order.

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c Generate alternate words. For example, in the sentence We did an

experiment about plants, the students brainstorm words that could fit in
place of did, such as worked on and conducted. The students and teacher
discuss how the words differ and/or the most appropriate term to use in
specific situations (for example, conducted is a scientific term to use when
reporting on an experiment).
• Circle specific linguistic features, such as nouns, verbs, pronouns,
or articles.
• Use cloze activities. A cloze activity involves students predicting
words that are missing in a passage and filling in the blanks
with words. (See Appendix G for guidelines for developing
cloze activities.)
Reading Comprehension
Ultimately, the most important aspect of reading is comprehension, or the
making of meaning. A key factor in the reading comprehension of ELLs is
vocabulary knowledge (Carlo, August, McLaughlin, Snow, Dressler, Lippman,
Lively, & White, 2004). The following numbers point to the importance of
vocabulary in the academic lives of ELLs:
c It is estimated that English-speaking children with average and above
average verbal ability enter school with a receptive vocabulary of between
5,000 and 10,000 words (Blachowicz, Fisher, Ogle, & Watts-Taffe, 2006).
c It is estimated that by the time average and above average native-
English-speaking students leave high school, they have acquired about
40,000 receptive words, which translates to more than 3,000 new words
learned each year in school (Nagy & Herman, 1987).
ELL students often have large vocabularies in their native language,
and this knowledge may transfer from their L1 to English (Jiménez, García,
& Pearson, 1996), but they still have a lot of catching up to do with regard
to English vocabulary. Nevertheless, vocabulary instruction for ELLs,
particularly in mainstream classrooms where English reading and content
classes are taught to the entire class through textbooks, is typically limited to
the teaching of a few content words and affixes, which do not make words
more comprehensible if students do not know the meaning of the root
words (Pease-Alvarez, Samway, Almanzo, & Cifka-Herrera, 2007).
Although reading widely is an effective strategy for building vocabulary, it
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has been reported that the probability of learning unknown words in this way
is about 15 percent, and only avid readers seem to build vocabulary in this
way (Swanborn & Glopper, 1999). Acquiring a lot of vocabulary through
reading alone is often hard for ELLs because they are likely to struggle with
comprehension due to their lack of familiarity with the nuances of English,
such as idioms, grammatical cues, vocabulary, and culture. Also, because
English is peppered with nonliteral language, nonnative speakers often have

enormous difficulty understanding English colloquial expressions, slang, and
idioms. (See Chapter 3, pages 143–149, for a discussion of how these words
and expressions affect ELLs’ understanding of English.)
General Strategies
................................
Students need to revere words and be immersed in vocabulary/concept
development throughout the day, not just in English/language arts classes.
My ELL students’ knowledge of English

Situation 1 words is very limited and this affects
their reading comprehension.
General Strategy 1: Vocabulary mini-workshop or CPR.

In many upper elementary classrooms and some pull-out ESL/ELD and
English classes at the secondary level, there are regular times each day
devoted to reading workshop, writing workshop, and word study. We
recommend a similar, but brief 10- or15-minute regularly scheduled time for
a vocabulary mini-workshop, a time to focus on word consciousness and word
study. This should be in addition to the vocabulary building that is happening
throughout the day. We recommend scheduling this mini-workshop at a
predictable time (for example, at the beginning of the day or after lunch; or
on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays), so that students can anticipate it
and come prepared with their own observations, questions, and insights into
words. This workshop is a time for students to become excited and curious
about language and the ways it works. We recommend that teachers do
the following:
c Foster students’ interest and excitement through sharing their own
curiosity and passion for words.
c Strategically introduce students to new concepts, terms, and relationships
between words and across languages.

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c Engage students in substantive and interesting vocabulary study and

word-consciousness activities.
Katharine calls this type of a mini-vocabulary workshop CPR:
C = Being curious about words and phrases, and the origins of words and phrases
Curious readers notice unusual or new words and intriguing uses of familiar
words. They stop to think about what they just encountered, to figure out
meaning and maybe the origins of words.
P = Being passionate about words
If words are important to us, not in the sense that we get angry when others
misuse words or use a nonstandard form of a word, but in the sense of
appreciating the beauty of words and their power to convey subtle meanings,
then we are probably passionate about words. This is something we need to
foster in our students.
R = Being a risk-taker
We all need to feel that we can take risks and not be made fun of when
experimenting with language, whether we are adults or children. As teachers,
we must honor and encourage experimentation, while also teaching
about words.
The following specific strategies for a vocabulary mini-workshop are
designed to encourage an interest in and passion about words. Some of them
do not necessarily lead immediately to a more expansive vocabulary (for
example, word search games), but they can lead to a greater appreciation for
words. Other activities are more directly related to building vocabulary and
word consciousness. As you will see, most of these activities encourage
multiple responses, which in turn build versatile, flexible thinking. This kind
of thinking is an asset for anyone learning to speak and becoming literate in a
language, whether a native or nonnative language.
Targeted Strategy 1: Found words in names.

This activity is designed to help students notice words embedded in longer
words. Vocabulary development can occur after students have generated
words and discussed unfamiliar words.
Procedure
1. Demonstrate how to look for as many words as possible in a person’s first
and last names combined, without using a letter more than once in the
found word. In other words, if there are two of the letter a in the name,
then an a can be used twice in the found word, but if there’s only one a,
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that letter can be used only once. For example, in Fatimah Suleyman
(fatimahsuleyman), a very quick search reveals the following words: fat,
faith, slay, man, mean, time, timely, mate, slim.
2. Post a name without any spaces between the names, as above.
3. Give students about five minutes to find embedded words. Allow a little
more time when students are new to this activity.

4. Students work alone or together to find as many words as possible in the
designated time.
5. At the end of the designated time, students take turns reading their
words. If someone else found the word, it gets deleted. The winner is the
person, pair, or small group with the most words that no one else found.
Variations
1. Once students are pretty good at locating three-letter words, they
can be directed to list only words with three or more letters.
2. Post a longish content-area word (for example, photosynthesis,
earthquake, onomatopoeia).
3. Post a phrase (for example, developing country—developingcountry;
obtuse angle—obtuseangle).
4. Use words in different languages from picture books that are appropriate
for students in sixth grade and up, as well as books intended for older
learners. For example, Only a Pigeon (Kurtz & Kurtz, 1997), a picture
book set in Ethiopia, is about a boy who goes to school for half a day,
works as a shoeshine boy the other half of the day, and also raises racing
pigeons. In this book, the Amharic word for wild mongoose, shele
mit-mot, is used. Using words from ELL students’ home languages is
a way to validate and show respect for their native languages.
Targeted Strategy 2: It’s a . . . .

This game fosters divergent thinking and the naming of words/terms, and is
similar to games played on the Drew Carey TV show Whose Line Is It
Anyway? and in Odyssey of the Mind, a national competition for school-age
students that involves creative problem-solving and group work. One part of
the Odyssey of the Mind competition involves spontaneous problem solving,
sometimes referred to as a brain tester or brain builder. The purpose of this
activity is for students to use their creative thinking to go “outside the box”
and, for example, generate as many imagined uses possible for a simple object
(e.g., dowel, walking stick, large rubber ring, plastic bowl, sausage-shaped

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
inflated balloon) or a drawing of an intriguing-looking imaginary object.

(See Figure 4.1.)
For example, students may generate the following uses for a walking
stick: a sword, a back scratcher, a fishing pole, a conductor’s baton, a trapeze
wire, a clothesline, a pencil, a ruler, a lollipop, a ski, a trekking pole, a water
diviner, and a measuring stick.
Procedure
1. Students work in small groups—the groups can compete against each
other or each group can compete with itself by aiming to better its score
each time it plays the game.
2. The class is shown an object or drawing of an object.
3. Groups have about five minutes to brainstorm a list of creative uses for
the object.
4. Groups take turns demonstrating and naming a use—members in a
group also take turns.
5. Each new use generates a point for the group—repetitions of a use don’t
earn any points.
6. The winning group is the one that generates the greatest number of
original uses.
Targeted Strategy 3: Cognates.

Cognates are words in two languages that are spelled and pronounced in
similar ways and have the same meaning. For example, the Spanish word for
Figure 4.1: Drawing of an Imaginary Object
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pilot is piloto. Several languages share cognates with English, including Arabic,
French, German, and Spanish. Many English words share cognates with
Romance languages, such as Italian, French, and Spanish, due to a shared
history with Latin. Given the large number of Spanish-English cognates,
particularly in academic language, and the large number of Spanish-speaking
ELLs in North American schools, many of whom are underserved and
under-achieving, it is essential to teach Spanish-speaking students about

Spanish-English cognates so they have access to another source of word
knowledge and can tap into a potentially familiar resource.2 The following
suggestions focus on supporting ELLs in becoming aware of cognates in their
own language and English, generating lists of cognates, and using cognates:
c Students can keep lists of cognates in English and their native language
generated from a variety of sources, such as books and other print media,
the community, and TV.
c Students can use bilingual dictionaries to verify that the identified
words are actually cognates. Various Web sites can also help with the
verification process. See the list of Web sites in the Cognates (and False
Friends) Resources on the following pages.
c Students’ findings can be displayed on charts or stored in three-ring
binders.
c Students can discuss how they know that certain words are cognates, in
order to enhance their metalinguistic knowledge. For example, “In this
sentence about Great Depression, ‘The nation reeled from the loss of
jobs and loss of income, which put many families below the poverty line,’
nation is like nacíon in my language. And I think it go here. Is nation like
country? I check the dictionary.”
c Students talk with family members about cognates in their home
language and English, and share them with the class.
Alternative: Ask “Which words do you know, and how do you know them?”
Ask ELL students which words they know in a text, and how they know the
words. Often, they will identify a cognate. Add these words to a chart of
cognates, and use them for practice activities, including matching cognate
pairs and other reinforcement games.
2
In a recent study of the vocabulary knowledge of fourth graders (Scott, Flinspach, & Samway, 2007),
Spanish-speaking ELLs identified statistically fewer English-Spanish cognates than other ELLs.

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Alternative: Are words fickle friends/partial cognates?

Not all words that look alike in two languages mean the same thing. For
example, in Spanish, admirar means to admire, but it also means to astonish or
to surprise. Pairs of words that only seem to be synonymous are called “fickle
friends” or partial cognates. Invite students to locate fickle friends and post
them on a chart, along with their meanings. These words can be used for
reinforcement games.
Alternative: Identify false friends.
Explain to students that some words look like they are cognates, but actually
aren’t, and that these are called “false friends.” For example, the Spanish word
pie means foot, not a dessert made with pastry. False friends can get us into
trouble. For example, when she was still fairly new to Spanish, Katharine
announced one day that she was embarazada, thinking she had said she was
embarrassed, when in fact she had said she was pregnant! Students can
search for false friends, and the teacher can share false friends with students.
Lists of Spanish-English false friends can be found at www.colorincolorado.org/
educators/background/cognates and http://spanish.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/
obviouswrong.htm.
Alternative: Find the difference.

List pairs of cognates on paper or a chart. Have students identify
differences in the cognate pairs. For example, in the English-Spanish
cognate desert/desierto, the Spanish word has two additional letters, an –i
after des and an –o at the end of the word. The teacher and students can take
turns circling or underlining the differences.
Cognate (and False Friends) Resources
To find information about cognates and false friends, visit the following
Web sites:
c English-Arabic cognates
www.outreachworld.org/resource.asp?curriculumid=300
c English-French cognates and false friends

http://french.about.com/library/vocab/bl-vraisamis.htm
http://french.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/falsecognates.htm
c English-German cognates and false friends

http://german.about.com/library/blcognates_A.htm
http://german.about.com/library/blfalsef.htm
c English-Hungarian false friends

http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/people/core/lazar/falsefriends.html
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c English-Italian false friends

www.faqs.org/faqs/cultures/italian/misc (scroll down until you find the
section on false cognates)
c English-Japanese cognates and false friends
www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-Magazine/april2003/06-language-
interference-loan-words.htm
c English-Portuguese cognates and false friends

www.learn-portuguese-now.com/cognates.html
www.geocities.com/Athens/3580/cognates.html
www.sk.com.br/sk-fals.html
c English-Spanish cognates and false friends

Colorín Colorado at: www.colorincolorado.org/educators/background/cognates
Jill Kerper Mora at: http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/MoraModules/
SpEngCognates.htm
Gerald Erichsen at: http://spanish.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a
http://spanish.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/obviouswrong.htm
www.angelfire.com/fl/espanglishtips/#false
Targeted Strategy 4: Identify borrowed words.

Most languages borrow words from other languages, and ELL students
benefit from seeing connections between their native language and English.
Words in English that have been borrowed from other languages include
café au lait (coffee with milk), which is borrowed from French, and hummus
(a spread or dip made from ground chickpeas and tahini), which is a word
borrowed from Arabic.
Other activities for identifying borrowed words include the following:
c The entire class or individual students can keep lists of borrowed words
and their meanings that they find through their reading, the community,
TV, and print media; findings can be displayed on charts and stored in
three-ring binders.
c Students can talk with family members about words found in English that
have been borrowed from the home language, and share their findings
with the class.
It is helpful to talk with students about how they were able to identify
the borrowed words as this can enhance students’ metalinguistic knowledge
of features of language. Lists of words in English that have been borrowed
(or loaned) from other languages can be found at www.krysstal.com/borrow.html
and www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/essays/loanword.htm.

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Targeted Strategy 5: Create word family charts.

It is particularly worthwhile to pay attention to words that are members of
large morphological families—groups of words that have the same root
word, such as migrate, migrating, migrated, migrates, migrant, immigrant,
immigrating, emigrant, emigrating, immigration, migratory. Through the
discussion that accompanies the development of word family charts, students
will encounter many more words than if they were introduced to isolated
words. These conversations can also lead to interesting discussions about
parts of speech and how to recognize specific parts of speech, for example,
migrate is a verb, migration is a noun, and migratory is an adjective. When
students are asked how they know what part of speech a word is, the ensuing
discussion can enhance metalinguistic awareness and the development of
word knowledge.
It is important to pay attention to word families that are connected
to specific subject matter content in order to enhance ELL students’
understanding of academic vocabulary. For example, teachers might want to
introduce the morphological family of migrate during a unit on Ellis Island.
Or, during a biology unit, teachers can introduce words derived from organ
(organic, organism, organize, organization).
Targeted Strategy 6: Collect words with similar meanings.

Collecting words that have similar meanings (e.g., immigrant, refugee, migrant,
settler; or hurricane, tornado, storm, gale, cyclone) can lead to rich discussions
about the specific meaning of each word in a group, and when each is most
appropriately used. Keep lists of words with similar meanings, and use them
later for reinforcement activities and as resources when students are writing.
Figure 4.2 shows four groups of four words with similar meanings.
Demonstrations can help clarify the subtle differences in meaning
between words in groups 1, 3, and 4. For Group 2 words, actual objects,
pictures, or sketches can help clarify the meaning. It is a good idea to
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4

frown tub amble laugh
scowl container stride guffaw
grimace pot crawl snicker
glower vase walk giggle
Figure 4.2: Words With Similar Meanings
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encourage students to add to these lists whenever they encounter new words,
and to point out that the lists can be useful resources when writing. Teachers
and their students can use these words to create word charts to place on the
walls (similar to Word Walls, explained on page 214). This is a strategy more
commonly used in classrooms for younger children, but Dorothy’s older ELL
students have made good use of words with similar meanings that they have
collected from readings and placed on wall charts for reference in reading and
in writing.
Targeted Strategy 7: Explore multiple meanings.

Many words have multiple meanings (the linguistic term for multiple
meanings is polysemy). ELLs benefit from learning about these differences
(Carlo, August, McLaughlin, Snow, Dressler, Lippman, Lively, & White,
2004), and the following is one way to foster an awareness of multiple
word meanings:
c Give students a target word and ask them to work in groups to list as
many different meanings as possible for that word.
c Discuss the different meanings that students list and post the list.
c For homework, students can talk with neighbors, friends, and family
members about other meanings for the target word, and share their
findings with the rest of the class.
c Add to the list as students encounter new meanings in oral and
written language.
Words that have multiple meanings include back, box, time, tie, drive, list,
up, plant, bond, drop, dry, ring, thing, second, seat, litter, iron, low, check, and
mouth. A quick search in a dictionary will reveal many more. Teachers and
students may be interested in the Web site http://home.alphalink.com.au/
~umbidas/Homonyms_main.htm#ball, which lists 50 common words with
multiple meanings and the origins of the different meanings of each word.
Students who would like to quiz themselves on multiple meanings online can
find explanations and quizzes at www.elite.net/~runner/ eld/wordanalysis.html.
Alternative
c Students identify the words they think might have multiple meanings in
the text they are reading.
c Students talk about why they think these words may have more than one
meaning, in order to develop word consciousness and metalinguistic

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
awareness. For example, a student may know a meaning for a word, but if
that meaning doesn’t seem to fit the context, the student wonders if the
word has another meaning.
Group and class discussions about words and word meanings can be very
helpful in supporting the development of ELL students’ curiosity about and
knowledge of words. Words with multiple meanings can be displayed and
stored as resources for students on charts, in class three-ring binders, or in
students’ resource folders/binders.
Targeted Strategy 8: Categorize words according to meaning.

An individual student can complete this open-ended activity, although there
are great benefits to working with a partner.
c Words that students are familiar with through their reading and
content-area studies are scrambled and listed on a sheet of paper and/or
transparency. For example, the chart can include terms related to housing,
speaking, sports, movement, and head coverings. (See Figure 4.3.)
c Students are given paper and writing utensils, and told that they have
about five minutes to sort the words into categories.
c Then the whole class meets, and students share the categories they
generated and explain their thinking. Some words may fit in more than
one category (for example, slide and run in the words in the box below),
which is fine. This only helps to emphasize that there are multiple
meanings for many words in English.
Alternative
The teacher creates a set of words, and makes a copy for each student or
group. Before distributing each set, she or he cuts the set up into individual
words (or students can cut them up). Students then group and regroup the
words into meaningful categories. These categories may range from surface
features, such as the number or placement of letters in words (for example,
baseball cap shout whisper flat

say apartment sing bonnet swing
trailer soccer hat basketball play
holler duplex helmet tennis beanie
house slide townhouse run beret
Figure 4.3: Scrambled Chart of Known Words
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in the list, apartment, beret, shout, hat, helmet, bonnet, and flat all end
in –t), to lexical features (for example, compound words, such as baseball,
townhouse, and basketball) to words that are related through meaning (for
example, trailer, house, townhouse, apartment, duplex, and flat are all places
in which people live). Teachers may need to help ELL students make
connections in meaning.
Targeted Strategy 9: Play reinforcement games.

Students enjoy games such as bingo, Concentration, and Jeopardy, and
they can be used to great effect for reinforcing vocabulary development.
These games can be played throughout the school year, including the
following times:
c At the conclusion of a unit of study, when the game focuses on terms
learned during the unit (for example, plate tectonics).
c At intervals throughout the year, when the game focuses on terms that
correspond with several units of study in one subject. For example, for a
sixth-grade science class in California, this might include plate tectonics,
shaping the Earth’s surface, thermal energy, and ecology.
c At intervals throughout the year, when the game focuses on terms from
all subjects studied up to that point in the school year. For example, for
a sixth-grade class this might include ancient civilizations around the world
in history; ecology in science; literary response and analysis terms in reading
(e.g., character, setting, rhythm, rhyme, theme, imagery); writing craft
moves in narrative writing (e.g., plot, setting, sensory details, dialogue,
suspense); and number sense in mathematics (e.g., fraction, decimal, ratio,
proportion, percentage, calculate).
As students become familiar with routines surrounding these games,
they can design their own games—in these situations, the teacher acts as a
resource to pairs or small groups of students as they prepare the materials.
There are added linguistic and cognitive benefits to students taking on the
role of game designer.
Concentration
This game provides reading practice and multiple exposures to terms and
definitions, while also building memory, all of which are very useful for
language learners. We find it useful to write terms on cards of one color and
definitions on cards of another color. For example, in a reading/writing unit
on expository writing, terms might include persuasion, evidence, conclusion,
assertion, propaganda, citation, credibility, and they can be put on blue cards.

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Definitions can be placed on red cards—for example, the definition for

propaganda might be “a message intended to influence the opinions and/or
behavior of people.” The definition card can be just a definition, a sentence
in which the term’s meaning can be deduced from context, or a combination
of the definition and a sentence in which it is used. So as not to overwhelm
students, we have found that it is wise to begin with around four to six pairs
of words and definitions and build up to more once students become familiar
with the game. At that point, students, rather than the teacher, can select the
words and write the definitions.
Modified Jeopardy
This is a modified Jeopardy game in which players don’t respond in the form
of a question (for example, “What is the outer layer of the Earth?”), but
rather provide short answers to questions. For example, if a student is asked,
“What is the outer layer of the Earth’s surface called?” the student would
reply “Crust” or “The crust.” This game relies on listening, as well as
knowledge of content terms, so it is often helpful to ELLs to display the
questions on a transparency or on strips of paper that are then posted on the
board or wall.
Procedure
1. Prepare a Jeopardy game board that can be used over and over again.
Minimally, the number of terms needs to exceed the number of
students playing the game by five or so, to ensure that every student
gets to play and all students have some options to choose from. See
Figure 4.4 for a sample game board, which is designed for a class of 30
upper-grade students. (There are 35 possible questions, so every student
has some choice.)
2. Prepare a series of cards with terms from the unit(s) of study. Also
prepare a series of corresponding questions and align them with the
scoring categories, according to difficulty. (See Figure 4.5.)
3. Students work in groups to prepare each other for the game; this
review may occur in short segments over a couple of days, such as 15–20
minutes each day. Newcomer ELLs should be placed in groups that
contain students who are more fluent in English.
4. Students take turns answering a question—each student chooses the
category and the point value.
5. Team members are not allowed to help in answering the question.
178
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Category A Category B Category C Category D Category E

Magnetism Landforms Writing Substance Algebra
Craft Moves Abuse
70 points 70 points 70 points 70 points 70 points

Figure 4.4: Sample Modified Jeopardy Game Board
Category and Question Answer

Number of Points
Landforms: What is the The crust

10 points outermost layer
of the Earth’s
surface called?
Landforms: What is a mountain A volcano

20 points formed by molten lava
and gases called?
Landforms: What is the shaking of An earthquake

30 points the earth caused by
the sudden release of
stored energy called?
Figure 4.5: Modified Jeopardy Game Cards, With Study Terms, Questions, and Answers

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6. Students are given five or ten seconds, or some other designated amount
of time to answer.
7. If the student does not know the answer or has the wrong answer, the
rest of the group has the opportunity to answer it for half the points.
8. If no one in that group knows the answer, it passes to the next group
(for half the points).
9. The game continues until all students have had a chance to answer
(and until all groups have had the same number of turns).
10. The group with the most points wins.
Word Dominoes
There are many variations on the word domino game, which can be used for
reinforcement. For example, word tiles can be matched according to:
c High-frequency words (the, before, then).
c Related meanings (run, walk, and jump can be matched).
c Compound words (police and man can be matched to make policeman).
c Letters of the alphabet (either matching single letters such as H, L, or G
or matching dominoes with words that begin with the same letter as a
word that ends with that letter [boy can be matched with yes]).
Quick Competitions
In these two- or three-minute competitions, students collaborate with a
partner to recall vocabulary and concepts related to a unit of study. These
quick competitions generate many kinds of useful data for teachers, including
which concepts students are most familiar with and which ones they do not
appear to be internalizing. The information can also provide feedback to the
students themselves. Students tend to enjoy these short, informal, ungraded
competitions, which can motivate them to pay better attention to concepts
and terms because they know there will be a competition.
Procedure
1. The teacher explains that students will be working in pairs to list as many
items as possible for each category posted. They have a defined amount
of time (for example, three or five minutes).
2. The list of possible categories is endless. In addition to words/terms
relating to content-area units of study (for example, ancient civilizations)
or a subject (for example, mathematics, science, or art), the categories
can be more general in nature (for example, sports, foods, hobbies,
180
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occupations, animals, countries, cities, plants, rivers, famous people in

history). Categories can also be broad (for example, foods) or narrowed
to subcategories (for example, in a quick competition focused on foods,
subcategories might be spicy foods, salty foods, fruits, vegetables, red
foods, and appetizers). One or more subcategories can be the focus
of a competition.
3. After the designated amount of time is up, students put down their
writing utensils.
4. Pairs of students take turns reading aloud an item from their lists.
5. If an item is mentioned more than once, no points are awarded. If only
one pair mentions an item, that pair wins a point.
6. The winner is the pair that has the most points.
Fill in the alphabet box.
As a follow-up to a content-area unit or units of study, students work with
partners to fill in a chart with boxes for each letter of the alphabet. For
example, in Figure 4.6 (page 182), the partially completed chart is devoted to
animal life, and students had to select words that were related to that topic
and place them in the appropriate boxes. This kind of alphabet box activity
allows students to see how rarely certain letters, such as q, x, and z, occur
in English.
Alternative: Fill in mixed topic alphabet boxes.
Combine several topics, such as animals, plants, occupations, countries,
songs, and famous people in history. (See Figure 4.7, page 183.) In this case,
there are boxes corresponding to five categories, as well as free choice boxes,
which correspond with letters of the alphabet that generate very few words in
English. Free choice words may be restricted to words relating to the
assigned categories or may be completely unrelated to the topic.
Students don’t understand concepts

Situation 2
in either the L1 or English.
Sometimes ELL students have had little or no schooling. They may come
from war-torn countries, or they may come from an area so poverty-stricken
that all members of the family need to work and/or take care of younger
siblings in order for the family to eat. In such cases, ELLs may come to
North American schools with limited familiarity with content-area concepts

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
a/A b/B c/C d/D e/E

alligator bear calf
anteater badger
buffalo
f/F g/G h/H i/I j/J
habitat iguana jaguar
horse
k/K l/L m/M n/N o/O

mate
monkey
mammal
p/P q/Q r/R s/S t/T
reproduction
rhinoceros
u/U v/V w/W x/X y/Y

warm-blooded
warthog*
z/Z
Figure 4.6: Animal Life Alphabet Box
and vocabulary, both in their native language and English. The most
expedient way to support concept development is through the native
language. However, given that there are so few bilingual programs for ELLs
in grades 6–12 in North America, it is often inevitable that mainstream
teachers will be responsible for helping to narrow the concept/vocabulary
gap in English. The following fairly simple strategies can help make content
more comprehensible to ELLs.
* The students had originally written waterhog, which other students questioned, saying there wasn't an
animal by that name. This led to a class discussion about what a waterhog is. They then looked up
waterhog in the dictionary, didn't find it there, so looked up hog, where they found a reference to warthog.
An Internet search led them to the San Diego Zoo Web site and a picture and description of this animal
from Africa.
182
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a/A b/B c/C d/D e/E

Country Song Occupation Plant Animal
f/F g/G h/H i/I j/J

City Country Song Animal City
k/K l/L m/M n/N o/O

Plant Occupation Country Song Animal
p/P q/Q r/R s/S t/T

City Free Choice Occupation Country Song
u/U v/V w/W x/X y/Y

Animal City Plant Free Choice Animal
z/Z
Country
Figure 4.7: Mixed Topic Alphabet Box
Targeted Strategy 1: Use realia, pictures, and demonstrations.

It is very important for teachers to use visual, auditory, and tactile aids to
make key concepts accessible and comprehensible to ELLs as well as
non-ELLs. Gestures, sketches, realia, demonstrations, dramatizations, and
film/DVDs/videos are all valuable means of support. Katharine once
observed a high school social studies teacher teaching ELLs about locating
places on the globe using longitude and latitude. These were quite abstract
concepts for the students, yet the teacher relied exclusively on lecturing; not
surprisingly, the students were lost. Had the teacher used a globe and
enlarged maps, the students would have almost certainly understood much
more. In contrast, Katharine once observed a fifth/sixth-grade teacher

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
embarking on a unit about archaeology. Instead of teaching exclusively

through the textbook, as so many of her colleagues did (and which typically
left students confused and totally indifferent to or even hating history),
this teacher began the unit by providing her students with a simulated
archaeological dig. The students worked in groups to carefully unearth small
artifacts that the teacher had buried in layers of plaster of paris in gallon milk
jugs. After unearthing these artifacts and carefully describing and recording
each object, the groups had to hypothesize about how the objects might
have been used and then, ultimately, the cultures that used the objects.
This activity led to an actual dig in the school grounds, followed by more
traditional learning experiences, including reading the social studies textbook.
By the time the students reached this stage, they were so enthusiastic about
archaeology and had acquired such a solid understanding of the discipline and
its related terms that the dense textbook was much more comprehensible to
them than it would have been otherwise.3
Targeted Strategy 2: Tell stories.

Whenever the teacher can relate content and concepts to his or her life
experiences and those of the students, concepts are often more accessible and
comprehensible. For example, when talking about the human life cycle,
Katharine will share a now quite old, but still special, small black-and-white
ultrasound picture of her first son in the womb to illustrate the term embryo,
and tell her students how she came to have the photo. Such a brief but vivid
account is likely to spark students’ own stories. (Later, when students are
generating ideas for nonfiction picture books, she likes to refer to their ideas
as embryonic, and then explains how ideas that haven’t been developed into
full-blown pieces are like human embryos.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Go on a text walk.

Before reading a new text or starting a new topic, take students on a text
walk in order to stimulate their background knowledge and curiosity, and to
introduce them to key concepts and terms.
Procedure
1. Using an overhead projector or opaque projector, show carefully selected
pages with illustrations (for example, diagrams, photos, drawings) that
focus on key concepts and potentially unfamiliar terms in English.
3
For a detailed description of a similar activity, see pages 94–113 in Stephen Cary’s Working With English
Language: Answers to Teachers’ Top Ten Questions (2007).
184
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2. While pointing to illustrations and words/terms on each page, discuss

the main concept with students and circle related words. These
discussions often tap into students’ personal experiences and background
knowledge, which can help enormously in building conceptual
knowledge and vocabulary.
Targeted Strategy 4: Create a pictorial input chart or

a large picture input chart.4
The teacher introduces a topic (for example, volcanoes, photosynthesis,
westward movement) while drawing a picture in front of the students. (See
Figure 4.8.) In this way, students have access to both auditory and visual input.
Procedure
1. Locate a picture that captures the topic.
2. Make an enlarged pencil outline of key information in the picture.
Organs of the Body

Lungs
Brain
(breathing/
(control center)
respiration)
Heart
Liver (pumps blood)
(many functions, Kidneys
including helping (act as a filter)
digestion & cleaning
the blood)
Large Intestine Small Intestine

[Colon] (digestion)
(transports waste &
absorbs water)
Figure 4.8: Pictorial Input Chart
4
This strategy is often associated with the GLAD Project (Guided Language Acquisition Design).
More information about GLAD can be found at www.projectglad.com.

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Not everything in a picture needs to be included, just the most salient

information. This can be accomplished in various ways, depending on
the technology available to teachers. Here are several options:
• Using an overhead projector:
a. Make a clear copy of the picture.
b. Make a transparency from this copy.
c. Project the transparency onto a large piece of butcher paper.
d. Use a pencil to very faintly trace and label key elements.
• Using an opaque projector:
a. Project the picture onto a large piece of butcher paper.
b. Use a pencil to very faintly trace and label key elements.
• Using a laptop computer and projector:
a. Scan the picture and save it onto the laptop as a PowerPoint
slide.
b. Project the picture onto a large piece of butcher paper.
c. Use a pencil to very faintly trace and label key elements.
3. While using a marker to trace over the pencil outline, the teacher talks
about the content and writes labels to accompany the picture. For
example, in an introduction to a study of the human body and its organs,
a teacher used a marker to trace an oversized outline of a human body
while briefly remarking on and labeling the names of the organs and
their functions, as the following excerpt illustrates:
Ms. Thai: Today we’re going to begin a study of the human body. (She picks up
a large marker and traces the outline of a human body that is posted
on the easel.) Here’s the brain (while tracing the outline of the brain
and shading it a little with scratch marks to resemble a brain; she
then writes brain on the chart with an arrow pointing to the brain).
This is the control center for the central nervous system, which is
responsible for our behavior, or what we do (while writing control
center under the brain label). And here’s the heart (while tracing the
outline of the heart and writing heart on the chart with an arrow
pointing to the heart). The heart pumps blood through our bodies
(and then she writes pumps blood under the heart label). There are
two lungs. One is to the left of the heart and the other is to the right
of the heart (while tracing the outline of the left and right lungs and
writing left lung and right lung on the chart, with arrows pointing
to the two lungs). The lungs are the main organ for making sure we
breathe. Another term that’s used is respiration (while writing
breathe/respiration under the left lung and right lung labels). We’ll
learn more about this later in the week.
186
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Ms. Thai continued in this way, tracing, talking about, and labeling all
the major organs. On subsequent days, she used similar pictorial input charts
to teach about the heart, brain, lungs, small and large intestines, and other
organs. Another pictorial input chart can be found at http://community.
scholastic.com/scholastic/blog/article?blog.id=ELL_strategies&message.id=4.
Targeted Strategy 5: Use Knowledge Rating Guides.

See Figure 4.9 (page 188) for a completed Knowledge Rating Guide.
The sketches were added after the student had become familiar with the
corresponding terms. These guides can help students to self-monitor their
understanding of key terms, develop strategies for remembering new terms
and improve reading comprehension, increase their repertoire of key terms
that can be used in their writing, and enhance their word consciousness.
Knowledge Rating Guides can also help teachers assess students’ knowledge
of key terms before and after a unit of study.
Knowledge Rating Guides can be developed for an entire unit of study
(for example, immigration) or a segment of a unit under study (for example,
the impact of immigration on popular culture).
1. Select 10–15 key words and/or phrases related to an area to be studied,
a text to be read, or a read-aloud text.
2. Before beginning the unit of study or reading, ask students to complete
the Knowledge Rating Guide:
a. Explain the purpose and procedure to students, using an overhead
projector, opaque projector, chart, or handout.
b. Demonstrate how to complete the Knowledge Rating Guide, using
terms that differ from the ones they will be working with. Use a
think-aloud to display your thinking.
c. Students can complete their own Knowledge Rating Guides.
d. Students share their responses and discuss the terms in pairs or
small groups.
e. Hold a discussion with the class about the terms and what they
think they mean. Make sure to contextualize words and build on
any knowledge of word families and cognates students may have.
These conversations about words are very important.
f. Encourage students to make sketches next to terms that they aren’t
sure of, to help them remember meanings.
3. Using the knowledge you gain from the conversations and students’
Knowledge Rating Guides, you may decide that some key concepts need
to be carefully explored.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Words Words Words

I know and I've heard I don't
can use or seen know
rotation ✓
planet ✓
asteroid ✓
black hole ✓
atmosphere ✓
astronomy ✓
telescope ✓
star ✓
gravity ✓
satellite ✓
observatory ✓
Figure 4.9: A Student’s Completed Knowledge Rating Guide
188
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
4. After the unit of study, invite students to complete the Knowledge

Rating Guide in a different color, so they and you can see their
progress. Hold a discussion with students about their vocabulary
development, terms that still confuse them, and strategies that helped
them remember meanings.
Alternatives
At the end of a unit of study, invite groups of students to prepare their own
Knowledge Rating Guides for other groups of students to use in the future.
Be prepared to discuss how to choose words.
c Before embarking on a new study or reading, invite groups of students to
browse through texts looking for terms they think many students will be
unfamiliar with. Use some of these words to prepare a Knowledge Rating
Guide. Be prepared to discuss how to choose words.
c Use terms from Knowledge Rating Guides for periodic, quick reinforce-
ment games, such as bingo, Concentration, and Jeopardy.
My ELL students can decode words, but they

Situation 3 don’t understand what they have just read.
Being able to decode is an important step, but students need to know that
reading involves making sense of what they have just decoded. Developing
vocabulary is integrally intertwined with this situation (see earlier pages for
vocabulary development and word consciousness activities), but the following
strategies focus explicitly on reading as a meaning-making process.
Targeted Strategy 1: Reading = making meaning.

Emergent or struggling readers often overrely on one of the three major
language cueing systems: the graphophonic (sound-symbol correspondence),
the semantic (whether words make sense in that context), and the syntactic
(whether grammatically it sounds like English). We have observed that many
ELL students often overrely on the graphophonic cueing system, and focus
exclusively on decoding words without regard to whether what they are
decoding makes sense or sounds like English. It is important to discuss with
students the main reasons we read—to get information or be entertained—
and how that entails focusing on more than sound-symbol correspondences.
Students also need to know that reading is a process of self-monitoring, so
when they notice a breakdown in meaning, they do their best to repair the
breakdown. We also need to reassure students that occasionally deviating

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
from the text when reading is a normal part of reading—and that good
readers correct miscues that lead to breakdowns in meaning.
A very effective way of showing the importance of reading for meaning
is through demonstrations. These can occur very informally and without
planning, such as when reading aloud. For example, Katharine has read
“mom” for “mother,” and has pointed out to students that she did this
without thinking, but as it didn’t change the meaning of the text, she didn’t
go back and repair the miscue. On another occasion, when she read, “she was
sold to a planter in South Carolina” for “she was sold to a plantation in South
Carolina,” she went back and reread that sentence correctly, and explained to
students that she had made a point of correcting it because plantation means
something distinctly different from planter (even though the words have the
same root and are connected).
More formal teaching demonstrations are also important. One that
Katharine has found to be effective involves several demonstrations. She
selects a text and then reads it while focusing on different cueing systems and
reading strategies, as the following examples illustrate:
Demonstration 1: Sound-Symbol Correspondence Only

She reads the text and focuses on just graphophonic similarity, reading words
that share some of the same phonics properties as the words in the text, but
don’t make any sense, such as:
Text: I’ll taste it and see if it’s sweet.
Reading: I tastee it and see if it sw, sw, swet.
Neither tastee nor swet are real words in English and the sentence does not
make sense. She focused solely on sound/symbol correspondence, and not on
making meaning.
Demonstration 2: Semantic/Meaning-Making Only

Text: She wanted to carry the groceries.
Reading: She wanted to take out the garbage.
This sentence makes sense, but substituting take out for carry and garbage
for groceries changes the meaning. In this case, she didn’t pay enough
attention to graphophonics.
Demonstration 3: Cueing Systems Working Together to Make Meaning

Text: The birds flew overhead in the bright blue sky.
Reading: The bird flows, flies over land. The bird flies overhead in the big blue,
bright blue sky.
190
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
She is using all the cueing systems and self-monitors herself. This leads her
to correct words that change meaning, such as flows for flies, over land for
overhead, and big for bright. She didn’t self-correct bird for birds, however, and
it could be argued that the singular noun changes the meaning slightly.
After each demonstration, she asks students to talk about the strategies
she used and how effective she was as a reader. Typically, students can see
that her third demonstration is what good readers do—that is, they pay
attention to all the language cueing systems, and strive to make sense of the
text. They may make miscues, but they self-correct those that get in the way
of meaning.
Targeted Strategy 2: Review strategies learned.

Because struggling readers often focus so much on decoding, it is helpful to
regularly go over the strategies they have been taught that help them read for
meaning. When Katharine was working with upper-grade struggling readers,
she found it helpful to ask them at the beginning of each session which
strategies they had access to and could use. In time, they began to internalize
these strategies and it generally wasn’t necessary to do this kind of review
orally. A typical review went like this:
Katharine: So, which reading strategies do you know about and can
maybe use when you’re reading today?
Abdul: Look at the front cover. See what it about.
(Pause)
Antonio: Stop if it no make sense. And read again.
Anita: Read these. These heads. (Pointing to a page in her book.)
Katharine: Do you mean the headings and subheadings? (Anita nods
her head.) Okay.
Nancy: Watch the period. The comma. The question.
Katharine: Pay attention to the punctuation?
Students: Yeah.
Han: Make connection.
Katharine: Make connections to what?
Han: Me. What I know.
Katharine: So, making a text-to-self connection? (Han nods.) Right. Any
other kinds of connections you might make?
Phuong: Books.
Katharine: OK. Text-to-text connections.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Targeted Strategy 3: Use think-alouds.

A think-aloud occurs when readers verbalize their thinking while reading,
thereby making reading processes visible to both the reader and others
(Clausen-Grace & Kelley, 2007; Damico & Baildon, 2007; Keene &
Zimmermann, 2007; Wilhelm, 2001). Students can either talk about their
processes while reading (oral think-aloud) or write about their processes
while reading (written think-aloud). These metacognitive conversations can
involve any of the following:
c The reader talking or writing about his or her reading processes.
c Two readers taking turns thinking aloud while reading.
c A student reading and thinking aloud with the teacher.
Think-aloud is an instructional strategy that helps readers monitor their
understanding, thereby supporting their reading comprehension. It is also a
valuable tool for assessment of students’ thinking processes and use of strategies.
All readers are periodically stumped by what they read. Experienced
readers have access to multiple reading strategies to figure out what stumped
them and repair the breakdown; in contrast, struggling and/or emergent
readers have access to far fewer strategies. Successful reading taps into the
following reading processes:
c Identifying a problem or difficulty (for example, unknown words and
concepts).
c Using fix-ups and trying to solve problems, such as through these means:
Rereading.
Reading on.
Identifying familiar root words.
Identifying familiar or potential cognates.
c Making predictions.
c Confirming and disconfirming predictions.
c Asking questions.
c Visualizing.
c Making connections (activating schema):
Text-to-self.
Text-to-text.
Text-to-world (including community).
c Making inferences.
c Evaluating text.
192
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Procedure
The teacher can work with an entire class, small groups of students with
similar needs, or an individual student. In general, it is best to work with
two or more students so that they can see how other students approach
texts and use reading strategies.
1. Select a reading strategy that students typically do not use and that
would be helpful to them in making sense of a text (for example, making
text-to-self connections or identifying unfamiliar words/terms).
2. Select a short text that lends itself to demonstrating the identified
reading strategy.
3. Post the text on a transparency or opaque projector and give each
student a copy.
4. Explain to students that you will be thinking aloud to help understand
the text better. Ask them to notice the strategies that you use. Then
demonstrate thinking aloud.
5. Have a discussion with students about the strategies you used, such
as asking questions, making text-to-self connections, and making a
prediction. If students don’t mention strategies you used, point them out
and explain your thinking, if needed.
6. Chart the think-aloud strategies that you and the students generate, and
include an example of each so students have a clear understanding of the
strategy later.
7. Ask students to think aloud in pairs—it’s a good idea to ask them to try
the strategy that you just focused on in your demonstration, but they
shouldn’t be limited to it.
• Students should read texts that are slightly above what they can
read independently with understanding, so that they are likely to
have some breakdowns in meaning, but will still be able to make
sense of the text.
• Students take turns reading a couple of lines or a paragraph and
thinking aloud.
• When not thinking aloud, students keep notes on the strategies
they observe their partner using. These can be recorded on
notebook paper or on a sheet. (See Figure 4.10, page 194.)
8. The whole class/group meets and talks about the strategies they used,
and any new strategies are added to the chart.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Name: _________________________ Date: _________ Text: _____________________________________
Think-Aloud Strategy Examples

Retelling
Predicting
Confirming/Disconfirming
Predictions
Identifying a breakdown
in comprehension
Asking questions
Visualizing
Making Connections:
Text-to-self
Making Connections:
Text-to-text
Making Connections:
Text-to-world
Inferring
Evaluating
Using Fix-Ups/Trying to
solve problems
Unrelated to text
Figure 4.10: Think-Aloud Record Sheet
194
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
9. It is useful to provide daily practice in thinking aloud until students have

internalized what is involved.
10. Whenever introducing a new reading strategy, it is a good idea to
demonstrate its use through a think-aloud.
Alternatives
c Think-alouds can be used to help make sense of the text structure of

different genres, for example, line breaks in poetry, the use of headings
and subheadings in nonfiction information books, and cause and effect in
informational texts.
c Think-alouds can also be used to teach about literary features, such as
character development, setting, and subplots, and craft elements, such
as the use of rhythmic language, circular stories, and the infusion of
non-English words to convey cultural meanings.
c In some classrooms, students use Idea Bookmarks to prepare for
Literature Study Circles, which are open-ended small-group book
discussions (Samway & Whang, 1996). These Idea Bookmarks are a form
of written think-aloud. (See Figure 4.11, page 196.) Idea Bookmarks can
be used by teachers to assess students’ think-aloud strategy use. (See
Figure 4.12, page 197.) In this case, the teacher reviewed the bookmarks
of a sixth-grade nonnative English speaker, Teresa, and identified the
think-aloud strategies that she relied on most often when reading The
Great Gilly Hopkins (Paterson, 1978), the story of a feisty foster child. In
fact, 50 percent of her written think-aloud comments were inferences.
Targeted Strategy 4: Do cloze activities.

In cloze activities, students predict words that are missing from a passage
and fill in the blanks. Cloze activities support meaning-making by requiring
students to go beyond decoding. (See Appendix G for guidelines for
developing cloze activities and Appendices I, J, and K for three versions of
a cloze text.)
Targeted Strategy 5: Create strip stories and procedures.

1. Select a familiar text, such as a folk tale, a science experiment, or a
class-generated account of a field trip. It is best if there are clear
demarcations within the story.
2. Cut the text into segments, such as by episodes or steps, and attach them
to strips of paper.
3. Scramble the strips.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Name: Angelina
Title: Lupita Mañana
Author: Muñoz, P.
p. 18 p. 21
On the hillside of my town in Leaving the children, Lupita
Mexico poor people some times came back to the door, which
they are so many that the town she had left “ajar” What does
gets bigger every year! “ajar” mean.
p. 21 p. 25
They wanted to give Hernando to Does Pocho mean born in the
the Captin so that he could work, U.S.A. and your parents were
but I think that he is too small. born in Mexico.
And they said that the very next Where did that word come from?
day that the father was dead
p. 38 p. 46
They wanted to dress Lupita as The guy that hit Salvador said that
a boy so that well I think she they could do better than robbe
wouldn't get raped. some kids to only get 4,000 pesos.
Figure 4.11: Idea Bookmarks
4. Have students arrange the strips in order. If students are working in pairs
or small groups, the conversations they have that lead to decisions can be
very valuable.
Alternative
Students collaborate in writing a how-to procedure, such as a recipe, directions
for playing a game, or steps in a science experiment. Students then copy the
steps, cut them up, put them on strips of paper, and put them back in order.
Targeted Strategy 6: Use read and retell.

When students are asked to retell what they have read, using their own
words, it underscores how reading is a meaning-making process. However,
many struggling readers find retelling or paraphrasing to be difficult. For
this reason, it is important to teach them how to retell, beginning first with
short, familiar events and texts, and then moving to longer, less familiar
events and texts.
196
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Name: __________Grade/Age:
Teresa ______
6th Date: _________
3/22 Text: ___________________________________
The Great Gilly Hopkins
Incidence
Think-Aloud Strategy Examples Tally %
Retelling She thinks that she didn't deserve to be put with √ √ √ (3) 12%
that family (p. 13)
Predicting That the next person would find a sticky surprise √ (1) 4%
Confirming (0)
Predictions
Identifying a problem Is Gilly playing a game with Mrs. T. and Mrs. T. √√ (2) 8%
didn't know about.
Visualizing (0)
Making Connections: (0)

Text-to-self
Text-to-text
Text-to-world
Inferring Right her you can tell that Gilly is a different √√√√√√ 50%
child (p. 3) √√√√√√
Gilly put her left hand on the door knob and (12)
the right hand on her hip . . . . I think she was
telling is Mrs. Trotter to bit it (p. 8)
Right her you can tell she doesn't like W.E. (p. 56)
Evaluating I think Gilly is mean because she wanted Miss √ √ √ √ (4) 16%
Ellis fired. (p. 15)
Using Fix-Ups (0)
Unrelated to text (0)
Other I think it real explains what she feels by wanting √√ (2) 8%

to vomit (p. 6)
Figure 4.12: Think-Aloud Strategy Use Assessment

197
1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. Select a short, self-contained text of one or two paragraphs, either one

that you have written or a published text.
2. Explain to students that you are going to demonstrate how to retell a text
to demonstrate that you have understood what you have read; after all,
reading is ultimately all about making sense of a text.
3. Ask students to pay attention to what you do when you retell.
4. Read the short text aloud while students follow along, either in their own
copies or on the overhead or opaque projector.
5. Then demonstrate a retelling, paraphrasing only the most important
points, and using your own words as much as possible.
6. After the retelling, ask students to comment on what they observed you
doing. They might point out that you didn’t talk about everything in the
passage, your retelling was much shorter than the text itself, and you
used your own words.
7. Then give students another short passage on a familiar topic and read it
to them while they follow along. (The focus at this point is on the retell,
so it’s fine to read it to them.)
8. After this initial reading of the text, the students collaboratively generate
a retelling. This step often leads to a discussion about which points are
essential, how to restate a point in one’s own words, and whether the
point was actually present in the text. (With familiar content, students
sometimes overrely on background knowledge.)
9. Students take turns retelling short texts with a partner.
10. Once students are able to retell short texts containing familiar content,
they are usually ready to move to longer texts and/or texts about much
less familiar content.
Alternative: Work up from shorter to longer segments.

If students have a hard time retelling longer texts, it is helpful to break down
the text into shorter segments, such as by paragraphs or just a couple of
sentences, and gradually build up to paraphrasing longer segments.
Alternative: Use graphic organizers for retells.

While students are looking at the text, collaboratively fill in a graphic
organizer that is appropriate for the text, such as a Venn diagram (to show
similarities and differences), a cluster web (for connecting ideas), or a flow
chart (to show a sequence of events). While filling in the chart, talk about or
198
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
elicit key words or phrases to include. Ask the students to turn their text face
down or close their books and retell the story (for fiction) or account (for
nonfiction), using the graphic organizer as a map or guide. (Examples of many
useful graphic organizers can be found at www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer.)
Students can recall literal facts, but they have

Situation 4 a hard time with higher-level reading skills.
Reading is an active, meaning-making process between the reader and the

text, so it is inevitable that no two readers will extract identical meanings from
a text. However, some readers make predictions and use other higher-order
reading processes that other students, who may only be able to focus on
lower-order comprehension processes (such as paying attention to individual
words and how to pronounce or decode them) do not. These distinctions
are true for ELLs, also. However, even when ELL students have access to
higher-order reading processes when reading in their native language, they
are likely to have difficulty understanding texts in English, particularly those
that are grammatically complex and/or about unfamiliar content. (This is
partly related to their nascent vocabulary in English.)
In some cases, ELLs who read competently in their L1 may have
difficulty engaging in requests for higher-order reading processes in English,
such as inferring an author’s intentions or predicting an outcome, due to a
lack of experience with inferring or predicting when reading. This may be
due to teaching methods in their home countries. Also, ELLs who have
had limited or interrupted formal schooling may struggle to comprehend
English texts.
The following activities can help ELLs internalize additional
comprehension strategies. The first two activities apply to all comprehension
strategies, while the others relate to a particular aspect of comprehension,
such as distinguishing between fact and opinion or identifying the central idea
in a passage.
Targeted Strategy 1: Begin with familiar content.

When teaching a reading strategy, such as figuring out the central idea,
determining what is fact and what is opinion, or inferring meaning, begin
with a text about familiar content. Perhaps the text is about life in students’
homelands, immigrant experiences, or music that is popular with the students.
Articles in magazines for young people can provide some very good texts;

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
teacher-written texts and student-written texts can also be useful. The

following magazines, newspapers, and online news sources offer written texts
that can be used with ELL students:
c BBC Newsround provides short, comprehensible, current news stories that
can be read online or downloaded: http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews.
c The online version of Discover magazine has lots of very short,
informative pieces. Though not intended for ELLs, they can be easily
adapted for ELLs; in addition, if students are interested in a topic, the
short texts aren’t too intimidating: http://discovermagazine.com.
c Easy English News is a monthly newspaper for high school and adult
immigrant ELLs, written by a former ESOL teacher: www.elizabethclaire.
com/een/eendescription.html.
c Scholastic publishes five magazines written specifically for ELL

teenagers: Click, Crown, Team, Club, and Current. These magazines
correspond with five levels of English proficiency, beginner to advanced:
www.scholastic.ca/education/magazines/esl.html.
c Scholastic also publishes other magazines for school-age learners that can
be used with ELLs, sometimes as is, and sometimes with modifications.
They include DynaMath and SuperScience for Grades 3–6, and Science
World for grades 7–12: www.scholastic.ca/education/magazines/index.html.
c Time for Kids, Grades 4–6 is a weekly news magazine that draws on the
same news sources used by its parent magazine, Time: www.timeforkids.
com/TFK/teachers/wr/0,27955,,00.html.
c Topics is an online magazine written by and for ELLs. Although pieces

are typically written by adults, content on cultural issues, such as games
we played as children, and holidays, celebrations, and festivals around the
world, is often appropriate for younger learners: www.topics-mag.com.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use think-alouds.

Think-alouds can help students acquire higher-level reading strategies,
including how to figure out the main idea in a passage, establish the
sequence of events, paraphrase, identify important details and/or facts,
predict outcomes or future events, and evaluate ideas. See pages 192–195
for more information on conducting think-alouds. When selecting texts for
think-alouds, whether for demonstrating how to do a think-aloud focused on
a particular reading strategy or for students to practice thinking aloud, it is
essential that the selected text actually allows for this strategy.
200
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Targeted Strategy 3: Find the main idea through

labeling categories of words.
Locating the main idea in a text is often considered a very simple task, but in
fact it frequently involves several complex processes, including being able to
distinguish between key ideas and less central details, making inferences, and
evaluating a text. That is, the main idea of a passage may not be explicit. Also,
there may not be an identifiable main idea or a single main idea in a given
paragraph. The following activity is designed to help students find the main
idea of a passage through the preliminary step of labeling groups of words.
1. Post a chart listing several group of words. (See Figure 4.13.) Do not
include the titles at the top of each column.
2. Ask students to generate a word or term that best describes what each
group of words is about. Students can work in pairs or small groups.
3. Discuss students’ ideas, stressing that the words and phrases need to
describe what the words are mostly about. Relate the discussion to
reading and to the ways in which we pay attention to what a passage,
chapter, or entire text is mainly about.
Targeted Strategy 4: Distinguish between fact and opinion

through a two-column T-chart.
When students have difficulty distinguishing between facts and opinions,
a first step is to have them list attributes of those two terms. This can be
accomplished through the following steps:
1. Ask students if they believe everything they read—the resulting
discussion can be very useful as students explain their thinking.
Whenever possible, use the terms fact and opinion.
Sports Foods Flowers Forms of

Transportation
baseball pizza daffodil bicycle

hockey taco rose bus
soccer chicken tulip scooter
tennis stew daisy car
basketball chow mein lily train
Figure 4.13: A Chart of Categories of Words to Help Students Find the Main Idea

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Discuss with students what they think the terms fact and opinion mean.
They can look up the definitions in the dictionary or online. List descrip-
tive terms about these words, such as the following:
Facts Opinions
are true beliefs
are real/exist thoughts/ideas
can be proved judgments
have actually happened ideas
3. Give students two sentences, one that is factual and one that is an opinion,
and ask them to discuss whether they are facts or opinions. Students can
begin by talking with a peer, and then share their responses with the whole
class or group. Sample sentences could include the following:
Men are horrible dancers.
Snow is cold.
4. Post more sentences and ask students to decide if they are facts or
opinions, and why. The subsequent discussions can be very informative
and helpful to students. Sample sentences include:
Summers in these parts are usually very hot and dry. (fact)
We’re having horrible weather today. (opinion)
Eighty-four percent of the students graduated from our school last year. (fact)
School is too easy/too hard. (opinion)
The president has served two terms. (fact)
The president is the best/worst president we’ve ever had. (opinion)
5. Give students a passage that includes both facts and opinions and have them
list sentences and phrases in the appropriate columns of a T-chart. (See
Figure 4.14.) Following is the passage that generated these observations.
Fact Opinion
Soccer is played in many countries Everyone agrees that Brazil is the

in the world. best national soccer team.
In most countries, it is called Soccer is the best sport of all.

football.
FIFA governs international soccer.
Figure 4.14: A Chart of Facts and Opinions
202
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Soccer is played in many countries in the world. In most countries, it is

called football. Everyone agrees that Brazil is the best national soccer team.
FIFA governs international soccer. Soccer is the best sport of all.
My students want to read aloud to each

Situation 5
other, but the other students hate it

(and it’s an ordeal to listen to them).
Sometimes students want to read aloud to validate that they are readers,
particularly if they are in classrooms with more fluent readers who get called
on to read. Also, reading aloud can help in understanding difficult texts, such
as some poems and very complex sentences. In addition, we have noticed that
some students who come from a much more oral tradition may subvocalize
when reading even short e-mail messages—this process seems to help them
make sense of the messages. The following strategies are designed to
acknowledge students’ desire to read aloud to others and give them authentic
opportunities to do so, and do it well when it’s for a performance.
Targeted Strategy 1: Avoid round-robin reading.

Although many teachers still ask students to take turns reading segments
of a text aloud, known as round robin reading, we do not recommend this
for several reasons. For example, the purpose for reading aloud is often
pedagogically unsound, too few students are involved, and an unskilled
read-aloud can be a very painful experience for both the reader (as when
peers correct each other or criticize under their breath) and the listener (as
when the flow and cadences of a good piece of prose or poetry are ruined).
Targeted Strategy 2: Use reading aloud for assessing

students’ reading processes and needs.
We find that the most useful ongoing reading assessments involve students
reading aloud, followed by a retelling, such as Running Records,5 Miscue
Analysis,6 and Retrospective Miscue Analysis.7 Think-alouds also usually
5
A running record is an assessment tool for recording a student's oral reading of a text and determining
the language cueing systems and self-monitoring strategies used. The teacher uses check marks to
indicate each word the student reads correctly.
6
In miscue analysis, the teacher records deviations the reader makes from the written text on a copy of
the text. The student also provides a retelling, which aids the teacher in determining the student's
understanding of the text, use of reading strategies, and needs.
7
A retrospective miscue analysis involves students listening to a tape recording of their own reading of
a text and analyzing and explaining their miscues.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
involve some reading aloud. All of these assessment tools are very effective
in providing teachers (and students) insights into the reading strategies
students use and which reading strategies they would benefit from being
taught. See Figure 4.15 for a list of professional resources related to these
assessment tools.
Targeted Strategy 3: Offer pair reading.
If students insist on reading aloud to each other, a more effective strategy
than whole-class round-robin reading is to offer students a pair-reading
experience. In pair reading, two to three students read the same text and
then talk together about it. This provides readers with both a shared
Running Records
Clay, M. (2000). Running records for classroom teachers. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Shea, M. (2006). Where's the glitch? How to use running records with older
readers, grades 5–8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Miscue Analysis
Davenport, R. M. (1999). Miscues not mistakes. Reading assessment in the
classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Goodman, D. (1999). The reading detective club: Solving the mysteries of
reading. Katonah, NY: Richard C. Owen.
Wilde, S. (2000). Miscue analysis made easy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Retrospective Miscue Analysis

Goodman, Y. M., & Marek, A. M. (1996). Retrospective miscue analysis:
Revaluing readers and reading. Katonah, NY: Richard C. Owen.
Think-Alouds
Keene, E. O., & Zimmermann, S. (2007). Mosaic of thought: The power of
reading comprehension strategy instruction (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf, C. L., Cziko, C., & Hurwitz, L. (2000). Reading for
understanding: A guide to improving reading in middle and high school
classrooms. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Wilhelm, J. (2001). Improving comprehension with think-aloud strategies:
Modeling what good readers do. New York: Scholastic.
Figure 4.15: Resources for Assessing Students’ Reading Processes and Needs
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experience with texts and peer support, and can also introduce students to
new authors, illustrators, and genres. (See page 164 for more information
about pair reading.)
Targeted Strategy 4: Read a text generated through Language

Experience Approach (LEA).
LEA texts are typically read many times by the entire group or class, so
students are likely to be able to read them aloud relatively fluently, much
more so than with round-robin reading. (See pages 164–166 for information
about LEA.)
Targeted Strategy 5: Engage in shared reading.

Shared reading involves multiple readings of the same enlarged text. The
teacher scaffolds the readings, which helps students learn to read fluently and
with appropriate expression. (See pages 159–160 for information on the
shared-reading strategy.)
Targeted Strategy 6: Offer students a cross-age reading experience.

In a cross-age reading program, older students read to younger students. We
have learned that successful programs reinforce reading skills. Because older
students usually need to practice how to effectively read aloud to another
student, this inevitably leads to lots of practice reading, often in front of a
small group of peers, who critique and provide feedback. This type of activity
provides an authentic opportunity to read aloud, both in the preparation for
and the reading to younger buddies. See Buddy Reading: Cross-Age Tutoring in
a Multicultural School (Samway, Whang, & Pippitt, 1995) for a detailed
description of how to establish and maintain cross-age reading programs.
Targeted Strategy 7: Put on a radio show.

Some teachers arrange for students to put on radio shows; sometimes
these shows are very small-scale and are intended for just that class, whereas
others are designed for the entire school and broadcast over the PA system.
Whether these performances are intended for a narrow or wide audience,
students need to practice reading aloud in order for the broadcast to be a
success. (See Targeted Strategy 9 on the next page.)
Targeted Strategy 8: Use Readers’ Theatre.

In Readers’ Theatre, students dramatize a familiar piece of literature or
a section from it. A script is developed by the students and/or the teacher,

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which students read from, or students use a commercially published script.

Unlike traditional theatrical experiences, in Readers’ Theatre students
don’t usually memorize scripts, wear costumes, or use sets. Some general
guidelines follow:
c Use short texts that are interesting to students and have
several characters.
c If students are developing their own scripts, teach them how
to do this through demonstrations and scaffolding.
c Teach students strategies for giving a successful performance.
For example, show them how to project, speak with clear diction,
stay in character, and not rush through the performance.
c Provide time in class for students to rehearse their performance.
c Allocate time for performances.
Targeted Strategy 9: Rehearse for reading aloud.

Whenever students engage in reading aloud as a performance (as in reading
aloud to younger students, engaging in a Readers’ Theatre, or putting on a
radio show), they need to rehearse. In addition to simply providing practice
in reading aloud and performing well, this type of rehearsal can also enhance
comprehension, as research indicates that multiple readings of a text supports
understanding. In this case, the multiple readings have a very authentic
purpose, namely, putting on a good performance.
Students also benefit from studying the strategies that more experienced
people use when reading aloud, such as in the following examples:
c Demonstrations conducted by teachers and students—we have found that
deliberately demonstrating poor read-alouds followed by good ones can
be a very effective way for students to note what to do and what to avoid
when reading aloud.
c Teachers conducting read-alouds.
c Librarians at school and in local libraries conducting read-alouds.
c Visiting authors conducting read-alouds.
It is a good idea for groups of students to observe the same read-aloud so
as to have a common experience to discuss and learn from. After observing
and keeping notes, it is essential that students have opportunities to debrief;
one way is by creating a chart of strategies. (See Figure 4.16.)
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Read-Aloud Strategies That Worked Read-Aloud Strategies That Didn’t Work
Made eye contact. Didn't make eye contact.

Showed pictures. Read with a boring voice—no expression.
Read with expression. Read with a lot of expression, but no variety.
Used different voices for different characters. Read a book that wasn't interesting.
Talked briefly about why s/he chose the book. S/he didn't seem to know the book.
S/he seemed to really know the book. Made lots of mistakes—interrupted the flow.
Chose really interesting text (e.g., picture Kept interrupting to ask questions—
book, poetry, nonfiction picture book, maga- interrupted the flow.
zine article, novel, piece by a student).
Occasionally asked questions (e.g., to predict).
Figure 4.16: Student Read-Aloud Strategies: What Works and What Doesn’t Work
207
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I see very irregular reading behaviors in my ELL

Situation 6 students—sometimes they read a text smoothly
and with understanding, but at other times, even
when reading a book at the same level, they
struggle to decode and/or understand the text.
Background knowledge is very important in the understanding of any text,
and irregular behaviors are often grounded in students’ lack of familiarity
with the content of the text. Some strategies that help in these circumstances
include the following.
Targeted Strategy 1: Ask, “What do you know?”

It’s important to help access students’ background knowledge before they
read a text. The ultimate goal is that students internalize this strategy and use
it automatically.
c Briefly discuss what they think the text will be about, based on the front
cover, the title, and a quick browsing through of the text and illustrations.
c Discuss what students know about the content of the text (i.e.,
background knowledge or schema).
c Provide some background information about the content of the text,
especially for content that is culturally and/or academically unfamiliar.
Targeted Strategy 2: Do a picture walk with books and magazines.

Before reading a new book or magazine article that has illustrations, many
teachers routinely do a picture walk in order to evoke students’ background
knowledge and stimulate curiosity.
1. Show the cover to the book or the title page of the magazine article and
read the title aloud.
2. Ask students to predict what the book or article is about.
3. Slowly flip through the pages of the book or article, asking who/what/
why/where/when/how questions about the illustrations. For a story, these
questions might include the following:
• What do you think will happen next?
• Why do you think X is happening?
• When do you think this story is taking place?
• What questions do you have about this story?
For a piece of nonfiction, questions might include the following:
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• What do you think this is?

• Where do you think this is?
• How do you know X?
• What questions do you have about this piece?
Make sure not to give away the story line while doing the picture talk,
if the text is fictional.
Limited Purposes for Reading

My students think that reading is
Situation 1 decoding, and they focus exclusively
on sounding out the words.
My students read in a nonfluent,

Situation 2
staccato-like way.
My students read very quickly,

Situation 3 but without making meaning.
We have grouped these three situations together because they all reflect a
limited view of why one reads. Sadly, these situations often arise from the
kinds of learning experiences that students have in school, which all too
frequently are disengaged from reading for enjoyment and/or to gain
information. When students have experienced early reading instruction as
decoding, without much, if any, emphasis on reading as a meaning-making
act that leads to us being informed and/or entertained, then it may be
inevitable that they do not approach reading with enthusiasm. This is
particularly true if they have had few successful experiences with reading, as
typically happens when students are taught to read through one-size-fits-all
textbooks—after all, if the reading program is the focus of instruction, rather
than the individual learner, then it is inevitable that many students are not
going to receive appropriate instruction (Samway & Pease-Alvarez, 2005).
Katharine often asks students what reading is, and she has found that those
students who are being taught to read through textbooks and worksheets tend

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to view reading as workbooks.

The following strategies can help to expand students’ views of why
we read, and, in the process, teach them additional strategies to use so
they can become engaged and successful readers. Also, there are many
useful strategies in Johns and Lenski’s Improving Reading: Strategies and
Resources (2005).
Targeted Strategy 1: Implement guided reading or group
reading strategy instruction.
Students in middle school and high school benefit from focused strategy
instruction that is grounded in their needs (Cohen, 2007), and guided reading
is one approach that provides instruction to groups of students who have
similar needs. See Fountas and Pinnell’s Guided Reading: Good First Teaching
for All Children (1996) for a very helpful and detailed discussion of guided
reading. There are also two accompanying videotapes, Guided Reading: The
Essential Elements and Guided Reading: The Skillful Teacher (Fountas & Pinnell,
2001). Debra Goodman’s The Reading Detective Club: Solving the Mysteries of
Reading (1999) is a very useful resource that offers information about the
reading process and how to set up and maintain a Reading Detective Club. It
also provides “mystery cases,” which are reading strategy lessons for students
and teachers. Avalos, Plasencia, Chavez, & Rascón (2008) describe a modified
form of guided reading that takes into consideration the specific needs of
ELLs. See Figure 4.17 for an overview of component parts of a modified
guided reading lesson for older learners.
Before Reading During Reading After Reading
• Introduce the text. • Support effective • Revisit and discuss

reading (focus the text.
on strategies • Teach processing
that effective strategies.
readers use). • Extend the meaning
of the text.
Figure 4.17: Components of a Modified Guided Reading Lesson
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When organizing for and implementing guided reading or group strategy

instruction, it is very important to do the following:
c Assess students using a tool, such as a running record or miscue analysis,
that reveals their reading processes.
c Group students according to their reading skill/strategy needs. These
groups need to be flexible so that, as students progress, they can be

moved to a group where their needs can be better addressed; that is,
these are not like the traditional reading groups. It is a good idea to
revisit groupings at least every six weeks.
c Select a text that is at an instructional level for the group of students.
This can be a fiction or nonfiction book, a poem, a selection from a
reading textbook, or a magazine article.
c Introduce a new text (see picture walk strategy on page 208), with
particular attention to any terms, phrases, punctuation, or text structures
that may be new and/or tricky for students.
c Students read the text independently, but when the teacher is focusing
on a student, she or he prompts the reader to read aloud in a low
voice. At these times, the teacher can briefly intervene to help a student
address a problem encountered while reading. These interventions
focus on meaning making and using multiple information sources
while reading.
c After reading, talk about the text with the students. For example, ask
them: What did you learn? What do you think will happen next? What
questions do you now have? Also, select a teaching point that you
observed students struggling with, such as the importance of paying
attention to punctuation when reading or reading fluidly by reading
chunks of text rather than sounding out word by word.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use Readers’ Theatre.

In Readers’ Theatre, students dramatize a familiar piece of literature or
section from it. (See pages 205–206 for more information.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Introduce choral reading.

In choral reading, students and the teacher recite a familiar poem, chant,
or song together. (See choral reading on pages 160–161.)

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Decoding in English
My ELLs sometimes get confused by similar sounds
Situation 1 and letters, such as n/m, b/p, b/d, and ch/sh.
My ELLs sometimes have difficulty
Situation 2 decoding multisyllabic words.
My ELLs sometimes read word-by-word,

Situation 3
and it doesn’t sound fluid.
These situations are all connected to decoding so we thought it best to address

them as a group. By the upper grades in elementary school, middle school, and
high school, most students have acquired the ability to decode. However,
newcomer ELLs in these grades who are literate in their L1 may be unfamiliar
with the English alphabet and its corresponding sounds, and other ELLs may
not be very literate in any language.
Difficulties related to the sounds of English that ELLs experience are
often connected to how sounds work (and how they work differently across
languages). For teachers interested in learning more about phonology, David
and Yvonne Freeman’s Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach
Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, Grammar (2004) is an excellent resource. (See
Chapter 3, pages 129–140, for more information about the sounds of English.)
ELL students who arrive in North America early in their lives usually
acquire native-like pronunciation, whereas older students often continue to
speak with an accent even when they have become accomplished readers and
writers. Rather than exposing ELLs to decontextualized phonemic awareness
activities and pronunciation practice, they should be exposed to activities such
as the following:
c Rhymes.
c Poems.
c Jazz chants. (See Chapter 3, pages 91–92, for information about jazz
chants.)
c Rap/hip-hop.
Older students may need to be taught about the differences in sounds and
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how to hear and produce unfamiliar sounds. In both cases, developing vocabulary
is of critical importance to ELLs’ academic success, and reading instruction
should not overemphasize phonemic awareness or phonics instruction.
ELLs don’t recognize high-frequency

Situation 4
words (e.g., the, was, my, that).
High-frequency words make up more than 50 percent of all words used

in school texts. These function words are like the glue that holds sentences
together. They cannot be phonetically decoded, and students need to be
able to automatically recognize and spell these words.
Targeted Strategy 1: Assess students’ knowledge of high-frequency

words through ongoing reading assessments.
Use running records and miscue analysis to assess students’ reading
strengths and needs, including their knowledge of high-frequency words.
This information can help in selecting words to teach. (See pages 203–204 for
more information about running records and miscue analysis.)
Targeted Strategy 2: Focus on words that students consistently misspell.

A quick review of students’ writing can identify words that students
consistently misspell. These are the words to teach.
Targeted Strategy 3: Select words students want to learn to read.

Asking students to analyze their reading and writing and identify words they
want to know how to read and/or write can be very effective.
1. Students select words.
2. The teacher writes a word on chart paper, the whiteboard, or the chalk
board, pointing out any features that can help in remembering the word.
For example: “In the word though, the t-h is a digraph and it makes a
single sound [teacher makes the sound], and this is followed by another
single sound, o, which is spelled with four letters, o-u-g-h.”
3. Students repeat the word and spell it aloud.
4. The word is put on a card, which can then be used like a flash card.
5. The word is cut up into individual letters, the letters are mixed up, and
students put them back in order. These letters can be used to make
new words (for example, by adding a letter d to –ough, a new word is
formed, dough).

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Targeted Strategy 4: Use word walls.

Although word walls are most often used in primary classrooms, they can
be very helpful to struggling older readers and ELLs who are new to
English reading. Many excellent activities for use with word walls can be
found in Patricia Cunningham’s Phonics They Use: Words for Reading and
Writing (2005).
c A word wall is an organized collection of frequently used words—
words are often organized alphabetically.
c Words are added to the wall on a regular basis, but only after being
discussed with students.
c Words are written in large letters on cards, which are then attached to
the word wall.
c Words that are often confused are written in different colors (e.g., bad
and pad; their and there).
The words on the word wall are used in reinforcement activities, such
as the following.
Add an Ending
Students are given an ending and asked to find words on the word wall that
can take that ending (for example, -s can be added to school and book to make
schools and books respectively).
Rhymes and Endings
Students have to find words on the word wall that rhyme with a word in a
sentence after the ending on that word has been removed. For example, if the
teacher says, “My friend brings lunch to school every day,” students may
locate thing or sing.
Mind Reading
1. The teacher writes a word from the word wall on a piece of paper that
the students can’t see.
2. The students are then given four or five clues for identifying the word.
For example, with the word surprise, the teacher might provide the
following clues:
• It has eight letters.
• It begins with an s.
• It can be a noun or a verb.
• It makes sense in this sentence: I got a ____ present for my birthday
as I wasn’t expecting it.
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3. Students write down words after each clue so they can keep track of
their predictions.
4. After the final clue, the teacher asks students to identify the word.
Students who have written surprise can then consider themselves
successful “mind readers.”
Alternative
In each of the activities, students can take the role of the teacher.
Targeted Strategy 5: Play word games.

Word games using high-frequency words, such as bingo, hangman, and word
dominoes, are excellent reinforcement activities. (See pages 177–181 for
guidelines for these reinforcement games.)
Targeted Strategy 6: Categorize words.

Ask students to categorize words that are on the word wall, for example, by
question words, size words, color words, or movement words. Students can
also generate and explain their own categories.
I have students whose written native

Situation 5 language looks very different from English,
and they struggle to decode the words.
ELLs who come to school with limited literacy skills in their native language,
as often happens with ELLs who have had interrupted schooling, often need
to be taught about the English alphabet system. The same is true for students
who have not been exposed to English prior to entering a North American
school and whose native language isn’t alphabetic (for example, Chinese) or,
although alphabetic, doesn’t use the Roman alphabet (for example, Arabic).
ELLs who are literate in their L1 usually need less time to learn the English
alphabet than their peers who aren’t literate in their L1.
There are several components to learning the alphabet:
c The names of the letters.
c The most common sounds associated with each letter.
c How to form the letters (both upper- and lowercase).
c How letters are both similar and different—for example, how the
l, b, and t all have a line that goes up, above the line, whereas p and q
have lines that go down, below the line. It is particularly effective to

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
have students figure out for themselves that letters are made up of a
combination of straight lines, curved lines, circles, and dots, and how
they are similar and dissimilar.
c When to use uppercase and lowercase letters.
Demonstrations and guided practice in how to form the letters can be
very useful—it is wise to limit these activities to no more than 10–15 minutes
at most in one sitting. Providing students with an alphabet sheet that shows
how to form letters can also be helpful.
Targeted Strategy 1: Begin with the letters in students’ names.

Because of the importance of our names, it is a good idea to begin by
teaching students the letters in their names.
Targeted Strategy 2: Play games with letters of the alphabet.

Allocating a few minutes a day for reinforcement games can be enjoyable
and helpful. Letters of the alphabet should be printed on cards, lowercase
and uppercase letters on separate cards. Concentration, bingo, and hangman
can all be used to support developing knowledge of the alphabet. Find the
Pair is another game:
1. Mix up the cards and place them face up on the table.
2. Students take turns finding a pair by matching lowercase letters with
uppercase letters (for example, b with B).
3. When they find a pair, students need to give the name and the
corresponding sound.
Targeted Strategy 3: Complete an alphabet cloze.

In an alphabet cloze, letters are left blank in the alphabet list and students
have to fill in the blanks, as in this example:
AB—DEF—HIJ—LMN—PQR—TU—WX—Z
Targeted Strategy 4: Match pictures with letters of the alphabet.

Once students have some familiarity with both the names of the letters and
their most common sounds, students can be asked to match pictures with
letters (for example, a picture of a cat with the letter /c/).
Targeted Strategy 5: Use Language Experience Approach (LEA).

In LEA, students dictate a text to the teacher, who records it. While writing
the text, the teacher talks through what she or he is doing—for example,
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“I came. Capital I as this word is always capitalized. Came begins with a /c/
and is followed by /a/, /m/, and an /e/, and I’m using lowercase.” (See pages
164–166 for more information about LEA.)
Targeted Strategy 6: Identify letters in print.

Students can circle or highlight words beginning with a particular letter.
LEA pieces, newspapers, and other texts can be used for this activity.
Targeted Strategy 7: Give students a laminated card

with the alphabet on it.
Teachers of young children often place a laminated alphabet strip on
students’ desks or tables. Older students may feel embarrassed by having
alphabet strips displayed on their desks, but they often appreciate a laminated
card to pull out of a desk or notebook when needed.

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C HAPTER 5
Writing
Situations
W
riting, particularly opportunities to create texts, often takes a
backseat in literacy instruction in the U.S. and elsewhere
(Samway & Pease-Alvarez, 2005; Sailors, Hoffman, & Matthee,
2007); instead, reading occupies an inordinate amount of instructional time.
When one looks at how adolescent students in the United States do in
large-scale, high-stakes writing assessments, the results are cause for concern.
For example, on the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) test in writing, 69 percent of eighth graders and 76 percent of twelfth
graders in the United States scored below the proficient level (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2004). Not surprisingly, ELLs fare much worse on
these types of high-stakes tests.
Writing is a developmental process, just as reading and spoken language
are developmental processes, and development for ELLs varies from learner
to learner (Samway, 2006; Urzúa, 1987). For example, although we know
nonnative English-speaking students who made rapid progress over a relatively
short period of time, we also know many ELLs who took much longer to
approximate the abilities of native-speaking writers. In addition, it is very
common to find that the writing of even very fluent ELLs is marked by
characteristics that are not typically found in the writing of non-ELLs (for
example, mixing up she/he pronouns, omitting the article a or the, and
confusing verb tenses).
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As ELL students gain more experience with print and with expressing
themselves through writing, their texts become more sophisticated and can
be read more easily, but even teachers who understand that writing is a
developmental process for ELLs can feel overwhelmed when newcomers to
English enter their classrooms. Some of these students may not be able to
write anything, or more than a few words, in English. Some may not be able
to write much or anything in any language due to interrupted schooling.

Other students may be able to write, but their writing may not be on
par with their English-speaking peers. Still others may know how to write
in English, but are overly concerned about accuracy, and self-monitor
themselves so rigorously that they are reluctant to write anything that they
suspect may not be correct. All of these situations are normal and occur
frequently. And, for each of these situations, there are strategies that a
teacher can draw upon to support ELL writers.
Students Are Reluctant to Write

or Don’t Write Much
When ELLs can write little or nothing in English, it may be related to one
or more of the following factors:
c If they can write in their L1 or another language other than
English, they may be acutely aware that they are not skillful writers
in English and are afraid to make mistakes. This often occurs with
older learners.
c ELLs who can write in a language other than English may come to
North American schools having had very different writing experiences.
For example, some students whose prior, school-based writing involved
primarily copying texts may have difficulty when asked to write on
self-selected topics. Their reluctance to write in English may result from
being asked to do something very different from what was valued in their
previous schooling.
c If ELLs’ native language does not use the Latin symbols used in English,
such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Urdu, students may struggle when
first learning to form letters and words in English.
c If ELLs are unable to write in any language, their reluctance or
unwillingness to write is likely to be connected to a lack of experience
with writing (and possibly reading).

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Writing is a developmental process for all writers, including ELLs. Even

if ELL students are developmentally accomplished writers in their native
language, when they begin writing in English, they may go through the
following stages until they have become immersed in English printed and
oral language, and have gained confidence:
Not draw or write anything.
c
c Draw only.
c Copy words, phrases, or longer texts.
c Label drawings.
c Write simple sentences.
c Write longer and more complex texts.
Students do not usually progress through these stages in a linear fashion,
so it isn’t uncommon to encounter what seems to be a regression. For
example, a student who is writing fairly complex sentences might suddenly
revert to writing very simple sentences or labeling drawings. This often
occurs when the student encounters new challenges as a writer (for example,
writing about less familiar content or writing in a new genre). What may
seem like regression is, in fact, usually reflective of the nonlinear, often messy
nature of writing development.
ELLs who are reluctant writers often manifest a variety of behaviors,
including the following:
c They don’t write anything.
c They don’t know what to write about.
c They don’t write anything original—they just copy.
c They only list words.
c They don’t do anything during writing time.
In the rest of this chapter, we offer some general strategies that can
be helpful in addressing any of these phenomena. We will then follow with
strategies that are geared to specific situations.
General Strategies
..................................
General Strategy 1: Use a unit-of-study, inquiry
approach to writing workshop.
A study of high school students found that most did not have many
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opportunities to write and very few had opportunities to engage in authentic

writing (Scherff & Piazza, 2005). A writing workshop approach has been
found to be successful with students of all ages, including older learners
(Atwell, 1998; Daniels, 2007; Ray, 2002; Rief, 1992; Sipe & Rosewarne, 2006)
and older ELLs (Freeman & Freeman, 2006; Rous, 1993; Samway &
Taylor, 1993b; Taylor, 1990). Although writing workshops tend to vary
from classroom to classroom, some frequently encountered components of

a writing workshop include the following:
c Writing occurs at a predictable time each day or on designated days of
the week.
c Students write on self-selected topics.
c Students write in several genres, such as personal narrative, information
books, poetry, and comics.
c The writing workshop typically begins with a short mini-lesson, the
topic for which is selected based on the needs of the entire class or
many students.
c The writing workshop typically ends with a sharing time.
c Students confer with the teacher and each other.
c Teacher-student conferences are teaching moments that are grounded in
the needs of the writer (Anderson, 2000; Atwell, 1998; Calkins, Hartman,
& White, 2005; Ray, 2001); conferences are often one-on-one, but they
can also be done in a small group.
c Students are encouraged to focus on their message, rather than
mechanics, in the early stages of writing a piece.
c Students publish their writing.
c Teachers keep records of students’ goals and accomplishments, what
students were taught, and which piece a student is working on, and use
this information to guide their teaching.
A unit-of-study, inquiry approach shares these same features, but it also
places considerable emphasis on students studying a genre or author by
reading like writers, and consciously learning about the craft of writing from
more experienced writers (Nia, 1999; Ray, 1999, 2002). In a unit-of-study,
inquiry approach to writing workshop, students and teachers often engage in
the following activities as they explore how to become better writers of, in
this case, a genre.

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Best-Guess Gathering
Nia (1999) compares the process of gathering books that represent the genre
to a treasure hunt. Although the teacher may take primary responsibility for
gathering books, this task may be shared with the students, the entire school
community, and family members and friends.
Immersion
Through reading lots of books and talking about them, students begin to
identify how a particular genre is structured, the kind of language it uses, and
other elements of craft that define the genre.
Sifting
The class identifies books that best represent the group’s definition of the
genre and can support them as writers. Sometimes, texts that do represent the
genre will be rejected, because they differ from the texts that the students will
write, the class does not like the way they are written, or the teacher does not
think that the content is appropriate.
Second Immersion
Students immerse themselves in the books selected as best examples of the
genre, and they carefully explore craft moves, such as the following:
c Captivating leads.
c Rhythmic language.
c Inclusion of words in a language other than English.
c Dialogue.
c Internal monologue.
c Sentence length.
c Time compression.
c Poetic language.
c Use of headings and subheadings (in information texts).
Students work together to generate characteristics that the teacher
records on charts, which then become resources for students. At this stage,
the teacher seeks out a touchstone text, a particularly well-written book she
or he is likely to return to over and over again to demonstrate multiple
features of writing. At the same time, each student is looking for mentor texts,
those that they will use as models (for example, of text structure, language use,
and leads). Unlike touchstone texts, mentor texts may include only one craft
element, but it is one that the student is attempting to incorporate into his or
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her writing. Also, when writing informational texts, students may select
mentor texts based on content and use them for research purposes. (See
Appendix L for an annotated list of some well-written multicultural books
that Katharine and teachers she works with have used as touchstone texts.)
Touchstone Try-Its
The class rereads and talks about the touchstone text on several occasions in
order to understand what the author did to write in such a compelling way
(for example, used short sentences for emphasis or used colloquial language
in dialogue), so that they have access to additional strategies for their own
writing. Through mini-lessons and conferences, the teacher encourages
students to try out for themselves the “writing moves” that they have
observed accomplished writers using. If students like what they write, they
may incorporate one or more of these moves into their published writing.
For example, Bibiana, a student in Yolanda Dandridge’s upper-grade bilingual
classroom, had read and been impressed by the Sandra Cisneros short story
“Hairs” (1984), in which the narrator describes the hair of various members
of her family.
Hairs
Everybody in our family has different hair. My papa’s hair is like
a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is crazy. It never obeys
barrettes or bands. Carlos’ hair is thick and straight. He doesn’t need to
comb it. Nenny’s hair is slippery—slides out of your hand. And Kiki,
who is the youngest, has hair like fur.
But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little
candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day,
sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you
feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when
she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin,
and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The
snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that smells like bread.
Bibiana’s story, “Hands, Manitas,” is influenced by Cisneros’ writing in
several ways: the lead is very similar; the narrator refers to the hands of each
member of her family; and the narrator emphasizes her mother’s special
qualities. (See Figure 5.1, page 224.)
Writing
Throughout the study, students are writing, jotting down “seed ideas”
(Fletcher, 1996) and “try-its” in their writing notebooks, and writing and
publishing other pieces that they have elected to pursue. They will publish

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Figure 5.1: Bibiana’s Story, “Hands, Manitas,” Influenced by “Hairs” by Sandra Cisneros
a piece for the genre study, but given all the work that has preceded it in the
sifting, immersion, and try-it stages, writing this piece is a continuation of
what they have been doing already, not a sudden demand to now write a
memoir, essay, or poem.
Publishing
Not all units of study lead to a published piece, but many do. However,
whatever students learn about the craft of writing in one study is likely to
affect a future piece of writing. That is, units of study, though discrete, are
parts of a whole curriculum that supports the writer. For example, if students
have worked on writing leads in a study of personal narratives, they tend
to be more aware of how authors write leads in other genres, such as
information books or book reviews.
Reflecting/Assessing
At the end of the study, the students and teacher reflect upon and assess
individual students’ accomplishments during the unit of study, which includes
both the product (the piece of writing) and the processes involved in writing
it. This process of reflection may include a letter to readers in which the
author explains what she or he was trying to accomplish—for example,
using dialogue to convey tension, using repetition to tell a story, or using
interesting headings to capture readers’ interest—and which authors and
texts influenced their writing. For example, Duc’s letter to readers shows how
he was influenced by Cynthia Rylant’s writing. (See Figure 5.2.) Duc also
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Figure 5.2: Duc’s Letter to Readers
wrote a fictional piece about a boy experiencing the death of his father, after
hearing his teacher, Libby James-Pasby, read a piece she had written about
the death of her sister. He had been moved by his teacher’s memoir and
impressed by her pacing, and he tried to emulate her writing. (See Figure 5.3.)
In this letter, Duc refers to how Rylant slows down the pace of her stories for
dramatic effect by using dashes and ellipses, and Duc uses ellipses for the
same reason at the point where his narrator encounters his lifeless father.
Depending on the focus of the unit of study and the progress of inquiry,
the study can last for as little as one week (for example, a mini-study on
revision) or three to four weeks (for example, a unit of study on poetry or
information books).
Although ELLs may lack the control of English that native speakers have,
we have seen how they respond very positively to this approach to teaching
writing. They thrive on the opportunities for meaningful discussion and
inquiry; they benefit from individualized conferences; they are able to see
connections between what they read and what they are writing, particularly
when the touchstone texts relate to experiences that resonate with them.

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“Danny” mom called with a nervous and trembling voice. I knew

something was wrong. I quickly jumped out of my bed like a
rocket. As I was walking down the stairway down to where my
mom was. I prayed that nothing is wrong with dad, that
something else hadn't happened. I slowly reached the end of the
stairway. That's when I saw that something was really wrong.
A lifeless body on the couch. It was, my dad . . . His face was pale
white as a vampire, and his lips were purple. My eyes started
watering. I quickly turned around to hide my face. I want to
buried my face in a pillow. But there was no pillow around only
my dad body. I slowly looked at mom she was sobbing so hard
that her shirt was wet. When I saw my dad's spirit had left I felt
like the world had stopped spinning, and time had stopped. My
eyes were watering again, and this time I can't keep the tears
from coming. My vision was being blocked from the water I was
crying. I just stood and stared at the lifeless body. I didn't
know what to do. It was like I have no more meaning of liveing
anymore. I felt like my mouth was dry, and my legs and arms were
numb. I was still kind of shocked and confused. Run up stairs and
just died in my room, but my feet were super glued to the floor.
The next thing I know I was in bed. I must have cry myself to
sleep. I woke up because my back was hurting. I thought it was
all a bad dream I wish it was just a bad dream. I raced down
stairs but my fear was real. It wasn't a dream I tried to wake
myself up but I knew I couldn't change the fact. That my dad
was dead. I knew I couldn't move on. It's so hard to lose a
father. I sat in my room looked at the clock my dad had given me.
I look at the second hand on the clock it was moving forward
and a minute and the hour hand was staying still. I knew I'd have
to move on like the second hand of the clock and the other hand
of the clock is just a memory. I may not see my dad anymore but
my mom needed me and I have to surpport her.
Figure 5.3: Duc’s Fiction Writing
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General Strategy 2: Draw first.

Drawing is a universal experience, and it is something that most students are able
to do, and do willingly. Reluctant and inexperienced ELL writers often respond
very positively to invitations to draw first (Barbieri, 2002; Fu, 1995; Hoyt, 1993;
Samway, 2006). Students can then be shown how to label their pictures or write
short captions to accompany them. An alternative, albeit one that is more
challenging than simply labeling one’s drawings, is to write comics or comic strips
(Bitz, 2004). Each of these activities reduces the writing demands placed on
students and allows them to express more complex thoughts than they can
produce orally or in extended writing in English. (See Chapter 3, page 93, for a
description and an example of a wordless picture book that a student can create.)
General Strategy 3: Read student-authored texts to ELL students.

It is very important for teachers to read student-authored texts to ELLs,
particularly those written by other ELLs, so that reluctant writers can see how
accessible writing can be and gain inspiration and encouragement
from their peers (Taylor, 1990). (It is also a way to celebrate the achievements
of students.)
c These pieces of writing should be accompanied by illustrations for
greater comprehensibility, and may include memoirs/personal narratives,
information books, cartoons, poems, letters, labeled pictures, and book
reviews.
c When reading aloud to ELLs, make sure the text is visible so students can
follow along. If the read-aloud is with a large group of students, this can
be accomplished by having copies available, using an enlarged or big book
version, or projecting the text and illustrations on a screen via a
PowerPoint projector, overhead projector, or opaque projector.
Read aloud texts written by newcomers, as well as more sophisticated texts
written by more experienced and fluent writers. For example, Natasha, one of
Dorothy’s eighth-grade ELL students, wrote “Russian Winter,” which
Dorothy read to her ESOL classes on many occasions. (See Figure 5.4.)
After a read-aloud and the accompanying discussion, talk with students
about what they can borrow for their own writing. For example, after an
ESOL teacher read a piece written by a student about the death of a favorite
pet, which included the refrain, I am sad, she asked the other students if they
had thought of any ideas for their own writing from the piece. One student
said, “I write, you know, my mother. She not here. She in Guatemala.”
Another student said, “My grandpa die. I’m write that.” Another student said,

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Figure 5.4: Natasha’s Piece, “Russian Winter”

2
6
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7 8
9 10
Figure 5.4: Natasha’s Piece, “Russian Winter”
“I like I am sad. I am sad. I am sad. That good.” In her own piece about the
recent birth of her cousin, this student included the refrain I am happy. In
each case, these students borrowed features of the original text read to them
by their ESOL teacher.
c Texts may be written in English, the native language, or they can be
bilingual; two or more students can collaborate on writing a bilingual text.
c Texts may be saved as books with simple or elaborate bindings, or
as anthologies stored in photo albums or three-ring binders.
General Strategy 4: Have students read student-authored texts.

Students need time to read the texts that their peers and other students write,

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such as during independent reading time. Although many writing workshops

integrate the sharing of texts in both informal and formal ways—through
conferring, author’s chair, and publishing parties—in some classrooms,
including in some writing workshops, there are actually few opportunities for
students to read the writing of their peers. If students only listen to what their
peers have written (for example, in a writing conference or in a whole-group
share), they have not experienced the piece as readers, which is regrettable.
Students need to actually read the texts that their peers write to make the act
of writing more tangible.
Student-authored texts need to be stored in easily accessible locations
in order to validate the students’ writing. Ways to store these texts include
the following:
c Cardboard, wooden, or plastic containers placed in the classroom library
or on tables around the room, including students’ tables. Books may be
stored according to genre (for example, poetry, information books,
stories) or theme (for example, books about our families, immigration
stories). Although copies of student-authored books should be mixed in
with professionally published books, it is also a good idea to store copies of
student books more visibly.
c Displays on the walls of the classroom. Some teachers allocate a small
space, roughly 15 by 18 inches, for each student to post his or her work,
and to change it on a regular basis.
c Walls and bulletin boards outside classrooms and in school corridors can
be used to display student work.
c Class and school newsletters published on a regular basis.
c Electronic newsletters or class Web sites.
c A mobile library of student-authored texts that moves from classroom
to classroom.
If texts are widely accessible, be sure to make back-up copies in case any
get lost.
General Strategy 5: Write in the native language.

While students are still adjusting to their new language and not yet writing in
English, it is a good idea to encourage them to write in their native language
(Freeman & Freeman, 2006), even if one cannot read it (Taylor, 1990). It is
important for ELLs to know that the goal is for them to write and that, while
they are becoming familiar with their new language, they should be a writer
in a language that they know. Ask other students or adults to translate these
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texts into English so they are accessible to other readers. Another benefit of
encouraging students to write in their L1 is that it often leads to a greater
respect for and recognition of the ELLs by classmates who don’t speak or
write their language. This is one occasion when ELLs are the experts,
something that is so hard to come by when one is a newcomer to a language
and culture.
General Strategy 6: Use Language Experience Approach (LEA).

LEA, which was first developed as a means to produce reading materials that
emergent readers could understand, involves students dictating a text, usually
based on a familiar or shared experience (Allen, 1976; Stauffer, 1970). It has
proven to be a useful early writing strategy for ELLs who are newcomers to
English (Rigg, 1989; Taylor, 1992). (See Chapter 4, pages 164–166, for more
information on LEA.)
General Strategy 7: Focus on collaborative writing.

Under authentic writing conditions in which ELL students are encouraged
to share their writing processes and confer about their writing, collaboration
naturally occurs (Samway, 1987a; Urzúa, 1987). This is one of the characteristics
of a writing workshop approach to writing (Anderson, 2000; Atwell, 1998;
Beers, 2007; Rief, 1992).
Even when a collaborative, authentic writing experience is available to
ELLs, it can still be rather daunting for some students. In these cases, pairing
an ELL writer with a more experienced writing partner as a mentor is one way
to jumpstart them. Inexperienced writers do not always realize that they can
approach other students for help with their writing, so in order to facilitate
collaboration, teachers may want to ask students to work with a partner. We
have learned that pairing writers should be done very carefully because not all
partnerships work well. Consider the following when pairing students:
c The partnered students must show a willingness and desire to
work together.
c Each student must have a valued role. The less experienced writer should
have an important role in the process, such as generating text ideas and
content or illustrating the text.
c Students should work side-by-side most of the time so the ELL student
can learn from the more experienced student.
c Students may play different roles. One student may be primarily
responsible for writing (encoding) the text that was generated
collaboratively, whereas the other student (usually the ELL) may be

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primarily responsible for the illustrations.

c The teacher needs to be alert to students becoming overreliant on writing
with a partner.
General Strategy 8: Practice shared writing with students.

Shared writing is a scaffolded approach to emergent writing, and is particularly
appropriate for older learners who lack familiarity with a Latin-based
alphabetic language or, due to limited schooling, have had very few experiences
with writing.
c The teacher and student(s) share the pen while writing a text (unlike LEA,
in which the teacher encodes the text generated by a student or a group).
c The content of the text is agreed upon collaboratively. It could be about a
wide range of topics, such as a time when a student won a prize in a town
foot race or an invitation to a local zoo employee to talk to the class about
reptiles. The content may be revised in the process of writing.
c Initially, the teacher takes the lead in physically writing the text, with the
student(s) contributing a letter, a word, or a phrase as they are able.
c With experience and growing familiarity with English, students can take on
more responsibility for writing the text themselves.
There should be considerable discussion while the text is being written, as
the following excerpt from a group-generated shared writing activity illustrates:
Teacher: So, we’re going to write to Ms. Pamela Argüeda to invite her to share her
collection of musical instruments from around the world with us (writes the
visitor’s name on the board). How do we begin a letter like this? (Pause) If
you’re not sure, remember, there are charts on the wall to help us. (Pause)
Flora: With the date?
Teacher: OK. We do need the date, but there is something that we need to put first.
(The group discusses the component parts of a letter.)
Daniel: The address.
Teacher: Right. Our address comes first. We’ll use the school address because we’re
writing from the school (she writes the first part of the school address on
chart paper hanging on an easel, talking through what she is writing and
asking for input on how to spell words and punctuate sentences). OK, so I’ve
just written the name of our school, and the street address. Now, what
do we need to complete the address?
Marita: The town.
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Teacher: Right. The town and zip code (she writes the zip code on the board,
speaking the numbers as she writes them). The post office will know
where to deliver the letter when Ms. Argüeda writes back to us. I think
most people know how to write San José and the zip code (pointing to
the zip code on the board), so who would like to write it?
Several students raise their hands. Angelina comes to the easel and writes the
town and zip code. The teacher asks her to stay and write a little more.
Teacher: How do we start the letter?
Agusto: Dear Pamela Argüeda.
Teacher: Right, we start with Dear, but we should probably make it a bit more
formal since we don’t know her. How about Dear Ms. Argüeda?
After a brief discussion about the differences between Ms., Miss, and Mrs.,
Angelina writes the salutation. Then she returns to her seat on the rug.
Teacher: Now we get into the main part of the letter, where we invite her to come
to our class.
The group discusses the best way to invite the speaker, and they decide on the
following text: We love music in our class, and we play lots of instruments. We hope
that you can come to our class to share your instruments and play for us. We come
from lots of countries, and we would like to see instruments from all around the
world. Please come and visit us.
Teacher: Now, let’s take turns writing the letter. And we can all help each other.
Tito, can you start it, please?
Tito takes the pen and writes the first part of the first sentence, checking
for words on the word wall and charts displayed around the room, and
occasionally accepting the suggestions offered by the rest of the students. He
writes, we love music in or clas and we play lots of, then stops and says he doesn’t
know how to write the word instruments. Alex offers to take over and writes
instruments, and he continues writing, We hop you can com to our clas to sher yor
instriments and play for us. The teacher then repeats the group’s third sentence,
“We come from lots of countries and we would like to see instruments from
all around the world,” and invites Flora to write that sentence. With help
from the rest of the group and her peers’ initial writing, Flora writes, We com
from lot of countrys and we wood like to see instriments from all arund the world.
In this way, the group collaborates to write the entire text of the letter.
Because the focus of the activity is on helping the students generate a
written message, the teacher doesn’t correct what the students have written.
She also knows that she may use this text for some interactive writing practice
later in the week (see page 253).

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General Strategy 9: Have a range of writing materials available.

Having a preference for a particular writing implement isn’t unusual among
writers. Some writers prefer to write with a well-sharpened #4 pencil. Others
have a favorite ballpoint pen, while some do almost all their composing on a
computer keyboard. It can be quite extraordinary to observe how having
access to a range of writing implements can free up some reluctant writers.
We know students who suddenly began writing when they were offered the
option of using pens. Other students, who struggled to form English letters,
responded well to being able to compose on a computer.
General Strategy 10: Publish students’ writing.

Writers learn a lot from each other, and one way to encourage this learning
is by publishing their writing. For ELLs, having access to other students’
writing helps them see what is possible. Although students may publish a
major piece (for example, at the end of a science unit or a genre study),
students also need opportunities to analyze their writing and select
additional pieces to publish, so it’s a good idea to periodically allocate
time for free-choice writing (and publishing), at least once in each marking
period. The criteria for publication under these circumstances may include
the following:
c This is the best piece of writing I’ve done during this free-choice writing
unit because . . . .
c This piece stretched me the most because . . . .
c I am most proud of this piece because . . . .
There are many ways to publish students’ work, including the following:
c Publish books and pamphlets written in the student’s hand or word
processed, and attach simple covers. Store the published texts on a
rack or shelf in the class library, in boxes, or on tables, where they are
easily available.
c Store writing in three-ring binders and keep them easily accessible.
c Display writing, handwritten or typed, and artwork on a bulletin board
designated for student work, with space allocated for each student.
Students are responsible for posting their work on an ongoing basis.
c Read a student’s poem or other short piece over the school’s PA system
each morning.
c Organize a writing contest in which students submit writing in various
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genres (for example, memoirs, informational books, short stories,

poetry); students act as judges.
c Organize student poetry readings/poetry slams at a local community
center, library, or bookstore.
c Publish student work on class, school, district, state, and other Web sites.
It can be tremendously motivating to students when publication of their

work is accompanied by a celebration of their writing. Teachers approach the
celebration in many ways, including the following:
Circle Reading
Students put together a class booklet of their pieces, along with their
letters to readers. Students then sit in a circle and take turns briefly
introducing and reading their pieces, or an excerpt, if it is a very long piece.
We have found that even the most reluctant writers value these experiences.
Katharine has found that personal narratives/memoirs lend themselves
particularly well to this kind of celebration, which can act as a very powerful
community builder.
Browse and Respond
Pieces of writing and the accompanying letter to readers are laid out around
the room. Students move around the classroom, reading and responding to
the pieces. Students are instructed that they cannot wait in line to read a
piece; instead, they have to move to another piece of writing and continue
reading and responding. A simple response sheet can be used for the written
responses—note how readers are asked to respond to writers’ goals. (See
Figure 5.5, page 236.) Upper-grade teacher Libby James-Pasby and her
grade-level colleagues bring their classes together in the auditorium for a
large celebration, which is attended by family members. By bringing together
multiple classes, the celebration gives students access to more than 100 pieces
of writing.
Dyadic Belt
For shorter pieces of writing, such as poems, students can line up in two
rows facing each other. Students read their pieces to the student they face
and briefly respond, then students in one row move one space to the right.
The new partners then take turns reading their pieces to each other and
responding. This process can continue for several turns—we have found
that students are usually very interested in sharing and hearing what other
students have written and enjoy multiple moves. This repeated reading
experience can be particularly helpful to ELLs.

Author: ___________________________________ Date: _________________
Title of Piece: ______________________________________________________
After reading the author's Dear Reader letter, please record on this sheet your
feedback, taking into account the author's goals. Then sign it.
Figure 5.5: Student Response to Writing Sheet
Literacy Café
Middle school teacher Erika Daniels (2007) describes a celebration in which
students discuss their writing in informal conversations held at clusters of
tables covered with tablecloths and flowers; they also get to enjoy snacks.
Situation 1 Students don’t know what to write about.
If students have had little or no experience writing for authentic purposes and
have become accustomed to writing on assigned topics or genres, or in
response to sentence starters and patterned forms, or they equate writing
with copying someone else’s message, it can be hard for them to exhibit much
initiative as writers. For ELLs, this reality is often compounded by the
expectation that they write in a language over which they may not have much
control. When teachers encounter students who say that they do not know
what to write about, we are often tempted to give them topics or sentence
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starters, in the belief that this will lead students to writing independently
and/or writing more. However, if we want students to become enthusiastic,
independent, and successful writers who understand that writers compose
texts for multiple authentic purposes, we must provide them with real
opportunities to write, along with the support that acknowledges their
strengths and needs as writers. If students don’t know what to write about,
they need to be encouraged to focus on topics that are familiar to them (for
example, their families, favorite pastimes or interests, and early impressions of
life in their new country, school and community). In addition to the strategies
identified earlier, we recommend the following strategies to help students
find their writing topics.
Targeted Strategy 1: Read and connect.

Published authors frequently comment on how much they are influenced by
what they read, and young writers can pick up literary influences in similar
ways. After students have read or been read to, it is a good idea to ask
them what the piece reminded them of. Often, students make text-to-self
connections, which they can then translate into their own pieces of writing.
For example, after having heard Patricia Polacco’s The Keeping Quilt, a group
of ELL students recounted their own family stories, describing objects that
were significant in their own families’ lives. One student told of how the only
object that his family had brought from its homeland was a key, which his
grandparents had brought with them when their family had been forced to
leave their home during a war. Whenever this story of survival was recounted
at family events, the key was taken out. Another student brought in a cloth
that was embroidered with brightly colored yarn. The cloth was a gift from
her godmother, who had received it from her own godmother many years
before. It was like a memory cloth, a way for the student to remember a
special person in her life. In both cases, the students later wrote about these
special objects.
Procedure 1
1. Select a book that you think will spark your students’ memories; carefully
selected picture books can be particularly effective because they can be
read and discussed in a single sitting. (See Appendix M for a list of
recommended picture books.)
2. Before reading to the students, explain that you are going to read a
book that you think they will like and that may help them think of their
own stories.

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3. Read the book.

4. After reading the book, have a conversation with the students. You might
ask, “What did this story remind you of?” or “While I was reading this
book, what did it make you think about?” or “What memories did this
book encourage?”
5. Allow students some time to think, but if after 10–20 seconds they
remain silent, briefly share some connections you made from the book to
your own memories.
6. List the connections on chart paper, and post the chart. Alternatively,
students can write their individual connections on sticky notes, which
they then post on chart paper.
7. If the connections students make can be categorized, do so with input
from the students, and post them on a chart. Alternatively, if students
write their connections on sticky notes, they can categorize their
connections by moving the sticky notes around.
8. Remind students that the charts are a resource to help them think about
writing topics.
Procedure 2
1. Read the memoirs or personal narratives written by other students.
2. Follow the steps listed in Procedure 1.
Targeted Strategy 2: Demonstrate generating a topic.

If students lack experience generating their own writing topics, it is important
to teach them how to do so. One way to do this is through demonstration;
the following basic procedure has worked well for us.
1. Before meeting with the students, the teacher generates a list of topics
that she or he is knowledgeable about and would like to write about.
It is important to list topics that are small in scope (for example, a
series of incidents involving one’s mother as opposed to my mother)
and likely to be of interest to students. Also, it is important to include
both personal experiences and memories along with nonfiction topics
you are familiar with. For example, Katharine’s list might include
the following:
• When she lost two of her teeth playing field hockey.
• When her family got gerbils . . . and the gerbils reproduced and
reproduced and reproduced.
• How to take care of gerbils.
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• Getting stuck near the top of a cold mountain when the clouds
descended and the path disappeared.
• Her first visit to the U.S. and the agony of not being understood in
restaurants (even though her native language is English).
• Visiting the house where she grew up and being presented with a
bracelet from her childhood that the current owner had found
during a remodeling project.

2. The teacher shares the list of potential topics with the students,
talking about each one briefly. The topics are accompanied by drawings,
gestures, and artifacts, such as photos and objects. (This may be done in a
mini-lesson with the entire class or in a group or one-on-one conference.)
3. Ask students to generate their own lists, which can be written and/or
drawn. For example, Ali wrote the following on his list of topics:
• Wen I win gol (When I win goal/When I scored the winning goal).
• Mi (my) dog hav babe (baby).
• I fall of (off) tree.
• I lose mi jaket (jacket).
• We go NY siti (city) with unkl (uncle).
4. Students share their lists with each other and then revise them. (Hearing
what others listed often jogs students’ memories; it also underscores how
writers frequently borrow ideas from each other.)
5. It is a good idea to paste these lists inside students’ writing notebooks so
that topic ideas are always accessible—and it is also a good idea to
encourage students to add to their lists on an ongoing basis.
6. Students select one of the topics to write about.
7. Whenever students talk about an idea or experience that you think could
be a good writing topic, mention this and encourage the student to add it
to his or her list (or to a class-generated list of potential topics posted in
the classroom).
Alternative: Good Things/Not So Good Things That Have Happened to Me1
1. Divide a sheet of paper into two columns, and label the columns “Good
things that have happened to me” and “Not so good things that have
happened to me.”
2. Number each column 1–5.
1
Linda Rief (1992) describes a similar process using a graph titled “Significant Positives and Negatives”
in which students list the best and worst things that ever happened to them.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Demonstrate how to fill in the spaces. (See Figure 5.6 for a completed
example. The grammar, spelling, and punctuation have been standardized.)
4. Ask students to generate their own lists, using words and/or drawings.
5. After generating their lists, students share their potential writing topics.
Alternative: Brainstorm topics.
1. The entire class or a group generates a list of possible topics. This list
can refer to shared experiences as well as individual experiences.
2. The list is posted so that students have easy access to it.
Alternative: Brainstorm genres.
1. The entire class or a group generates a list of possible genres. (See
Figure 5.7.)
2. Part of the brainstorming may include a discussion of how different
genres may coincide with different purposes for writing. For example,
a letter to a family member is often written to inform them of one’s
activities and development and to express love, whereas an obituary is
written to honor a deceased person.
3. The list is posted so that students have easy access to it.
Alternative: Brainstorm letter-writing options.
Letter writing is one of the most common and authentic writing experiences
(as long as the letters are written for a real audience, and sent), and reluctant
writers often respond very favorably to having opportunities to correspond
Good things that have happened Not so good things that have
to me happened to me
1. When my baby sister was born. 1. When our house was flooded.
2. Getting chosen for the volleyball 2. Getting stuck in a blizzard.

team.
3. Getting my job at the zoo. 3. When my grandpa didn't come

home from the hospital.
4. Holding a hawk at Marine World. 4. When I was five, and broke my

Christmas toy before we'd opened
all the presents.
5. Being Patty Reed at Sutter's Fort. 5. When my best friend moved to a

different state.
Figure 5.6: Example of Good Things/Not So Good Things Chart
240
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
What to Write When You're Not Sure What to Write
Lists Directions for games Magazine articles

Pamphlets Recipes Newspaper articles
Flyers Plays Jokes
Comic strips Poems Cartoons

Posters Song lyrics Advertisements
Birthday cards Raps Obituaries
Invitations Letters Lab reports
Figure 5.7: Group-Generated Genre List
with others. Many different types of letters can be written, and we have found
that the following approach works well:
1. Begin by discussing with students why people write letters (e.g., to
inform, make requests, complain, express love and gratitude, entertain,
remind, confirm).
2. Using a two-column format, students (the whole class, a group, or an
individual student, depending on the instructional format) generate a list
of the different kinds of letters they have written and/or might write.
These are listed in the left column.
3. Then the students generate a list of people to whom they might write
each of these different types of letters. These are listed in the right
column. (See Figure 5.8, page 242.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Create family photo books.

All students are experts on family, and writing family books can be very
successful with reluctant writers. It is very helpful if the teacher has his
or her own family book to share with students—not only does this help
build classroom community, but also it can be a very powerful means of
demonstrating the project. Taking photographs adds a dimension that can
support reluctant writers. The following procedure can be helpful:
1. The teacher and students discuss:
• The purpose of the family books project.
• When the students might take pictures (for example, during the
week and on weekends; early morning, afternoon, and evening).
• What students might photograph (for example, when family
members are doing ordinary everyday tasks, such as cooking, fixing

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Type of Letter Potential Audience
Catching up with someone Grandma, friend from home, last year's teacher
Invitation Parents (about conferences, Back to School

Night), friends
Thank you Museum guide, speaker to class,
janitor/secretary/librarian/principal,
volunteers, special teachers
Request for information or Magazines, newspapers, community

free items organizations, government organizations,
potential employer
Complaint School employees (e.g., the cafeteria is dirty,

art class has been cut), local authorities
(e.g., library hours have been cut), businesses
(e.g. a new skateboard wheel has fallen off,
a magazine you paid for didn't arrive)
Pen pal Introducing yourself, subsequent letters
Community activism Local, state, and national authorities (e.g.,

requesting a soccer field, requesting more stop
signs around the school, requesting more
policing in the neighborhood, requesting more
time for learning and less time on testing)
Figure 5.8: Letter-Writing Chart
a car, and reading the newspaper; when family members are

engaged in special events, such as celebrations).
• The importance of explaining the project to family members and
getting their permission to take pictures.
2. The students learn how to use disposable, Polaroid, digital, or cell phone
cameras to take pictures of their family members engaged in different
activities (for example, Grandma Ji-Mei taking care of her flowers or
Uncle Ahmed reading the newspaper).
3. After the photographs are developed, the students write books about
their family members. The photos serve as the illustrations for the books.
4. The books are stored in the classroom and/or school library, so they can
be read widely.
5. We have found that family books are often very popular with ELL
students, so we recommend making extra copies.
242
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Students copy everything, instead

Situation 2
of producing original work.
Copying is a stage that ELL students often go through on the way to

becoming skillful and confident writers. Keep in mind that in many cultures,
studying (and copying) the style of more accomplished writers is a respected

aspect of learning to become a better writer. In this context, students aren’t
encouraged to be creative and generate original messages; instead, they
simply copy the writing of respected, revered writers. This can be
disconcerting for teachers in North America, where original writing is
more respected and where native-English-speaking students pass through a
copying stage when they are much younger.
Although copying is a natural part of an ELL student’s writing
development, there are occasions when copying becomes a crutch. In such
cases, it is prudent to encourage ELLs to become more independent writers.
Sometimes all it takes is simply showing students alternatives, whereas at
other times they may need more explicit instruction in how to use other
writing strategies. For example, some students are stalled by their inability to
spell English words and rely on copying to produce “correct” writing. In such
cases, spending a few minutes on a regular basis teaching spelling strategies
(which is not the same as giving them lists of words) can accelerate their
willingness and ability to write more freely.2
Some strategies that can assist students to move beyond copying include
the following.
Targeted Strategy 1: Draw and label.

Invite students to write labels and captions to accompany their drawings.
Demonstrate how to do this and share examples of students’ labeled and
captioned writing.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use sentence starters.

Sentence starters provide a bridge to original writing for reluctant writers.
They also offer an opportunity for teachers and students to get to know each
other better. If students have a writing journal, they can write sentence starters
there, accompanied by drawings. (See Figure 5.9, page 244.) It can also be
2
There are several excellent resources available for teaching spelling strategies, including Ideas for Spelling
(Bolton & Snowball, 1993), Word Crafting: Teaching Spelling, Grades K-6 (Marten, 2003), and Words
Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, &
Johnston, 2007).

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
My favorite games are . . . At the weekend, I like/don't like . . .

In the morning, I . . . My favorite time of the day is . . .
After school, I . . . My favorite time of the year is . . .
In school, I like . . . My favorite place is . . .
In school, I don't like . . . My favorite music is . . .
My favorite foods are . . . My favorite movies are . . .
My favorite TV shows are . . . I am good at . . .
My family is made up of . . . My earliest memory is . . .
What I like least about living in What I'd like to do better in
(name the country) is . . . (name a subject) is . . .
What I like best about living in
(name the country) is . . .
Figure 5.9: Successful Sentence Starters
very helpful to have picture dictionaries available, including bilingual picture

dictionaries, to help students in locating words. (See Appendix E for a list of
picture/visual dictionaries.)
Procedure
1. Demonstrate to students what they need to do. For example, Katharine
might say, “My favorite sports are soccer, tennis, and hiking” or “My
earliest memory is of riding a donkey on a beach in Wales” and then talk
about any unfamiliar words.
2. If students aren’t familiar with the picture dictionary, show them how it
is organized.
3. Give students about five to ten minutes to write their sentences.
4. Students share what they have generated, in pairs, small groups, or the
entire class, depending on the size of the group, the sentence starter, and
what you hope to accomplish. For example, if you are doing a unit on
family and you want students to know a little more about each other, you
might ask the whole class to sit in a circle and take turns sharing who is
in their family. On the other hand, you may decide to have students do a
pair-share about favorite movies and then have the class generate a graph
of favorite movies.
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Alternative Sentence Starter: I like . . . because . . .

Many basic sentence starters can be extended by adding because, such as, “In
school, I like to . . . because . . . .” Doing this provides additional insights into
the student.
Targeted Strategy 3: Write in dialogue journals.

Journals and logs give students the opportunity to reflect upon their lives and
their learning. Dialogue journals are often very successful with reluctant
writers (Atwell, 1998) and ELLs, (Peyton & Reed, 1990; Rous, 1993; Samway
& Taylor, 1993a, 1993b). In dialogue journals (DJs), students correspond
with their teacher or another person. Topics may be entirely open-ended,
or there may be content guidelines. For example, Dorothy’s ELL students
corresponded with her about books they had been reading; they also
corresponded with Katharine about their reading and writing processes
in letters. (See Appendix N for additional ideas for written reflection.)
Some useful maxims for successful dialogue journal writing that we have
learned to respect over the years include the following:
c Avoid cheerleading comments in the margins (Interesting! Nice job! Too
bad!). Instead, respond authentically to what students write (I’m so sorry to
hear about your dog being sick. If it were my dog, I’d be as upset as you. How is
she now?).
c Be prepared to read your entry aloud to the student, and then invite him
or her to respond in writing.
c Monitor the length of your entries. When we are interested in a topic, it
can be tempting to write very long entries that can overwhelm students.
It’s generally a good idea to keep your entries similar in length to those
of your correspondent.
c Do not correct students’ writing. A dialogue journal is a form of
communication, and the teacher’s writing should be in response to the
content of the student’s entry. Also, keep in mind that a DJ is almost
always a first-draft type of writing.
c Although it is important to demonstrate standardized use of spelling,
grammar, punctuation, and capitalization, and the correct use of
vocabulary in your entries, be prepared to teach to these items at another
time, such as in a writing workshop mini-lesson or during word study
time. Sometimes, students pick up on our correct usage, but not always.
c If you are corresponding with a whole class, stagger how many DJs you

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
respond to on a given day, so you don’t become overwhelmed.

c Other DJ configurations that we have seen work well include the following:
• Students writing to other students (in the same class or another class)
• Students writing to student teachers
• Students writing to volunteers
c DJs can be written by hand or typed on a computer and sent via
the Internet.
Alternative: Use written conversations.
In contrast with dialogue journals, written conversations provide immediate
feedback, with correspondents writing, exchanging entries, and responding
right there and then (Van Sluys & Laman, 2006). In this respect, a written
conversation resembles instant messaging.
Situation 3 My students just list words.
A developmental stage in writing that many ELL students go through when

they are new to English writing is listing isolated words or phrases, much like
labeling or listing (car, house, the boat), instead of placing words in sentences.
The strategies listed earlier under Language Experience Approach (LEA), as
well as reading the texts of beginning ELL students, can be very helpful in
this situation. The following additional strategies can help move ELLs into
writing more complete texts.
Targeted Strategy 1: Incorporate Read-Aloud Plus.

Reading aloud to ELL students (along with discussions about the text) is an
invaluable activity for building vocabulary and an awareness of the rhythms of
language. However, for read-alouds to really support ELL writers, students
should have copies of the text being read aloud so they can follow along. This
form of read-aloud, which we call “Read-Aloud Plus,” allows students to see
how spoken English corresponds with written words and conventions, such as
punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and text organization. This strategy can
also show ELLs who simply list words when writing how to structure longer
sentences and texts.
Targeted Strategy 2: Make use of shared reading.

In shared reading, the teacher and students read an enlarged text that all
students can see—commercially published or teacher-made big books and/or
246
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
charts. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, rhymes, chants, and other texts that are
highly predictable and written with rhythmic language support emergent
ELL writers. A follow-up activity for shared reading that supports writers
who just list words is sentence strips. (See Chapter 4, pages 160 and 195–196,
for the procedure.)
Targeted Strategy 3: Tape-record, and then write.

ELLs who speak in extended sentences can often be encouraged to move
from listing words to writing more complex sentences by listening to
themselves speak and then writing down what they said.
Procedure 1
1. The student tape-records himself or herself while reading aloud a text,
such as a story, memoir, how-to directions, or book review.
2. While listening to the recording, the student writes down sentences.
3. The student may have to listen to the tape several times to capture the text.
4. The student can work with another student to capture the text.
Procedure 2
1. The student tape-records himself or herself narrating several examples of
a particular genre (for example, several stories, memoirs, poems, how-to
directions, book reviews).
2. The student selects one example to write down.
3. While listening to the recording, the student writes down sentences.
4. The student may have to listen to the tape several times to capture the
text.
5. The student can work with another student to capture the text.
Targeted Strategy 4: Introduce collaborative dictation.

Instead of speaking into a tape recorder, another useful strategy is to have one
student dictate to another student. So long as the ELL student can speak in
more complex sentences, it isn’t usually necessary to partner him or her with
a student who writes more complex sentences. In fact, by taking dictation, the
student who is only listing words gets practice in writing more complete texts.
Procedure
1. Explain the task and its purpose to the students: to record well-developed
texts in writing.
2. Demonstrate unsuccessful and successful collaborative dictation. For

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
example, unsuccessful collaboration could include when the person

taking dictation uses put-downs and takes over the composing of the
text. We have found that successful collaborative dictations include
the following:
• The person taking dictation asks for clarification.
• Both students work together to figure out how to spell words.
• The person taking dictation shows appreciation for the content of
the text.
3. Two students work together to take turns dictating their texts to
one another.
Situation 4 My ELL students plagiarize all the time.
Teachers often complain that their students plagiarize (Williams, 2007) and
this charge is often leveled at ELLs. To be sure, ELLs who have been
educated in their home countries may copy large amounts of text without
using quotation marks and citing their sources, but it is important to note
that not all countries and cultures regard the borrowing of another’s words as
plagiarism. In some parts of the world, information and written expression is
believed to be owned by the whole society (Mundava & Chaudhuri, 2007).
In some cultures, it is believed that one becomes a good writer by copying
verbatim the writing of accomplished, recognized writers. If your ELLs are
literate in their L1, this may well be how they learned to write. So, ELLs
may be confused when they are reprimanded for integrating another’s words
into their writing without attribution.
The Council of Writing Program Administrators (2003) identifies factors
that may lead students to plagiarize, when in fact they haven’t intended to
hoodwink anyone:
c Students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and
document their sources when writing.
c Students may not know how to take fully documented notes
when reading.
c Students from other cultures may not be familiar with North
American conventions governing plagiarism.
The following strategies can help ELLs and their teachers
avoid plagiarism.
248
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Targeted Strategy 1: Talk with students.

Find out if your students’ cultures value copying well-written texts, and talk
with students about how this is viewed differently in North America (and the
possible repercussions of such copying).
Targeted Strategy 2: Use an inquiry approach to learn about

how to incorporate the ideas of others.

When teaching students about how to cite or when and how to use quotation
marks, we have found that an inquiry approach works well. Instead of
lecturing students and using examples to demonstrate points, it is helpful to
do the following:
c Put together 3–5 pieces of writing that do a good job of integrating
the ideas of others. Try to include pieces written by students from previ-
ous classes.
c Teach one point only (for example, how to cite; how to select quotations;
or how to introduce quotations).
c Ask students to read the sample pieces, noting all they can about how the
writers accomplish the writing convention under study. Before asking
students to work alone or with a partner, it’s important to demonstrate
the process, thinking aloud while doing so. Using an overhead or opaque
projector helps to make the process more visible to students.
c The whole group or class shares insights in a discussion format.
c At the end of this activity, ask students to recap what they have learned,
then apply this new knowledge to their own writing.
During independent writing time,

Situation 5 my ELL student doesn’t do anything.
Several factors may influence how ELLs use their time in independent
writing, and it is essential to assess whether they know how they should spend
their time and whether the environment is conducive to writing. For example,
do they know what they need to do? Do they know what to do when they get
stuck? Are they allowed to talk with other students while writing?
Having opportunities to talk while writing is essential for ELLs, as it is
through talk that learning is often mediated. Talking helps ELLs figure out
what they want to write and how they want to write it. The prohibition of
productive, focused conversation can impede learning. For example, in some

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
writing classrooms, independent writing time is viewed as a silent writing

time, and newcomer students or struggling writers may spend the entire
period not doing anything. In fact, in classrooms we have visited where
students write alone and in silence, we have observed ELLs starting off the
independent writing period with enthusiasm and confidence only to get stuck
within a short time, often remaining stuck for the entire period unless the
teacher happens to come by for a conference. On occasion, students have told
us that they don’t know what to do, and when asked if they might consult
with another student at their table, they have indicated that talking is not
allowed during independent writing time.
The need for an environment that values discussion needs to be balanced,
however, with high expectations for how students use their independent
writing time. That is why we advocate talking that is focused and productive.
We have visited classrooms in which students are free to talk during
independent writing time, and we have seen students not writing, but visiting
with each other for up to 30 minutes. Clearly, this can be very problematic.
In order to support ELL students who don’t seem to use their time
productively during independent writing time, we suggest the following:
c Make sure all students know what they are going to do during
independent writing time. For example, after a mini-lesson, send
students to their tables or desks once they have indicated that they
know what they are going to do next.
c Make sure that all students are actively engaged in their writing before
beginning to confer—that is, move around the room quickly, checking in
before beginning to confer with students.
c Make sure that students have topics to write about (see strategies listed
earlier in the section on topic generation).
c Make sure that students know their options during independent writing
time (for example, write; do research, such as through reading; confer;
edit). Post a chart of options as a useful reminder.
c Have students set goals for themselves each writing session (for
example, “Today, I’m going to finish this draft”; or “Today, I’m going
to try different leads”; or, in the case of a student who spends all of his or
her time drawing, “Today, I’m going to draw for ten minutes and then
write words to go with the drawing”).
c If students distract other writers when they talk, allocate areas in the
classroom where students can confer and/or write collaboratively—
and monitor that they use these spaces productively.
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………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
c If newcomer ELLs are literate in their L1, encourage them to write in

their L1, even if you cannot read it. They can later translate it. Sharing
examples of bilingual texts and texts written in the L1 is one way to
encourage ELLs to write in their L1.
c Make sure that students have opportunities to read other students’
writing on a regular basis. In some classrooms, students rarely, if ever,

read each other’s texts. They write in silence, don’t confer, and when
their pieces are published, they read them to their peers, rather than
having their classmates actually read them. Writers need to talk about
their writing, but they also need to read what their peers write.
My ELL Students Don’t Seem to Be

Improving as Writers
As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, writing is developmental,
and development is often very irregular. Sometimes, students may seem to
have plateaued or even regressed, which can be very discouraging to teachers
(and students themselves). However, these realities appear to be grounded in
the brain being able to cope with only so much new information at a time;
which is to say, students may be encountering linguistic overload. For
example, after an intense period of language input through what has been
explicitly or implicitly taught, learners often need time to process and
experiment with the new information, which can lead to phenomena that
appear to be plateaus or regressions. Other factors contributing to what
appears to be a learning slowdown may be related to issues surrounding
cultural assimilation and a lack of previous exposure to a school environment.3
I correct my students’ writing, but they

Situation 1
continue to make the same mistakes.
As Zemelman & Daniels (1988) have pointed out, there is no evidence that
correcting students’ writing actually leads to improvement. Middle school
teacher Sheryl Lain (2007, p. 25) writes that “all that editing I did on
3
A lack of development over an extended period of time, such as a year, may also be an indication of a
learning disability, and teachers should follow up, if they suspect one. However, when assessed for a
potential learning disability, ELLs should be assessed in their L1.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
student work, all that rearranging of paragraphs, all that advice penciled in
margins often went unheeded by my students. I spent more time on the
student work than the students did.” This is a very familiar refrain among
teachers, so why do we continue to do it? Targeted instruction does have its
place when it focuses on one or two of the most crucial items, especially those
that impede meaning. The following strategies can also help ELL writers.
Targeted Strategy 1: Introduce a Teaching/Learning Points sheet.
In order to have a record of what one has taught and to hold students
accountable for what they have been taught, have students keep a record of
what they have been taught and/or have learned on a Teaching/Learning
Points sheet.
Procedure
1. To demonstrate how to use the sheet, after teaching about a particular
writing skill, strategy, or feature, place a blank Teaching/Learning Points
sheet on an overhead or opaque projector.
2. Ask students to briefly share what they learned.
3. For each point learned, write the date, the teaching point, and a succinct
explanation, comment, and/or example.
4. Students record teaching points on their own Teaching/Learning Points
sheets. They may record points taught to the whole class, in small
groups, or in one-on-one conferences.
5. Encourage students to refer to this checklist whenever they are writing,
not just when they are editing.
6. The checklist is stored in students’ writing folders, in a place where
students can easily locate it, such as inside the front or back cover.
7. When a piece of writing is handed in, a student can attach the checklist
to it.
8. If a student’s piece does not incorporate the features you taught, check to
see if he or she has referred to the list. If not, then ask the student to do
so. Note that there are times when a student has used the checklist, but
needs additional teaching, which should be provided—this is particularly
true of points taught to a whole class or large group. For example,
Hussein recorded two dates next to “Read assignments until I know what
I got to do. And talk with friend about assignment.” (See Figure 5.10.)
He had done so because previously, the teacher had to remind him about
the importance of carefully reading guidelines and talking with peers in
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Your Name: Hussein
Date Learning/Teaching Point
9/3 Read assignments until I know what I got to do. And talk with
9/21 freind about asignment.
9/4 Write every day in writing journal—any idea I have is OK.
9/5 Talk with family to get ideas. Write down in writing jouornal.
9/8 Use quotation for people talking—“I want to go.”
9/10 Use diffrent words for said—

shout cry laugh whisper (little voice)
yell tell ask
9/12 Listen to peopel talking and write in journal—can use in story.

Make sound real.
9/14 Rhthymic three-can use three in my stories like “He was hungry.
He was thirsty. He was frightened.”
9/17 Indent paragaraph. (g)
Figure 5.10 Hussein’s Teaching/Learning Points Record Sheet
order to understand what is expected in a particular task.

9. The list is individualized and should be updated on a regular basis.
Alternatives
c Use a three-column version of the Teaching/Learning Points record
sheet. (See Figure 5.11, page 254.)
c If the student is new to writing, the teacher may decide to record
points on the checklist, either in addition to or in place of the
student’s notations.
Targeted Strategy 2: Utilize modified interactive writing.

Interactive writing is typically used with young emergent readers (McCarrier,
Pinnell, & Fountas, 2000). It involves the teacher and students sharing the pen
while writing a text (for example, a thank-you letter or a list of procedures for
looking after a classroom pet). By the end of the interactive writing session,
which may last from a few minutes to about 20 minutes, a text has been
written with standardized spelling, punctuation, word choice, capitalization,
and paragraphing. Corrections to the text as it is being written are made
using correction/cover-up tape. It may take several days to write a longer text.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Your Name: Oscar
Date Teaching Point Comments
11/3 Question mark (?) Use at the end of a question.

Do you like pizza?
11/6 Past tense of go is went (not We went to the fair this weekend.
goed).
11/9 Read my writing aloud. This helps catch mistakes and

anything that's missing.
11/9 Adjectives go before nouns. I love sweet strawberries.
11/1 Words to use instead shouted, called, announced,

of said: whispered
Figure 5.11: Sample Three-Column Teaching/Learning Points Record Sheet
Interactive writing can be an effective strategy with older ELLs because

it can help them focus on two aspects of language that often distinguish
them from their native-English-speaking peers—grammar and word choice.
However, interactive writing should not replace authentic writing
opportunities. A short interactive writing session of about 10–15 minutes
can be very effective. The teacher and student(s) collaboratively generate
the text, but in contrast to collaborative writing, this text is completely
standardized. Hence, if words are misspelled or there are nonstandardized
grammatical structures, the teacher points them out, invites corrections, and
supplies the standardized form if the students are unable to do so.
Procedure
1. The teacher and students collaboratively generate the text, such as a
letter of thanks or a record of a shared experience, such as a field trip or
a science experiment; the teacher records a standardized version on a
piece of paper, which he or she can use for reference.
2. The writing of the text on chart paper begins. The text for a sample
interactive session is shown below.
When we went to the Museum of Modern Art, we spent a lot of time at the
Pablo Picasso special exhibit. We had a guide, who was very interesting and
funny. We especially liked seeing how other artists borrowed from Picasso.
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3. An excerpt from an interactive writing session related to this sample text

follows. The teacher directs the activity:
Teacher: So, we have our text (She reads to the students what they had
collaboratively generated.). Let’s begin with the first part of the first
sentence, “When we went to the Museum of Modern Art.” (The
teacher writes these introductory words, talking through what she’s
doing, such as, “w-h-e-n, when. Do you remember that when has a
silent h in it, like where and what?” and “Museum and Modern Art
begin with capital letters because that’s the name of the museum, of
the institution. Like we capitalize our school’s name.”) Now, I’m going
to put a comma after Art because that’s the end of the introductory
phrase, and a comma goes here. After that comes, “we spent a lot of
time at the Pablo Picasso special exhibit.” Pablo, why don’t you write
that part as your name is involved. And the rest of us can help him, if
he gets stuck. (She passes the marker to Pablo, and he writes we
spend. Pamela says, “It spent” emphasizing the /t/). You’re right,
Pamela. Pablo, what we said was spent rather than spend. Spend
would mean we go there often, but we’re referring to the other day,
so how should it be? (Pablo says, “With a t?,” uses a small piece of
correction tape to delete the d, and then writes t.) Great, Pablo. Why
don’t you go ahead and write a lot of time at the (Pablo does this
successfully, glancing at a chart with high-frequency words when
writing time and the). Now for the end of the sentence, Pablo Picasso
exhibit. (Pablo writes Pablo and picaso, then stops and reads aloud the
sentence that he’s written so far. “That don’t look good,” he says,
pointing to picaso). Uh huh, good observation. You’ve almost got it.
There’s one letter and a capital letter missing. (Pablo quickly uses
correction tape to change the p into a capital P, saying softly, “His
name, right?”) Yes, you’re right about the capital letter being needed
for the beginning of his name. What about the missing letter? (Andrés
points to a poster of Picasso and says, “Two s.”) Good observation,
Andrés. (Pablo glances at the poster and makes the change, using the
correction tape.) Now for exhibit. (Pablo writes -ex, stops and looks
around, writes -ib, stops again while subvocalizing what he’s written
so far, and then writes -it.) OK. You’ve got all the syllables there,
Pablo, and the sounds of the syllables. This is a tricky word because
it’s got a silent letter at the beginning of the second syllable. Anyone
know what it is? (Pamela says “h, like in when.”) You’re right, Pamela,
it’s an h. After the -ex. (Pablo squeezes an h between the –ex and –ib).
And at the end of the sentence? (Pablo adds a period.) Thanks, Pablo.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Let’s all read it together. (The teacher and students read, “When we
went to the Museum of Modern Art, we spent a lot of time at the
Pablo Picasso special exhibit.”)
4. The writing of the text continues in this way, with frequent stops to
reread what has been written.
5. The text is posted in the classroom to be used for reading practice and
reference purposes when talking about writing (for example, when to use
bullets, how to use bullets, how to punctuate, word choice, spelling).
Alternative
The teacher may decide to use a text written by a student or students for an
interactive writing session.
Targeted Strategy 3: Use a modified cloze.

After teaching a surface feature item (for example, a grammatical point or
a punctuation mark), a useful follow-up practice activity is a modified cloze.
In a regular cloze activity, words in a passage are deleted at regular intervals,
such as every five, seven, or ten words, but in a modified cloze, the teacher
selects which words, phrases, or punctuation marks to delete. For example,
after teaching about how to use articles (a, an, the), the teacher would
selectively delete them from a passage. The short passage below shows the
complete text, followed by three modified cloze passages that focus on the
past-tense marker –ed, nouns of location or place, and punctuation. Note
that the blanks for the punctuation modified cloze require less space than for
words and phrases. (See Appendix G for more detailed guidelines on how to
prepare a cloze passage.)
Text
I had such a good weekend. My auntie visited us for three days. We
shopped at the mall, walked in the hills, and cooked a barbeque in the
backyard. It was one of the best weekends I’ve had.
1. Modified cloze focused on the past-tense marker –ed

I had such a good weekend. My auntie ______ us for three days.
We ______ at the mall, ______ in the hills, and ______ a barbeque
in the backyard. It was one of the best weekends I’ve had.
2. Modified cloze focused on nouns of location or place

I had such a good weekend. My auntie visited us for three days.
We shopped at the ______ , walked in the ______ , and cooked a
barbeque in the ______. It was one of the best weekends I’ve had.
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3. Modified cloze focused on punctuation

I had such a good weekend __ My auntie visited us for three
days __ We shopped at the mall __ walked in the hills __ and
cooked a barbeque in the backyard __ It was one of the best
weekends I’ve had __
Procedure
1. Select or write a passage that includes several instances of the targeted
teaching point. (When using a cloze for reinforcement rather than
assessment purposes, this point should be one that has been taught.)
2. Make a copy of the text and delete the words or punctuation marks you
want your students to practice using—but remember to keep the first
and last sentences intact.
3. Students can work alone or in pairs to generate words or punctuation
marks to fit the spaces.
4. Discuss with students what they generated. Be alert to the possibility
that they may have written perfectly acceptable alternatives that fit the
context of the passage but were not in the original passage, and be sure
to acknowledge this. The discussions that accompany these cloze
activities are very valuable and shouldn’t be overlooked.
Targeted Strategy 4: Observe and record.

Procedure
1. Students leave the classroom to observe what is happening around the
school and school grounds. Allocate up to about 10 minutes for this.
2. When they return to the classroom, students take turns writing sentences
on an overhead, chart paper, or plasma screen.
3. After each student writes a sentence, the group corrects it together. (See
interactive writing, described on pages 253–256, for a similar activity.)
Targeted Strategy 5: Do focused editing.

Procedure
1. The teacher holds a focused editing conference, selecting a point that
has been taught, but which the student has not internalized or used
correctly in his or her writing (for example, mixed-up verb tenses, lack
of punctuation marks, absence of articles, misuse of terms).
2. During the conference, the teacher talks with the student about the
teaching point; it may be necessary to reteach the point.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Students edit their writing, keeping in mind the teaching point that
was discussed.
These conferences should be short and focused. They may be held with
individuals or small groups.
Targeted Strategy 6: Read your writing aloud.
A strategy that we have found to work well in supporting student self-editing
is for them to read their writing aloud in a location that allows them to have a
more private self-editing experience than typically occurs when students peer
edit and read to each other. We have noticed that when students read their
writing aloud, they often catch errors that they don’t catch when they read
their work silently.
My students’ writing isn’t very

Situation 2 sophisticated and seems to have
been that way for a long time.
It is not uncommon to find that older ELL students’ writing isn’t very well
developed and may resemble this kind of writing: This is boy. This the house.
The big dog. Sometimes this is due to developmental issues. For example, the
ELL student may be a relative newcomer to writing, may be processing a lot
of new information about English and writing, and needs time to progress
to more complex writing. However, lack of sophisticated writing may be due
to other factors, such as a lack of confidence, real audiences, or authentic
purposes for writing. Also, overly simple writing may be influenced by the
type of texts that ELL students are reading—some instructional reading
materials are overly simplified, and provide poor writing models.
The following strategies can help writers develop into increasingly more
sophisticated writers.
Targeted Strategy 1: Model.

1. In a writing conference or mini-lesson, share a piece of writing that
resembles the underdeveloped writing of the student(s).
2. Explain that writers need to write in a way that captures the interest of
their readers. Then, briefly talk about two or three ways that writers do
this, including adding important details, using intriguing words, having a
captivating lead, using dialogue, and using rhythmic language. When
talking about a particular strategy, display an example illustrating the
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point. The examples can be those of adults as well as younger writers.

3. Then revise the underdeveloped piece, keeping in mind the strategies
discussed. The teacher may do this alone or with input from students.
4. Ask students to revisit a piece of their writing and revise it, trying one or
more of the strategies.
Targeted Strategy 2: Compare two versions of a written piece.

1. Put together two versions of a piece of writing, one that is written very
simply and one that is more sophisticated in its development. The two
versions can be written by the teacher, if versions written by students
aren’t available.
2. Make copies for the students or put them on chart paper so everyone can
read them.
3. Read the two pieces aloud, and ask students to compare them: Why is
one better than the other? Why is one more interesting to read than
the other?
4. Ask students to revisit a piece of their own writing and revise it, trying
one or more of the strategies identified in the discussion.
Targeted Strategy 3: Try an inquiry approach.

1. The teacher puts together a packet of two to four excerpts from pieces of
writing that students are familiar with and are good examples of more
sophisticated writing (for example, from read-alouds or from touchstone
texts in writing workshop4).
2. Display an example of one of these excerpts and explain why you think
it is a well-developed piece. You might say, “I like the way the author
began with dialogue,” or “I like the descriptive language here because I
can really feel how excited this character is,” or “These details help me to
understand why it can be dangerous to live close to an active volcano.”
3. Ask the student(s) to read the rest of the pieces, paying attention to what
the author does to make the writing interesting.
4. Discuss features that students notice and add them to a chart.
4
Touchstone texts are texts that are rich in writing craft moves (for example, rhythmic language, strong
leads, powerful dialogue, captivating headings and subheadings) and that a teacher refers to often when
teaching about writing. These include picture books (nonfiction and fiction), poetry, book reviews, short
stories, novels, and magazine articles. (See Appendix L for an annotated list of touchstone texts that we
have found work well with ELLs.)

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Ask students to revisit a piece of their own writing and revise it, trying
one or more of the features identified in the discussion.
Targeted Strategy 4: Write copycat poetry.

Because poems are usually short and often filled with powerful images,
students can learn how to write in more sophisticated ways through poetry.
Modeling their poems after those of accomplished poets, or writing copycat
poems (Lain, 2007), can support younger writers.
1. Select a short poem that you think will resonate with students.
2. Students read and discuss the poem (for example, the message, patterns,
length of lines, and use of metaphors).
3. Students then imitate the poem, using their own words and ideas.
Lain (2007) shares copycat poems written by her students, including
one by Shawna, a below-grade-level reader and writer, who wrote her poem
(see below) after studying Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow” (see online at
www.online-literature.com/frost/743). Both poems feature a sudden shift in mood.
Shawna’s Poem
The way a dog
jumped up on me
the dark of fog
lifted off of me
gave my mind
a change of mood
made me find
some good dog food.
Targeted Strategy 5: Employ reading/writing connections

dialogue journals.
In reading/writing connections dialogue journals (DJs), the teacher and a
student correspond about books they are reading, offering an opportunity for
more complex writing. It’s also possible to include three people in the written
dialogue. In these cases, each person writes in his or her own journal and the
entries are all shared. For example, in Week 1, Student A responds to Student
B, who responds to the teacher, who responds to Student A; in Week 2,
Student A responds to the teacher, Student B responds to Student A, and
the teacher responds to Student B. One advantage to this procedure is that
students read each other’s entries.
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Procedure
1. Provide written guidelines for the dialogue journal, and have students
attach them to the inside cover of the journal. (See Figure 5.12.)
2. Go over the guidelines and explain what each point refers to by
displaying an example and discussing it.
3. If needed, provide additional scaffolding by collaboratively generating

an entry for a text that all students are familiar with, such as a book that
was read aloud that day.
4. Ask students to write an entry about a book they are reading.
5. Respond to students’ entries. Although it’s a good idea to respond to
all entries the first time students write in their DJs, teachers typically
stagger the times when students hand in their DJs, to make the process
more manageable.
Targeted Strategy 6: Make use of a reading/writing log.

In a reading/writing log, students comment on what they have learned about
writing from their own reading.
Dear Student,
We're going to have a written conversation about books in this dialogue
journal. You can use the journal to write about your thoughts about the
books. Some things you may want to write about include:
• What you think about the book.
• Why the characters (the people in the book) are interesting or not
interesting to you.
• What this book reminds you of. It could be a personal experience,
other books you've read, or something else.
• What you are learning about writing from reading this book.
• Questions that the book raises for you.
Please write in your dialogue journal at least three times a week. You will hand
it in on _____________ (day of week*). I'm looking forward to
“talking” with you about books in this dialogue journal.
Sincerely,
* Be sure to stagger the number of journals that need to be responded to on a given day.
Figure 5.12: Teacher Guidelines for Student Dialogue Journal

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Procedure
1. Select a short text to read aloud to students, and explain that you are
going to demonstrate the process to follow when writing in their
reading/writing logs.
2. Display the text so everyone can follow along.
3. Read the text aloud and discuss with students what it taught them
about writing. Be prepared to share your own insights. For example, in
Nadia’s Hands, Karen English (1999) uses rhythmic language, such as
repetition of a phrase (She sat watching the door . . . She sat watching out
the window . . . Finally, she sat watching the big kitchen clock over the stove).
4. Demonstrate writing a reading/writing log entry on an overhead, chart
paper, or plasma screen.
5. Ask students to read their independent reading book for about 10–15
minutes, and then write their own entries.
6. Invite students to share their entries. Praise students who are reading
like writers.
Grammar and Mechanics

It must be remembered that the acquisition of grammatical structures for
ELLs is a developmental process found in both oral and written language
(Ellis, 1994; Wells, 1986). That is, some grammatical structures in the L2 tend
to appear before others, as in stages. For example, the progressive form (She is
talking) tends to appear before the past participle form (He has taken the ball).
Also, there is a big difference between being taught grammatical structures
and being able to use them. Students are often taught structures and are able
to demonstrate the ability to apply them in practice exercises, but then fail to
apply them in self-initiated writing. Another aspect of second-language
development is the tendency to overgeneralize after beginning to internalize
a feature of language. That is, ELLs may apply a rule where it doesn’t
belong, such as applying the regular past-tense marker, –ed, when the verb is
irregular (shaked instead of shook). This is true in both grammar and spelling.
Our best advice to teachers is not to worry, but to allow plenty of time
and opportunities for ELLs to write for authentic purposes and to read
English texts that are comprehensible to them. If the absence or misuse of
grammatical structures leads to a reduction in meaning in an ELL’s writing,
then this is the most appropriate context in which to teach to that point
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(for example, in a writing conference, or in a mini-lesson, if several students

manifest the same need). However, it is best to limit one’s teaching to one or
two points at a time.
In this section, we suggest some strategies that can be used for teaching
to a number of common grammatical and punctuation errors that frequently
appear in ELLs’ writing, including the following:
c Mixing up pronouns (he instead of she or him instead of her).

c Omitting articles (a, an, and the).
c Omitting word endings/inflections (-ing, -s, -es, -ly).
c Mixing up word order (The hamster brown is in cage).
c Mixing up negation (My dog no like run).
c Plural nouns, both regular forms (ball/balls, house/houses) and irregular
forms (foot/feet, child/children).
c Superlatives (fastest, silliest).
c Contractions (I am/I’m, let us/let’s, cannot/can’t).
c Asking questions (Is this right? Will we go tomorrow?).
c Mixing up or omitting punctuation marks.
When teaching grammatical and punctuation points, be prepared to
discuss differences such as word order, the use of articles, and punctuation
that exist across languages.
Targeted Strategy 1: Conduct interactive writing activities.

Do an interactive writing activity in which the text focuses on a targeted
grammatical or punctuation feature. (See pages 253–256 in this chapter for a
discussion of interactive writing.) For example, if students are learning about
subject/verb agreement with have and has, the text for an interactive writing
session might be the following:
Mary has a dog. It has black spots on its back. Her friend has two dogs.
When they go for a walk together, they have a very good time. But, they
have to be careful that their dogs are on their leashes. If not, they have
a very difficult time because Mary’s dog has lots of energy and wants to
run free.
As the teacher and students write the text, the teacher explains why has
and have are used in each case. The use of the subject/verb agreement is
reinforced as students reread the passage.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Targeted Strategy 2: Use patterned texts.

Select texts that contain the targeted feature for shared reading sessions. (See
Chapter 4, pages 159–160, for a discussion of shared reading.) After reading
the text together, there are several activities that can be done relatively quickly
to reinforce the role and function of the feature, including the following:
c Locate each occurrence of the targeted feature.
c Collaboratively figure out its function and discuss its use.
c Cover up the feature with sticky tape, reread the text with the students,
and ask them to figure out what goes in the covered-up spaces. The
conversations that stem from this activity can be very useful for both
students—who gain a greater understanding of the feature—and the
teacher—who gains insight into students’ understanding and can plan
instruction accordingly from this observational assessment data.
c Write sentences from the text on sentence strips, scramble them, and ask
students to put them back in order. Students read the sentences aloud,
which gives them practice in using the targeted feature.
c Cut up sentences into words and phrases, scramble them, and ask
students to put them back in order. Reading their reordered sentences
aloud gives students practice in using the targeted feature.
c Ask students to revisit their own writing and revise it, focusing on the
targeted feature.
Targeted Strategy 3: Incorporate modified cloze activities.

Modified cloze activities can provide valuable practice in how to use a
targeted grammatical structure or punctuation mark. (See pages 256–257 in
this chapter for a description of how to design a modified cloze exercise.)
Students can work alone or in pairs to figure out which words or punctuation
marks are missing in a passage. The conversation that occurs when pairs work
together is often very valuable, particularly if partnerships and expectations
are carefully established.
Targeted Strategy 4: Make use of sentence strips.

Practice in targeted grammatical features and punctuation can be provided
through sentence strips:
c Write sentences containing the targeted feature on strips of paper. (For
practice with pronouns, you might write, “I live with my father.” “He
speaks Spanish.” “My friend is Fatimah.” “She speaks Arabic.”)
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c Cut up the sentences into single words and/or groups of words.

c Have students put the words and phrases back in order. Students can
work individually or in groups.
c As a whole group, discuss whether students’ contributions are right
or wrong.
c Ask students to revisit their own writing and revise it with the targeted
feature in mind.
Targeted Strategy 5: Do collaborative copyediting.

Collaborative copyediting is different from peer editing in that a small group
of students and the teacher edit a student’s piece of writing viewed from an
overhead projector. Dorothy usually asks for volunteer writers for this public
editing, but has found that even the shyest or most reluctant writers volunteer
their work once they have been through a few rounds of editing. The process
goes as follows:
1. The writing of the student who volunteers the paper is projected on a
screen or wall using a transparency and overhead projector, or using a
computer and digital projector or SMART Board5).
2. Each student in the editing group has a copy of the text.
3. The leader (the teacher or the student whose writing is being edited)
works from the master copy on the screen (marking it on the overhead
transparency, from the computer, or on a SMART Board), and essentially
edits the work by reading the first sentence and asking if anyone has any
suggestions for corrections. (Students may notice errors in grammar,
punctuation, or spelling.) The student who has suggested the correction
or the teacher explains why the correction should be made (for example,
“You wrote Yesterday I have a horrible experience, but if it happened
yesterday, you should write had instead of have.”) There can be a great
deal of discussion as students try to establish meaning (for example, “You
write, I have had my job two years ago. Do you mean you got your job two
years ago, but you don’t have it anymore? Or do you mean that you still
have your job?”).
4. Once students have established meaning, and everyone agrees on the
best way to correct any errors, the leader marks the corrections on the
5
A SMART Board is an interactive whiteboard. It is connected to a computer and has a touch-sensitive
display. Computer applications can be controlled directly from the display, notes can be made with
electronic pens, and all work can be digitally saved.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
projected copy and other students mark corrections on their copy of

the text.
5. After making all corrections to the first sentence, the leader reads the
second sentence, which is corrected in the same way, and so on, until the
piece has been completely copyedited.
6. Students retain their copyedited text with any notes they have made,
and the author of the piece uses the master copy to rewrite or finalize
corrections on the computer and submits a final copyedited document
to the teacher.
The strength of this kind of line editing seems to be its public form,
the collaborative effort, and the on-the-spot mini-lessons that accompany
the corrections. Dorothy has found that, after their peers have made a few
corrections of the same nature, the student whose text is being copyedited
often begins to correct these frequent errors in his or her text before others
in the group even comment on them.
Incomprehensible Writing
The writing of some ELLs can be hard to read, and this may be related to
several factors, including the following:
c The students may have had little or no formal schooling in the past and
are only now learning how to write.
c The students can write in their native language, but it has a very
different writing system from English (for example, Arabic, Chinese,
Japanese, Urdu).
The writing of ELLs is also sometimes hard to read due to grammar,
spelling, and/or word choice. We have found the following general strategies
to be helpful in addressing these issues of legibility. After the general
strategies are some more specific strategies and recommended resources for
specific situations.
General Strategies
..................................
General Strategy 1: Students read their writing aloud.
c So that you know what the student has written, ask him or her to read
the piece aloud.
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c Keep a written record of what the student says, so you can analyze what
he or she knows about writing in English, and decide what area of
instruction to focus on next.
General Strategy 2: Read text aloud while writing.

By frequently reading aloud what they have written, emergent writers learn
to monitor what they write. This practice can also help them remember what
their intention for writing was. If students are embarrassed about reading
their writing aloud, teach them how to subvocalize, or speak very softly, under
their breath. However, subvocalizing and frequently reading aloud slow down
writers (and readers), so students should not become too reliant on these
strategies. Once students are writing legible texts that they can read back, they
should be encouraged to use these strategies only in specific circumstances,
such as when they are confused or they want to hear how their writing sounds.
General Strategy 3: Read text to a partner.

Knowing that they are going to be reading their writing to another student
can sometimes help students pay more attention to the legibility of their
writing in order to read aloud as fluently as possible. Teach students how to
practice reading aloud so their reading is smooth and engaging.
General Strategy 4: Use the print resources in the room.

Make and display posters of the features of writing that you have taught
students to use as references (for example, how to form letters and numbers;
when and how to use punctuation marks; spelling families and spelling
patterns). Post information that you have recently taught most prominently—
one poster can be hung on top of another on an easel, so that all the posters
are accessible and at a height that’s easily accessible for students. If there isn’t
room for posters on the walls, then store smaller versions in photo albums and
binders, with labeled dividers. Also, students can keep their own copies in
binders. We have found that simply making these resources available to
students doesn’t mean that they necessarily use the material or know how to use
it, so it is important to periodically remind students of the information’s value.
The handwriting of my ELL student

Situation 1 is very hard to decipher.
Keep in mind that many children around the world have little or no formal
schooling, or even access to writing implements. In North America, we often

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
take paper and pencils for granted, but these materials aren’t easily available
for low-income families in developing countries, where students are often
required to purchase all of their own school supplies. Consequently, even
older students may not form letters with ease.
A lack of developed letter formation in older students should not be
immediately equated with a learning disability. Some strategies for helping
ELLs develop legible handwriting include the following.
Targeted Strategy 1: Teach students how to form letters.

1. Select letters and numbers with which the individual student has the
greatest difficulty (for example, the letters q, Q, j, J, t, T; the numbers
1 and 7, which are often confused because in many countries the number
1 has a downward left slanted line from the top: 1. This makes it
resemble the number 7).
2. Explain why it is important to have clear handwriting. Show two
examples of a text, one that is easy to decipher and one that is difficult
to read. Talk through your thinking processes while reading the texts,
as in the following excerpt:
Teacher: It’s important to form letters and words clearly so other people can
understand what we’ve written. (He demonstrates letter and word
formation in a slightly exaggerated way on an overhead.) Here’s an
example. (He shows an example of a student’s writing that is hard to
read because of the handwriting. He points to a part that is legible.)
Now, I can read this part, but I don’t know what this says (He
scratches his head and verbally demonstrates how hard it is to decode
another part of the text.) Is this a t, an i, or an l? I really want to
understand what this student has written. (The teacher displays
another piece of writing by the same student.) Now here is something
written by the same person, but it’s written more clearly so we can
understand it. (He shows the same text with more legible letter
formation. The teacher reads the text easily and paraphrases what he
has read.)
3. Demonstrate how to form the target letter or number on lined paper,

explaining any special features it has (for example, the top of the l goes
higher than the top of the i) and ways in which it may differ from how it
is formed in the L1 (for example, in many parts of the world, the number
7 has a line through the middle to differentiate it from the number 1).
Point out that some letters, such as a and g, are different in their
typographic form than their handwritten form. This is of particular
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importance for students who have taught themselves to write by copying

from published texts.
4. Have students practice forming the letter or number on lined paper.
5. Combine letters, including letters the student can already form, such as o,
to form words (to, on, top), and follow the same procedure.
6. Introduce another letter or number, and use the same procedure.
Targeted Strategy 2: Discuss uppercase and lowercase

letters and their usage.
Teach students about the differences in forming uppercase and lowercase
letters. Also, teach them about differences in the usage of uppercase and
lowercase letters.
c Capital letters are used at the beginning of sentences, at the beginning of
proper names, for emphasis in titles and headings, and to highlight a

word or phrase.
c Lowercase letters are used in almost all other situations.
Targeted Strategy 3: Teach printing before cursive.

Printing is usually much easier to read than cursive, in part because the
letters aren’t connected, but also because printing more closely resembles the
published print found in books, newspapers, billboards, and magazines.
Targeted Strategy 4: Teach word processing.

If students continue to have difficulty forming letters, it may be helpful to
introduce them to a word-processing program on the computer so they can
write texts that others can read. After all, some native speakers, including
published writers, have handwriting that is virtually impossible to read. The
most important point is that student writers need to be understood, and we
need to use all available resources to make that possible.
When I read my ELLs’ writing, I’m overwhelmed

Situation 2 by the many issues I could address.
It is important to focus on the content and organization of ELL students’

writing when reading it and when teaching writing. Surface features, such as
spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often much easier to notice and
teach to, but if students’ writing lacks clear organization, has confusing
vocabulary, or lacks details, then these are the features that need to be the

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
focus of instruction. At the same time, however, it is also important to

teach ELLs about grammar and mechanics through carefully selected
teaching points. When selecting these teaching points, it is helpful to focus
on the following:
c Items that cause confusion (for example, mixing up pronouns and verb
tenses; misusing vocabulary).
c Items that occur frequently in students’ writing.
The following strategies focus on helping students organize their writing.
Targeted Strategy 1: Teach how to cut and paste.

Many students do not realize that writers revise their writing. Sometimes
students simply do not know how to revise, and may think that revising is the
same as rewriting, which is a very tedious process. We have found it very
helpful to teach students how to cut and paste.
1. Display a short text that is very disorganized on an overhead projector
or chart paper. The text can be a piece that you have written for this
purpose or a piece written by an anonymous student (preferably someone
who is not in this class and could not be identified by the text).
2. Explain that the text is very disorganized, which makes it hard to follow
and understand.
3. Explain that you are going to reorganize the text, and think aloud as you
do it so they can better understand your thinking.
4. As you read the text aloud, give each sentence and sentence fragment an
appropriate label (for example, “This sentence is about how whales are
mammals. This next sentence is about what they eat. This next sentence
is once again about them being mammals”).
5. Then cut up the text and rearrange the sentences and parts of sentences
so students can see and hear what you are doing (for example, “These
two sentences are both about whales being mammals, so they need to
go together”).
6. Students go through the same procedure with their own writing.
7. The students discuss what they learned from doing the activity (“I need
to make sure I keep sentences with the same idea together”), and what
they noticed about their own work from doing this activity (“I wrote
some sentences that say the same thing”).
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8. Even if students compose on the computer, it is still very helpful for

them to run off copies of their pieces and go through the cutting and
pasting process detailed here.
Alternative: Use colored highlighters.
Students can use colored highlighters to identify text that shares a common
theme. In the above example, sentences or parts of sentences about whales

being mammals could be circled or highlighted in blue, and sentences or
parts of sentences that were about what whales eat could be in pink.
Alternative: Use numbers and letters.
Some students do better when they use letters and/or numbers to organize
their writing. For example, the sentences or parts of sentences that were
about whales being mammals could be labeled A or I and sentences or parts
of sentences that were about what whales eat could be labeled B or II.
Targeted Strategy 2: Use headings and subheadings.

Student don’t always know that headings and subheadings in nonfiction texts
serve a very valuable purpose for readers—they help us make our way through.
They also help writers organize their thoughts, deciding where headings go
and what they should be labeled.
1. Put together a packet of pieces of writing that do a good job of using
headings and subheadings. Magazine articles and nonfiction picture
books are often a good source. Well-organized student writing is another
good source.
2. Explain to students that they will be learning about headings and
subheadings because they help writers make sure their writing is
well organized.
3. Using an overhead or opaque projector, demonstrate what you notice
about headings in one of the pieces. Make just a couple of comments, so
students can find others on their own.
4. Students work either alone or in pairs, jotting down all they can about
headings and subheadings.
5. The whole group or class shares insights in a discussion format, and the
teacher records students’ insights on chart paper. This chart can become
a resource for students. Teachers sometimes redo the chart so that related
points are grouped together; samples and/or references to known texts
can also be added so students have easy access to additional resources.

1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
6. Ask students to recap what they have learned.

7. Students spend time on their own pieces of nonfiction writing,
figuring out where and what headings and subheadings are needed,
and generating names for them.
I can’t understand what my ELL student
Situation 3 has written because of the spelling.
Research shows that ELL students’ invented spellings aren’t random, but are
evidence of hypothesis generating and hypothesis testing (Edelsky, 1986).
Even in languages that have a lot in common, such as English and Spanish,
letter-sound correspondences in the L1 and L2 are sometimes markedly
different. Since ELL students who are moving into English tend to use their
knowledge of the orthography of their native language when writing in
English, it is inevitable that their early messages reflect their knowledge of
their native language. As students become increasingly knowledgeable about
English orthography, English phonics generalizations tend to inform their
invented spellings in English. General strategies that help ELLs become
familiar with and internalize English spelling patterns include shared reading
(pages 159–160) and interactive writing (pages 253–256).
Instead of giving students lists of spelling words to memorize (and to be
tested on), it is much more effective to teach them spelling strategies. Like
native-English-speaking students, ELLs benefit from being taught specific
spelling strategies that are grounded in and informed by their own writing.
That is, rather than randomly choosing a spelling strategy to teach, it is best
to analyze a student’s spelling needs and then select a focus for instruction.6
6
There are many excellent resources available that focus explicitly on teaching spelling strategies,
including Words Their Way: Word Study for Spelling, Phonics, and Vocabulary Instruction Resource Book
(Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2007), Ideas for Spelling (Bolton & Snowball, 1993), and
Word Crafting: Teaching Spelling, Grades K–6 (Marten, 2003).
272
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Appendices
Appendix A: Booksellers and Distributors of Books About Diverse Cultures
and Books Written in Languages Other Than English
Appendix B: Books About Diverse Cultures
Appendix C: Cultural Differences in Student Behavior
Appendix D: Selected Wordless Picture Books
Appendix E: Picture/Visual Dictionaries
Appendix F: Pronunciation Web Sites
Appendix G: Guidelines for Developing Cloze Activities
Appendix H: The Cloze Text Without Deletions
Appendix I: Example of a Cloze Text With Every Five Words Deleted
Appendix J: Example of a Cloze Text With Every Ten Words Deleted
Appendix K: Example of a Selected Feature Cloze Text: Past-Tense Verbs
Appendix L: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry Touchstone Texts
Appendix M: Picture Books to Help Spark Students’ Memories
Appendix N: Types of Written Reflection in the Classroom
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Appendix A
Booksellers and Distributors of Books About
Diverse Cultures and Books Written in Languages
Other Than English
AACP, Inc (Asian American Curriculum Project, Inc.)

529 East 3rd Ave., San Mateo, CA 94401
Tel: (650) 375-8286 or (800) 874-2242
Fax: (650) 375-8797
Web: www.asianamericanbooks.com
This is a not-for-profit dedicated to educating the public about Asian American experiences
and fostering cultural pride among Asian Americans. Sells books by and about Asian
Americans, including Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Hmong, Iu Mien, Japanese,
Korean, Laotian, Samoan, South Asian, Tongan, and Vietnamese Americans.
Arkipelago
1010 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: (415) 553-8185
Fax: (415) 553-8176
Web: www.arkipelagobooks.com
Arkipelago sells books by Filipino and Filipino American authors, recordings, and other
heritage materials.
AWAIR (Arab World and Islamic Resources & School Services)

P.O. Box 174, Abiquiu, NM 87510
Tel/Fax: (505) 685-4533 (book orders) and 510-704-0517 (workshops)
E-mail: awair@igc.org (Audrey Shabbas) requests@AWAIRonline.org (Books and Materials)
Web: www.awaironline.org
This not-for-profit organization was founded by Audrey Shabbas. It is devoted to fostering
an understanding of the Arab world and Islam. AWAIR distributes books, videos, and
instructional materials for teachers and students from kindergarten to college. It also offers
fully funded staff development.
Children’s Book Press

965 Mission St. Suite 425, San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: (415) 543-2665 or 866-935-2665 (toll free)
Fax: (415) 543-3394
Web: www.childrensbookpress.org
This not-for-profit publishes award-winning multicultural and bilingual picture books and is
dedicated to fostering emerging authors and illustrators from underrepresented communities.
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East West Discovery Press

P.O. Box 3585, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Tel: 310-545-3730
Fax: 310-545-3731
E-mail: info@eastwestdiscovery.com
Web: www.eastwestdiscovery.com
This is a small independent publisher and distributor of multicultural and bilingual books,
which are available in more than 40 languages, including English and Arabic, Hmong,
Navajo, Punjabi, and Tagalog.
Oyate
2702 Mathews St., Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: (510) 848-6700
Fax: (510) 848-4815
E-mail: oyate@oyate.org
Web: www.oyate.org
Oyate distributes children’s, young adult, and teacher books and materials by and about
Native people. Oyate also reviews books and curricula with Indian themes and offers
workshops and institutes. They have a small resource center and reference library.
Shen’s Books and Supplies

1547 Palos Verdes Mall, #291, Walnut Creek, CA 94597
Tel: (800) 456-6660 or 925-262-8108
Fax: (888) 269-9092
Web: www.shens.com
This company distributes books in English about world cultures and languages, books
in languages other than English, and books written by American authors from diverse
cultural backgrounds. Asian cultures and languages are a focus of the company.
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Appendix B
Books About Diverse Cultures*
Picture Books
Fiction
Ada, Alma Flor. (2002). I love Saturdays y Domingos. New York: Aladdin.
Told in both Spanish and English, this story introduces readers to the special
relationships a young child has with her Mexican American and European
American grandparents.
Ada, Alma Flor, & Campoy, F. Isabel. (1999). Blue and green. Miami: Santillana.
This story uses works of art by Latino artists to teach about the days of the week
and the seasons of the year. Also in Spanish (Azul y verde).
Altman, Linda J. (1993). Amelia’s road. New York: Lee and Low Books.
A young Mexican American girl, the daughter of migrant farmworkers, longs for a
place she can call home. When she finds a special place, she also discovers a way to
keep memories alive.
Bunting, Eve. (1997). A day’s work. New York: Clarion.
A family of day laborers from Mexico works together to make a living.
Bunting, Eve. (1998). Going home. New York: HarperTrophy.
A Mexican migrant family returns to Mexico at Christmas to visit family.
Bunting, Eve. (1999). A picnic in October. New York: Harcourt.
An Italian American family takes a ferry for a celebratory picnic on Liberty Island,
from which they can see the Statue of Liberty.
Cheng, Andrea. (2000). Grandfather counts. New York: Lee and Low Books.
Helen is unable to communicate with her Chinese immigrant grandfather, Gong
Gong, but through teaching each other how to count train cars in their respective
languages, they develop an intergenerational bond.
Chiemruom, Sothea. (1994). Dara’s Cambodian New Year. New York: Aladdin.
A young Cambodian boy helps his grandfather, who misses his home country.
Choi, Sook-Nyul. (1993). Halmoni and the picnic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
This book tells the story of Yunmi, a young Korean American girl living in New York
and her Korean immigrant grandmother, Halmoni.
Choi, Sook-Nyul. (1997). Yunmi and Halmoni’s trip. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Yunmi accompanies her grandmother, Halmoni, to Korea, where Halmoni was born.
Yunmi enjoys her visit, but is concerned that her grandmother will stay in Korea.
Choi, Yangsook. (2001). The name jar. New York: Dell Dragonfly Books.
This story shows the struggles Unhei faces after she moves from Korea to the U.S.
Cisneros, Sandra. (1984, 1994). Hairs/Pelitos. New York: Dragonfly Books.
In this story, which originally appeared in The House on Mango Street, a child describes
the different kinds of hair people in her family have and how the smell of her mother’s
hair makes her feel safe.
* We appreciate the assistance of Jill Berg, Jen Myers, Rachel Rothman, and Kelly Shulman, who put
together bibliographies with Katharine. Some of their entries are included here.
285
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Crews, Donald. (1992). Shortcut. New York: Greenwillow Books.

Some children decide to take a shortcut on their way home. The shortcut follows a
railroad track, and they almost get hit by a train.
Dooley, Norah. (1995). Everybody cooks rice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Carrie goes in search of her little brother at dinnertime. She’s invited to share some of
the meal in each neighbor’s house, where rice is being cooked differently, according to
the culture of the family.
Dooley, Norah. (2000). Everybody serves soup. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books.
Carrie earns money to buy her mother a Christmas present by shoveling snow. She eats
with neighborhood families. Each family is eating a soup that is special to their culture.
English, Karen. (1999). Nadia’s hands. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
A Pakistani American girl is nervous about being asked to be in her aunt’s traditional
Pakistani wedding.
Friedman, Ina R. (1984). How my parents learned to eat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
A child narrates how her Japanese mother and American father learned how to eat
using unfamiliar utensils, thereby fitting into each other’s cultures.
Garland, Sherry. (1998). My father’s boat. New York: Scholastic.
A Vietnamese refugee fisherman living in Texas longs for his home.
Gibson, Toyomi. (1996). The two Mrs. Gibsons. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
A young girl describes her experiences with her African American grandmother and
Japanese mother.
Heide, Florence Parry, & Gilliland, Judith Heide. (1992). Sami and the time of the troubles.
The authors write about a young boy in war-torn Lebanon.
Hess, Amy. (1997). When Jessie came across the sea. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
A 13-year-old Jewish girl leaves Europe with her grandmother. She arrives alone
in New York City, where she sews lace and saves enough money to bring her
grandmother to the United States.
Jiménez, Francisco. (1998). La mariposa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
A migrant boy attends school for the first time. Despite the fact that he speaks only
Spanish, he adjusts well.
Krishnaswami, Uma. (2003). Chachaji’s cup. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
A special cup brought from India is a prominent symbol in this story of intergenerational
love. The cup helps a young boy learn about his family history and the history of India.
Krishnaswami, Uma. (2006). The closet ghosts. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
The story of a little girl’s experience moving into a new house that is haunted with
ghosts. Hanuman (an Indian god) helps her get rid of the ghosts.
Kurtz, Jane, & Kurtz, Christopher. (1997). Only a pigeon. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ondu-ahlem, a young boy who lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raises pigeons.
Kyunchukov, Hristo. (2004). My name was Hussein. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
The story of a young Roma boy living in Bulgaria.
Lee, Milly. (1997). Nim and the war effort. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
During World War II, a young Chinese American girl is determined to win a
newspaper-collecting competition for the “war effort” in order to prove she’s American.
McKay, Jr., Lawrence. (1998). Journey home. New York: Lee and Low Books.
Mai is of Anglo Vietnamese heritage, and she accompanies her mother to Vietnam to
find her mother’s birth family.
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Miller, Elizabeth I. (1999). Just like home/Como en mi tierra. New York: Albert
Whitman & Co.
This book tells about a young girl’s first impressions of the United States. Written in
Spanish and English, the text uses a repetitive pattern of alternating observations
(“Just like home” and “Not like home”).
Mora, Pat. (1999). The rainbow tulip. New York: Puffin Books.
A young Mexican American girl describes her experiences and expresses her feelings
about speaking Spanish and having a home life that is very different from her
school life.
Pak, Soyung, & Hartung, Susan Kathleen. (1999). Dear Juno. New York: Viking.
A boy corresponds with his grandmother in Korea, even though they don’t share a
common language. They learn about each other through drawings, photos, and
other artifacts.
Pérez, Amanda Irma. (2000). My very own room/Mi propio cuartito. San Francisco: Children’s
Book Press.
A Spanish/English bilingual book about the author’s wish for a room of her own as a
young girl.
Polacco, Patricia. (1988). The keeping quilt. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Over several generations, a quilt plays a special role in the life of a Jewish immigrant
family. This story is based on the author’s life.
Rattigan, Jama Kim. (1993). Dumpling soup. New York: Little, Brown Young Readers.
This picture book is set in Hawaii on New Year’s Eve and is told from the perspective
of Marisa, a 7-year-old girl in a multiracial family.
Recorvits, Helen. (2003). My name is Yoon. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
An immigrant child from Korea prefers her name when it is written in Korean.
Ringgold, Faith. (1991). Tar beach. New York: Crown Publishers.
A young girl dreams of flying above her Harlem home, claiming all she sees for herself
and her family. Based on the author’s quilt painting of the same name.
Rodríguez, Luis. (1998). América is her name. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press.
América, a young immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico, lives with her family in Chicago.
She feels out of place and is referred to as an illegal immigrant, even by her teacher.
Poetry is her salvation. (Also available in Spanish.)
Say, Allen. (1999). Tea with milk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
May’s parents return to Japan after living in the United States, where they always felt
like foreigners. In Japan, it is May who feels like a foreigner.
Schanzer, Rosalyn. (2000). Escaping to America: A true story. New York: HarperCollins.
In the early twentieth century, a family of Polish Jews comes to a new country.
Shea, Pegi Deitz. (1995). The whispering cloth. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
A Hmong child is living in a refugee camp.
Soto, Gary. (1993). Too many tamales. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
A little girl loses her mom’s wedding ring while making tamales on Christmas Day.
She asks her cousins to help her search for the missing ring.
Soto, Gary. (1997). Snapshots from the wedding. New York: Penguin Group.
The flower girl in a Mexican American wedding describes the day’s events.
Surat, Michele Maria. (1989). Angel child, dragon child. New York: Scholastic.
Vietnamese immigrants encounter racism as they adjust to life in the United States.
Appendix B 287
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Suyenaga, Ruth. (1992). Korean Children’s Day. Cleveland, OH: Modern Curriculum
Press.
Young Soo Newton, the adopted son of a European American family, introduces his
friend to Korean culture through a local Korean Children’s Day celebration.
Trân Khánh Tuyêt. (1986). The little weaver of Thai-Yen village (rev. ed.). San Francisco:
Children’s Book Press.
A young Vietnamese girl is injured in a bombing raid and comes to America for
treatment of her injuries.
Wells, Rosemary. (2001). Yoko’s paper cranes. New York: Hyperion Books for Children.
Yoko lives in the United States, far away from her grandmother in Japan. For her
grandmother’s birthday, Yoko makes a gift of origami cranes and sends them to Japan.
Wong, Janet S. (2000). The trip back home. New York: Harcourt Children’s Books.
A young girl and her mother visit their land of birth.
Woodruff, Elvira. (1999). The memory coat. New York: Scholastic.
After a pogrom, two cousins leave their Russian shtetl with their families. They
travel to the United States, where they have to pass through the inspection station
at Ellis Island.
Yin. (2001). Coolies. New York: Philomel.
Chinese immigrants help build the Transcontinental Railroad across the western
United States.
Yolen, Jane. (1997). Miz Berlin walks. New York: Puffin Books.
A little girl gets to know her neighbor, Miz Berlin, through their daily walks.
Nonfiction
Ancona, George. (1998). Barrio: José’s neighborhood/El barrio de José. New York: Harcourt.
Ancona uses text and colored photos to describe the life, experiences, culture, and
neighborhood of an 8-year-old Latino boy, José Luis, who lives in the Mission
District of San Francisco.
Badt, Karin Luisa. (1994). On your feet! New York: Children’s Press.
All kinds of foot coverings, from across the ages and around the world, are shown in
photographs, accompanied by text.
Beeler, Selby B. (1998). Throw your tooth on the roof: Tooth traditions from around the world.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Short accounts of what happens to children’s teeth after they have fallen out. Written
from the perspective of children from all over the world.
Bode, Janet. (1991). New kids in town: Oral histories of immigrant teens. New York:
Scholastic.
Teens share their stories of emigrating to the United States and settling into new
communities.
Bridges, Shirin Yim. (2002). Ruby’s wish. New York: Scholastic.
The story of the author’s grandmother, who became one of the first female students
to attend university in China.
Brittan, Dolly. (1998). The Hmong. New York: PowerKids Press.
This is one of several books in the series Celebrating the People and Civilizations of
Southeast Asia.
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Cech, John. (1991). My grandmother’s journey. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Cech relates the life experiences of a young woman who eventually succeeds in
emigrating from Russia to the United States with her husband and baby in the
aftermath of World War II.
Cha, Dia. (1996). Dia’s story cloth. New York: Lee and Low Books.
This book tells the history of the Hmong, an ethnic group from the mountains of Laos.
It is illustrated with traditional story cloths.
Chin, Steven A. (1993). When justice failed: The Fred Korematsu story. New York: Steck-Vaughn.
About Fred Korematsu, a young Japanese American who challenged his arrest and the
treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Dorros, Arthur. (1998). This is my house. New York: Scholastic.
Drawings of houses from around the world accompany short texts in English and the
official language of the country.
Fanelli, Sara. (1995). My map book. New York: HarperCollins.
This is a collection of labeled, hand-drawn maps of real and imagined places, such as
the young author’s family, day, tummy, playground, bedroom, colors, and school.
Freedman, Russell. (1980). Immigrant kids. New York: Dutton Juvenile.
This picture book with photos explores the lives of young immigrants living in urban
areas in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Garza, Carmen Lomas. (2000). In my family/En mi familia. San Francisco: Children’s Book
Press.
A bilingual text and illustrations provide insights into the author’s childhood in a
Mexican American community in Texas.
Garza, Carmen Lomas. (2005). Family pictures/Cuadros de familia. San Francisco: Children’s
Book Press.
Detailed pictures of scenes from the author’s life growing up in a Mexican American
community in Texas illustrate the bilingual text.
Gordon, Ginger. (1993). My two worlds. New York: Clarion.
Color photographs and text show how a young girl prepares for and goes on a visit with
her big sister to their hometown in the Dominican Republic.
Hoobler, Dorothy, & Hoobler, Thomas. (1994a). The Chinese American family album. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Text and black-and-white photos tell the stories of Chinese immigrants to the United
States through the 1980s.
Hoobler, Dorothy, & Hoobler, Thomas. (1994b). The Mexican American family album. New
Text and black-and-white photos tell the stories of Mexican Americans, from the
annexation of Mexican land at the end of the U.S.-Mexican War, in 1848, to movement
across the border in search of work through the 1990s.
Hoobler, Dorothy, & Hoobler, Thomas. (1995). The African American family album. New
Text and black-and-white photos tell the stories of African Americans, from 1526, when
the first Africans arrived as slaves, through the 1990s.
Huynh, Quang Nhuong. (1982). The land I lost: Adventures of a boy in Vietnam. New York:
Harper & Row.
First-person narrative about growing up in the highlands of Vietnam.
Appendix B 289
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Huynh, Quang Nhuong. (1997). Water buffalo days: Growing up in Vietnam. New York:
HarperCollins.
About the author’s childhood in Vietnam and the adventures he had with his very
special water buffalo.
Katsuyo, Howard (Ed.). (1990). Passages: An anthology of the Southeast Asian refugee experience.
San Mateo, CA: AACP Inc.
First-person accounts are divided into three sections: “Children, we must leave!”
“Living in two worlds,” and “Moving on.”
Knight, Margy Burns. (1993). Who belongs here? An American story. Gardiner, ME: Tilbury
House Publishers.
This is the story of Nary, a young refugee boy from Cambodia, who comes to the
United States.
Komatsu, Yoshio. (2004). Wonderful houses around the world. Bolinas, CA: Shelter Publications.
Vivid photographs, drawings, and short texts explore the lives of people who live in
distinctive houses in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.
Krull, Kathleen. (2003). Harvesting hope: The story of César Chávez. New York: Scholastic.
The biography of César Chávez, a Hispanic American who founded the National Farm
Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America union
(UFW).
Kubler, Annie, & Formby, Caroline (Illus.). (1995). Come home with us! Wiltshire, England:
Child’s Play.
An Oxfam book with flaps illustrates how homes around the world vary according to
the climate and other factors.
Kuklin, Susan. (1992). How my family lives in America. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Photo essays show three children with a parent who comes from another country.
(Note: The author refers to the parent from Puerto Rico as an immigrant to the
United States; however, the island is a commonwealth of the United States.)
Lankford, Mary D. (1992). Hopscotch around the world: Nineteen ways to play the game.
New York: William Morrow.
This book shows how variations of hopscotch are played around the world.
Levine, Ellen. (1994). If your name was changed at Ellis Island. New York: Scholastic.
A question-and-answer format is used to describe the experiences of immigrants who
passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1914.
McKissack, Patricia C., & McKissack, Frederick L. (1994). Christmas in the big house,
Christmas in the Quarters. New York: Scholastic.
Set in 1859 on a plantation in Virginia, this story tells how Christmas was celebrated in
the slave quarters and the slave owner’s house just prior to the Civil War.
McKissack, Patricia C., & McKissack, Frederick L. (2004). Hard labor: The first African
Americans, 1619. New York: Simon & Schuster.
This book tells the little-known story of the first Africans who came to North America
in 1619, as indentured servants.
McMahon, Patricia, & McCarthy, Conor Clarke. (2005). Just add one Chinese sister: An
adoption story. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
The story of a little girl’s adoption from China is told from the perspective of the
adoptive mother and her new little brother.
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Mochizuki, Ken. (1997). Passage to freedom: The Sugihara story. New York: Lee and Low Books.
Hiroki Sugihara tells the story of how his father, Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat
in Lithuania in 1940, helped save the lives of thousands of Polish Jews fleeing from
the Holocaust.
Mora, Pat. (1997). Tomás and the library lady/Tomás y la señora de la biblioteca. New York: Knopf.
Books allowed Tomás Rivera, a young migrant farmworker, to discover new worlds.
Rivera later became chancellor of the University of California, Riverside.
Morris, Ann. (1989). Bread, bread, bread. New York: HarperCollins.

Photographs illustrate the many forms of bread and how it is enjoyed around the world.
Morris, Ann. (1990). Loving. New York: HarperCollins.
Photographs illustrate some of the ways that love is expressed in many different
cultures, particularly the parent-child relationship.
Morris, Ann. (1995). Shoes, shoes, shoes. New York: HarperCollins.
Photos and short accompanying texts explore foot coverings.
Morris, Ann. (2002a). Grandma Esther remembers: A Jewish-American family story. Brookfield,
CT: Millbrook Press.
Pamela and Allison live in New York. They learn about their heritage from their grandma,
Esther, when she tells them how she escaped from Lithuania during World War II.
Morris, Ann. (2002b). Grandma Francisca remembers: An Hispanic-American family story.
Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press.
Angelica lives in San Francisco with her parents, siblings, and grandma, Francisca.
A native of New Mexico, Francisca shares some of her life experiences.
Morris, Ann. (2003). Grandma Hekmatt remembers: An Arab-American family story. Brookfield,
CT: Millbrook Press.
Three Arab-American sisters in New Jersey, Suzanne, Yasmine, and Sara, learn about
their cultural heritage from their grandparents, who came from Egypt.
Murphy, Nora. (1997). A Hmong family. Minneapolis: Tandem Library.
Murphy provides historical and cultural information about the Hmong, an ethnic
group from Laos, and shares the experiences of a Hmong family that comes to the U.S.
(from Journey Between Two Worlds, a series that looks at the lives of refugee families).
Paterno, Maria Elena. (1994). A first look at Philippine trees. Wiltshire, England: Bookmark.
This is one in a series of books about Philippine flora and fauna.
Paterno, Maria Elena. (1999a). A first look at Philippine birds. Wiltshire, England: Bookmark.
Paterno, Maria Elena. (1999b). A first look at Philippine fishes. Wiltshire, England: Bookmark.
Pérez, Amada Irma. (2002). My diary from here to there/Mi diario de aquí hasta allá. San
Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
The author relates her experience in immigrating with her family to the United States
from Mexico. Writing in Spanish and English, Pérez uses a diary format.
Sandler, M. W. (1995). Immigrants. New York: HarperTrophy.
Photographs and short texts describe the lives and contributions of immigrants who
came to the United States from 1870–1920. It focuses on European immigrants.
Say, Allen. (1993). Grandfather’s journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Say writes about his grandfather’s life in Japan and the United States and his
grandfather’s love for both countries.
Appendix B 291
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Sing, Rachel. (1992). Chinese New Year’s dragon. New York: Aladdin.
A young girl describes how her family celebrates Chinese New Year.
Smith, David J. (2002). If the world were a village: A book about the world’s people. Tonawanda,
NY: Kids Can Press.
Smith presents factual information on a range of global issues, including the
distribution of safe water, electricity, schooling, and food.
Stepanchuk, Carol. (2002). Exploring Chinatown: A children’s guide to Chinese culture.
Berkeley, CA: Pacific View Press.
Chapters integrate text, drawings, and photographs on a range of topics, including
Chinese food, health, math, art, and religion.
Winter, Jeanette. (2004). Calavera abecedario: A day of the dead alphabet book. San Diego, CA:
Voyager Books.
The book is based on the life of Don Pedro Linares, an artist who became famous in
Mexico for his papier-mâché art—especially his calaveras (skulls).
Wolf, Bernard. (2003). Coming to America: A Muslim family’s story. New York: Lee and
Low Books.
This is the story of the Mahmoud family, who left Egypt to live in New York City.
Woodson, Jacqueline. (2005). Show way. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
The making of “show ways,” or quilts that once served as secret maps for freedom-
seeking slaves, is a tradition passed from mother to daughter in the author’s family.
Xiong, Ia. (1996). The gift: The Hmong New Year. El Monte, CA: Pacific Asia Press.
This may be the first American picture book to be written by a Hmong writer.
Poetry and Proverbs

Adoff, Arnold. (1986). Sports pages. New York: Harper & Row
Both girls and boys are portrayed in these poems about children playing sports.
Alarcón, Francisco X. (1999). Angels ride bikes. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
The renowned Mexican American poet revisits and celebrates his childhood memories
of Los Angeles in this collection of bilingual poems.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. (1991). Children coming home. Chicago: The David Company.
Poignant poems about the lives of children.
Gonzalez, Ralfka, & Ruiz, Ana. (1995). My first book of proverbs/Mi primer libro de dichos.
San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
Mexican American proverbs/dichos are presented in both Spanish and English.
Greenfield, Eloise. (1991). Night on Neighborhood Street. New York: Penguin Books.
The poems explore life on one street in the evening.
Grimes, Nikki. (1994). Meet Danitra Brown. New York: William Morrow & Company.
About friendship in an inner-city community in the U.S.
Grimes, Nikki. (2002). My man Blue. New York: Puffin.
About Damon and his very special friendship with Blue, an old friend of
Damon’s mother.
Grimes, Nikki. (2006). Thanks a million. New York: HarperCollins.
These 16 poems vary in form.
Grimes, Nikki, & Young, Ed (Illus.). (2004). Tai chi morning. Peru, IL: Carus Publishing
Company.
Poems about the author’s visit to China.
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Gunning, Monica. (2004). America, my new home. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
Gunning writes poems about a young Jamaican girl’s immigrant experiences.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett (Ed.). (1992). Through our eyes: Poems and pictures about growing up.
New York: Little, Brown.
This collection of 16 poems by various poets—many from underrepresented groups—
describes childhood.
Johnston, Tony. (1996). My Mexico/México mío. New York: Penguin Putnam Books.
A collection of poems in English and Spanish about life in Mexico.

Medina, Tony. (2002). Love to Langston. New York: Lee & Low Books.
This biography tells the story of Langston Hughes in a series of poems.
Mora, Pat. (1994). My own true name: New and selected poems for young adults. Houston, TX:
Piñata Books.
A collection of poems whose guiding metaphor is the cactus plant.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. (1994, 2002). 19 varieties of gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. New York:
HarperCollins.
Poems about Palestine, life in Palestine, and being Palestinian.
Nye, Naomi Shihab (Ed.). (1998). The flag of childhood: Poems from the Middle East. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
A collection of poems about the lives of children, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Paschen, Elise (Ed.). (2005). Poetry speaks to children. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Inc.
This poetry anthology includes a wide range of poems, historically, poetically, and
visually. There are 95 poems from 73 poets. Fifty-two of the poems are on an
accompanying audio CD.
Roessel, David, & Rampersad, Arnold (Eds.). (2006). Langston Hughes: Poetry for young
people. New York: Sterling Publishing Co.
This anthology is an introduction to poetry by Langston Hughes. The 26 poems offer
a glimpse into the racial and social history of American culture.
Thomas, Joyce Carol. (1993). Brown honey in broomwheat tea. New York: HarperCollins.
Poems about the lives and traditions of a young African American girl and her family.
Thomas, Joyce Carol. (1998). I have heard of a land. New York: HarperCollins.
Set in the 1880s, this is the story of an African American family who were once slaves
and are now settling in the Oklahoma territory.
Diaries
Lasky, Kathryn. (2003). A journey to the new world: The diary of Remember Patience Whipple.
Twelve-year-old Mem and her family travel on the Mayflower in 1620. This book
recounts their experiences during their first year in the New World.
Moss, Marissa. (2000). Hannah’s journal: The story of an immigrant girl. San Diego: Harcourt.
A Jewish girl emigrating from Lithuania to the U.S. in the early 1900s keeps a journal.
Pérez, Amanda Irma. (2002). My diary from here to there/My diario de aquí hasta allá. San
A Spanish/English bilingual book about the author’s childhood immigration to the
U.S. from Mexico.
Appendix B 293
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Longer Memoirs, Novels, and Short Novels

Alvarez, Julia. (2001). How Tía Lola came to visit/stay. New York: Random House.
Miguel lives in Vermont and isn’t sure if he wants his aunt from the Dominican
Republic to stay, but eventually changes his mind.
Bagdasarian, Adam. (2000). The forgotten fire. New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing.
Written by the grandnephew of a survivor of the 1915 Armenian genocide, this book
describes the events that led to the deaths of more than one and a half million
Armenians living in Turkey.
Barakat, Ibtisam. (2007). Tasting the sky: A Palestinian childhood. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux.
About the impact of the Six-Day War in 1967 on Palestinian children and how they
were uprooted from their homes and made refugees. A memoir from the author’s life.
Canales, Viola. (2005). The tequila worm. New York: Random House.
Stories from the barrio told by Sofia, a spirited young girl.
Crew, Linda. (1989). Children of the river. New York: Delacorte.
Teenager Sundara flees Cambodia with family members in 1975, endures enormous
hardships on a refugee boat, and settles in Oregon. There, she encounters both
prejudice and love.
Ellis, Deborah. (2000). The breadwinner. Toronto, Canada: Greenwood Books/Douglas &
McIntyre.
In Afghanistan, with the Taliban in power, a young girl dresses as a boy in order to
support her family.
Estes, Eleanor. (1944). The hundred dresses. New York: Harcourt.
This short novel is about a Polish American girl who is teased by other girls in her class.
Giff, Patricia Reilly. (2000). Nory Ryan’s song. New York: Delacorte.
Set in 1845 on the west coast of Ireland, this book explains how the potato famine and
British land removal led to the deaths and emigration of millions of Irish.
Hansen, Joyce. (1994). The captive. New York: Scholastic.
Kofi, the son of an African chief, is kidnapped twice and sold into slavery. His story is
set in Africa and Boston.
Ho, Minfong. (1990). Rice without rain. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books.
This novel is set in rural Thailand and tells of the efforts of university students to
remedy the results of government inaction and lack of attention to the poor during
a drought.
Ho, Minfong. (1991). The clay marble. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Twelve-year-old Dara and her family flee their home in Cambodia. The setting is a
refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980.
Ho, Minfong. (2003). The stone goddess. London: Orchard Books.
In Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era, a young girl named Nakri survives life in
a forced labor camp. She finds her way to a refugee camp and then comes to the U.S.
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, & Houston, James D. (1973). Farewell to Manzanar. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
A first-person account of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Novel length, and told from the perspective of the author when she was a young girl.
Jiménez, Francisco. (1997). The circuit/Cajas de carton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
This is a collection of largely autobiographical stories told by a young migrant boy.
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Jiménez, Francisco. (2001). Breaking through. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

In this sequel to The Circuit, the narrator is a teenage migrant boy who succeeds in
school due to hard work and personal resilience, family love and support, and some
help from others.
Lawlor, Laurie. (1998). Voyage to a free land: 1630. New York: Aladdin.
Hannah and her family set sail from London in 1630. After a series of adventures, they
finally arrive in America and settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (From the
American Sisters series.)

Lester, Julius. (2005). Day of tears. New York: Hyperion Books for Children.
This novel in dialogue tells of the largest slave auction held in North America and the
terrible human cost resulting from it.
Lord, Betty Bao. (1984). In the year of the boar and Jackie Robinson. New York: Harper & Row.
A young girl is initiated into life in the United States through baseball.
Lowry, Lois. (1989). Number the stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
During the German occupation of Denmark during World War II, Jewish people are
smuggled to safety in Sweden.
Na, An. A step from heaven. Asheville, NC: Front Street.
A Korean girl, Young Ju, tell of her experiences with her immigrant family from the
time she was 4 until she goes to college.
Newth, Mette. (1989). The abduction. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
In the seventeenth century, Inuit in Greenland are enslaved and taken to Norway.
Park, Linda Sue. (2000). The kite fighters. New York: Random House.
A historical novel set in Seoul, Korea, about two brothers who are preparing for a
traditional New Year’s kite competition.
Park, Linda Sue. (2002). When my name was Keoko. New York: Random House.
About the occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II. Told from the
perspective of a young girl.
Ryan, Pam Muñoz. (2000). Esperanza rising. New York: Scholastic.
When Esperanza and her family fall on hard times during the Great Depression, they
go to California, where they are hired as farm workers.
Shaw, Janet. (1986). Kirsten learns a lesson. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company Publications.
Kirsten, an immigrant girl from Sweden, has a secret friendship with a Native
American girl. The setting is the late 1880s.
Uchida, Yoshiko. (1971). Journey to Topaz. New York: Scribner.
In these two books (Journey to Topaz and Journey Home), Uchida writes about the
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and their return to their homes.
Uchida, Yoshiko. (1978). Journey home. New York: Margaret K. McElderry.
See previous entry.
Yep, Laurence. (1975). Dragonwings. New York: Harper & Row.
In the early 1900s, Moon Shadow is sent from China to join his father, Windrider,
who makes his living doing laundry, but dreams of flying a plane.
Yep, Laurence. (1993). Dragon’s gate. New York: HarperCollins.
Fourteen-year-old Otter is sent to California from China in 1867, where he joins his
father and uncle in building a tunnel for the Transcontinental Railroad through the
Sierra Nevada mountains.
Appendix B 295
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Appendix C
Cultural Differences in Student Behavior *
Perceived Behavior Possible Cultural Explanation
The student avoids eye contact. Keeping eyes downcast may be a way of showing respect. In
some cultures, direct eye contact with a teacher is considered
disrespectful and a challenge to the teacher’s authority.
The student tends to smile when A smile may be a gesture of respect that children are taught
disagreeing with what is being said or when to employ to avoid giving offense in difficult situations.
being reprimanded.
The student shrinks from or responds There may be taboos on certain types of physical contact.
poorly to apparently inoffensive forms of Buddhists, for instance, regard the head and shoulders as sacred
physical contact or proximity. and would consider it impolite to ruffle a child’s hair or give
a reassuring pat on the shoulder. There are also significant
differences among cultures with respect to people’s sense of
what is considered an appropriate amount of personal space.
The student appears to be overtly In many cultures it is not uncommon for friends (girls and/or
affectionate with other students. boys) to link arms, hold hands, or greet each other with a hug
or kiss on the cheek.
The student refuses to eat with peers. Some students may be unaccustomed to eating with anyone
but members of their own family.
The student refuses to eat certain kinds of Many religions have food taboos and fasting periods. Young
foods or doesn’t eat at all at certain periods. children are often exempt from fasting, but many choose
to participate.
The student does not participate actively in Cooperative group work is never used by teachers in some
group work or collaborate readily with cultures. Students may thus view sharing as “giving away
peers on cooperative assignments. knowledge” and may see no distinction between legitimate
collaboration and cheating.
The student displays uneasiness, expresses Schooling in some cultures involves a strict formality. For
disapproval, or even misbehaves in informal students who are used to this, an informal classroom
learning situations or situations involving atmosphere may seem chaotic and undemanding, while
open-ended learning processes teachers with an informal approach may seem unprofessional.
(e.g., exploration). Such students may also be uncomfortable with process-oriented
learning activities and prefer activities that yield more tangible
and evident results.
* Based on, but modified and expanded from, the ESL Learner Web site of the Ministry of Education, Government of British
Columbia. Retrieved from www.bced.gov.bc.ca/esl/policy/learnclass.htm.
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Perceived Behavior Possible Cultural Explanation
The student talks loudly and sometimes In some classrooms around the world, students have
overlaps speech with the others in the group more freedom to speak. They’re not as closely regulated.
or class. Students talk a lot more, and they talk more loudly. What
is considered interruptive or rude behavior in many North
American classrooms would be considered task-oriented
behavior in their home country’s schools.
The student refuses to participate in Extracurricular activities may not be considered a part of
extracurricular or in various physical learning or may even, along with some physical education
education activities (e.g., swimming, skating, activities, be contrary to a student’s religious or cultural
track and field). outlook. Some students may also be required to use after-
school hours to generate income.
The student seems inattentive and does not In some cultures, the learning process involves observing
display active listening behaviors. and doing or imitating rather than listening and absorbing
(e.g., through note-taking).
Performance following instruction reveals In some cultures, expressing a lack of understanding or

that the student does not understand the asking for help from the teacher is interpreted as a
instruction, even though he/she refrained suggestion that the teacher has not been doing a good
from asking for help or further explanation. enough job of teaching and is considered impolite.
The student is unresponsive, uncooperative, Separate schooling for boys and girls is the norm in some
or even disrespectful in dealing with cultures. Likewise, in some cultures the expectations for
teachers of the other gender. males and females are quite different. The idea that females
and males should have the same opportunities for schooling
and play comparable roles as educators will therefore run
contrary to some students’ cultural conditioning.
The student appears reluctant to engage in In some cultures, it is considered inappropriate to openly
debate, speculation, argument, or other challenge another’s point of view, especially the teacher’s.
processes that involve directly challenging In other cases, there may be a high value attached to
the views and ideas of others. being prepared, knowledgeable, and correct when one
opens one’s mouth.
The student exhibits discomfort or To put oneself in the limelight for individual praise is not
embarrassment at being singled out considered appropriate in some cultures, where the group
for special attention or praise. is considered more important than the individual.
The student fails to observe the conventions Some students may be culturally predisposed to see
of silent reading. reading as essentially an oral activity and will therefore
read aloud automatically. For others reading aloud is
associated with memorization.
The student refuses to take off headwear. Many religions have prescripted headwear, such as
yarmulkes, turbans, and head scarves for boys or girls.
Appendix C 297
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Appendix D
Selected Wordless Picture Books
Anno, Mitsumasa. (1997). Anno’s journey. New York: Putnam.

A traveler begins alone, traveling across many intricately detailed scenes. One of several
wordless books by Anno, each with intricate details.
Baker, Jeannie. (1993). Window. New York: Puffin/Penguin.
A little boy grows up looking at the landscape outside his window as it changes from
forest and animals to houses and factories. The story ends with the boy, now a man,
holding up his own son to a completely different landscape. This book can inspire
discussions about the changing environment.
Bang, Molly. (1980). The grey lady and the strawberry snatcher. New York: Aladdin/Simon &
Schuster.
An intriguing story about a grey lady who buys strawberries and then must elude a
blue figure who tries to snatch them away. The book is mysterious with beautiful colors
and artistry.
Banyai, Istvan. (1995). Zoom. New York: Penguin.
Pictures zoom in or zoom out, and sometimes what you think you are seeing is actually
something else as the picture zooms out. Zoom can be read forward or backward with
different results. Istvan has done other wordless books, including the sequel, Re-zoom,
and The Other Side.
dePaola, Tomie. (1978). Pancakes for breakfast. New York: HarperCollins.
A little old lady who decides she wants pancakes for breakfast goes to a great deal of
trouble to get the ingredients.
Lehman, Barbara. (2004). The red book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
A girl in a city finds a red book about a boy on an island, who also finds a red book.
This book has a story within a story within a story.
Popov, Nikolai. (1996). Why? New York: Michael Neugebauer/North South Books.
War escalates from a simple encounter between a frog and an umbrella-wielding
mouse. This story can open up interesting discussions about the devastation of war,
but should be used exceedingly carefully with refugee students who have suffered the
traumas of war.
Rogers, Gregory. (2004). The boy, the bear, the baron, the Bard. New Milford, CT: Roaring
Brook Press.
A young boy playing soccer winds up onstage in a Shakespeare play and has subsequent
adventures in England.
Rohmann, Eric. (1997). Time flies. New York: Dragonfly Books/Crown.
A bird flies into a dinosaur museum. The dinosaur comes to life and eats the bird, but
the bird escapes when the dinosaur becomes a skeleton again.
Sis, Peter. (2007). The wall: Growing up behind the Iron Curtain. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux.
A graphic account of the author’s life growing up in Czechoslovakia under Soviet rule.
Sis has created other wordless picture books, including Beach Ball; Trucks, Trucks, Trucks;
and Dinosaur.
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Tan, Shaun. (2007). The arrival. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic.
A lone immigrant leaves his family and travels to a new world. This graphic story
depicts his struggles to understand and adjust to his new life.
Ward, Lynd. (1992). The silver pony. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Lengthier than many picture books, this book has black-and-white illustrations. The
story involves a boy who travels to far-off places on the back of a winged pony.
Weitzman, Jacquelan Priess. (2001). You can’t take a balloon into the Metropolitan Museum.
New York: Puffin/Penguin.

A little girl and her grandmother go to the Metropolitan Museum. The little girl’s
balloon, which she is not allowed to take into the museum, escapes and has several
adventures around New York City while the girl and her grandmother are looking at
the paintings in the museum.
Wiesner, David. (2006). Flotsam. Boston: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin.
A boy finds a camera, develops the film, and finds fantastical pictures of undersea
life—and also pictures of children from all over the world holding pictures of other
children. Wiesner has created other wordless picture books as well, including Tuesday
and Sector 7.
Appendix D 299
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Appendix E
Picture/Visual Dictionaries
Addison-Wesley picture dictionary. (1984). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Available in a Spanish-English edition, in addition to a monolingual English edition.
Clark, J., & Ashworth, J. (1999). Longman picture dictionary of American English. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Corbeil, J. (1986). The Facts on File visual dictionary. New York: Facts on File.
Goodman, M. (2003). Let’s learn English picture dictionary. New York: McGraw Hill.
Iosa, A. (2003). Word play: Spanish-Inglés. Carlsbad, CA: Penton Overseas.
Kauffman, D., & Apple, G. (2000). The Oxford picture dictionary for the content areas.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Merriam-Webster’s visual dictionary. (2006). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
Moran, P. (2001). Lexicarry: Pictures for learning language (3rd ed.). Brattleboro, VT:
Pro Lingua Associates.
Parnwell, E.C. (1989). The new Oxford picture dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.
In addition to a monolingual English edition, it is available in bilingual editions,
including English and Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Navajo, Polish,
Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Shapiro, N., & Adelson-Goldstein, J. (1998). The Oxford picture dictionary. New York:
Oxford University Press.
In additional to a monolingual edition in English, bilingual editions are available in
English and Spanish, Japanese, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, French, Polish,
Korean, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, and Cambodian.
Ultimate visual dictionary. (2006). New York: DK Publishing.
Ultimate visual dictionary of science. (1998). New York: DK Publishing.
Zwier, L. J. (1999). Basic English for everyday activities: A picture process dictionary. Syracuse,
NY: New Readers Press.
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Appendix F
Pronunciation Web Sites
Following are some pronunciation Web sites that we and our students have found useful.
They are classified by the specific focus of the lessons in the Web site. We tried to include
more than one site for each area of focus since Web sites are not always permanent.
However, new Web sites are being created every day, so using a search engine, such as
Google, to search on the categories below could well reap many more productive sites.
Each of the Web sites listed below was free at the time of publication. Almost all of them
have either audio or video files embedded in them, which will likely require software, such
as Real Audio, Quick Time, Flash, Shockwave, or Java. Most sites have a link to free
downloads of the software. We have noted when Web sites use British pronunciation,
but we have found that British pronunciation generally doesn’t affect understanding or
production of sounds.
General Pronunciation
www.soundsofenglish.org/tips.htm#bingo
This site includes general information about the sounds of English, tips for teachers, ideas
for lessons, and links to many different kinds of practice exercises.
www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
The best Web site we know of for listening to the sounds of American English. This site
includes audio and video files for all of the sounds of American English categorized by
manner (how the air stream is modified), place (where the sounds are articulated, for
example, tongue, teeth, hard palate), and voice (whether the vocal cords are vibrating or
not). Audio/video files include internal and external videos of sounds pronounced as a
beginning sound, medial sound, and final sound (e.g., /p/ in pot, happy, top).
www.stuff.co.uk/calcul_nd.htm
Students can click on a letter of the international phonetic alphabet to listen to an example
of that sound pronounced within a word (/Ia/, fear). Pronunciation is British English,
but this should not seriously affect learning of the sounds.
Vowels
www.soundsofenglish.org/hollys_corner/hot_potatoes/phonetics_flashcards_vowels.htm
Vowel flash cards. Students see a flash card with the phonetic symbol of a vowel and then
listen to the sound.
www.soundsofenglish.org/hollys_corner/hot_potatoes/phonetics_vowels_matching1.htm
Drop-and-drag vowel matching exercise. Listen to the vowel sound and match it to its
phonetic symbol. Students must know phonetic symbols (for example, /I/ /a/ /æ/).
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/index.shtml
Practice with long vowels. This BBC phonics Web site includes many activities for working
with long vowel sounds. Students can listen to poems and play vowel recognition
games. Older students may find this site immature, but even Dorothy’s adult ESL
students enjoy the poems and games. British English is used, but neither Dorothy nor
her students have found this to be a deterrent.
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genkienglish.net/phonicsgame5.htm
Students can play a concentration-type game in which they find matching pairs of
vowel sounds.
Consonant Clusters
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/blender/game.shtml
BBC Web site. Listen to words that begin with consonant clusters, then select the onset, or
consonant cluster, and the rime, the final sound, and blend them together.
Minimal Pairs
www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/i.htm
This site shows pictures of how to make the sound and has audio clips of minimal pairs.
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation
Students can see videos of common problematic phonemic sounds (for example, /l/ and
/r/). As the sounds are pronounced, students can see external and internal mouth and
throat views. There are also several minimal pairs listening activities.
www.fonetiks.org/shiporsheep
This site includes many minimal pair files. Students see a picture of the minimal pairs,
listen to an audio file, and choose the correct word. British English is used, but the
differences between British and North American English are insignificant to the task.
www.manythings.org/pp
This site contains many minimal pairs. Students can listen to each of the minimal pairs,
then listen to one word and select the correct minimal pair (for example, late and let).
One advantage to this site is that it includes numbers (for example, fourteen and forty),
which many students have difficulty with. In these exercises the numbers are embedded
within a sentence (for example, There were many cars on Route 14. vs. There were many
cars on Route 40.)
Word Endings
www.soundsofenglish.org/activities/ex1.htm
This site includes a list of words with typically difficult ending sounds. Students click on
the word, listen to it, type it, and check for correct spelling.
Stress
www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/suprasegmentals/index.html#explanation
This site includes audio files demonstrating syllable stress.
www.soundsofenglish.org/hollys_corner/wordstress/intro_ex1.htm
Word stress practice. Students listen to audio sound files of multisyllabic words and choose
the syllable that has the stress.
www.soundsofenglish.org/hollys_corner/wordstress/ex2.htm
Word stress crossword puzzle
Stress practice with compound nouns. Students listen to audio files and compare stress of
compound words to words with two adjective + noun phrases (for example, BLUEbird
vs. blue BIRD).
Stress practice with phrasal verbs and compound words. The only audio file is in the
instructions. Students predict word stress on phrasal verbs with prepositions and
compound words (for example, TURNoff vs. turn OFF).
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Homograph practice. Homographs are words that are spelled in the same way, but have
different pronunciations. This listening discrimination exercise helps students
distinguish between words that change stress depending upon their part of speech
(for example, PERmit, noun, and PerMIT, verb). Students listen to a word and select
whether it is a noun or verb based on the word stress.
Can/Can’t
www.soundsofenglish.org/hollys_corner/hot_potatoes/can_cloze1.htm
Students listen to 10 sentences and fill in the blank with can or can’t.
http://eleaston.com/pr/stress-quiz01.html
Students can listen to 19 sentences and choose whether they heard can or can’t in
the sentence.
Tongue Twisters
www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html
This Web site contains more than 100 tongue twisters, but there are no audio files
for them.
www.uebersetzung.at/twister
This site contains more than 2,500 tongue twisters in more than 100 different languages.
Unfortunately, there are no audio files, but ELL students may recognize some of
them in their languages and enjoy saying them.
www.elfs.com/MMz.html
The tongue twister (called “Mouth Manglers” on this Web site) are arranged by specific
consonant sounds that many ELLs have difficulty pronouncing. Students can listen to
sound files of the tongue twisters broken down into short phrases or words.
www.esl-resources.com/tonguetwisters/01.htm
Fifteen tongue twisters, each one accompanied by a photograph illustrating the tongue
twister and a listening sound file.
Appendix F 303
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Appendix G
Guidelines for Developing Cloze Activities
Cloze activities can be used for reading practice and/or for assessment purposes.
Follow these guidelines to prepare cloze activities.
1. Select or write a passage that is about 250 words long.
2. Leave the first and last sentences intact.
3. Beginning with the second sentence, delete every fifth (or seventh or tenth) word
throughout the passage. (Remember to leave the last sentence intact.)
4. Replace the deleted words with a blank space that is about 1 to 11⁄2 inches long.
Each blank space should be the same length. If punctuation marks are the focus,
the blanks can be much shorter.
5. If a word to be deleted is a number, skip to the next word and delete that word.
• It is possible that more than one word may go in a space, and students should be
encouraged to think of alternatives, while maintaining the meaning of the passage.
• Students completing a cloze should not work under a time limit. Instead, they should
be encouraged to complete it thoughtfully.
• It can be very useful for students to work together in pairs or triads. However,
partnerships should be arranged carefully so all students are actively involved.
• After students have completed the cloze, it is important to go through it with them
and talk about their responses.
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Appendix H
The Cloze Text Without Deletions
A Visit to a Coastal Science Center

The class spent two days at a coastal science center, where students learned
about marine life. When the students returned from their field trip, they
unloaded their specimen bags. There were lots of shells, most of them very
small, but some impressively large. Some students had collected a variety of
pebbles and stones. Other students had quite a collection of seaweed, which
was now dry and no longer glistened as it had in the water. Inside some of the
shells, there were still fragments of the remains of shellfish.
Once their bags were empty, the students began to classify their
specimens. They sorted their shells according to color, size, and shape. One
student who knew a lot about shellfish sorted his shells according to the
shellfish family to which the shell belonged, such as mussels and clams. When
students sorted their fragments of seaweed, they often used shape to help them
categorize. For example, some were flat and wide, whereas others had bobbles
at the end. Students who sorted stones also used color, size, and shape to guide
them. Some students wanted to sort their rocks according to the type of rock,
so they borrowed a book from the library to help them. After sorting their
specimens, the class generated a list of questions about life at the seashore.
They spent the next two weeks investigating their topics.
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Appendix I
Example of a Cloze Text With Every
Five Words Deleted*
about marine life. When the students returned ——— their field trip,
they ——— their specimen bags. There ——— lots of shells, most ———
them very small, but ——— impressively large. Some students ———
collected a variety of ——— and stones. Other students ——— quite a
collection of ——— , which was now dry ——— no longer glistened as ———
had in the water. ——— some of the shells, ——— were still fragments
of ——— remains of shellfish.
Once ——— bags were empty, the ——— began to classify
their ——— . They sorted their shells ——— to color, size, and ——— .
One student who knew ——— lot about shellfish sorted ——— shells
according to the ——— family to which the ——— belonged, such as mussels
——— clams. When students sorted ——— fragments of seaweed,

they ——— used shape to help ——— categorize. For example, some ———
flat and wide, whereas ——— had bobbles at the ——— . Students who sorted
stones ——— used color, size, and ——— to guide them. Some ———
wanted to sort their ——— according to the type ——— rock, so they
borrowed ——— book from the library ——— help them. After sorting
——— specimens, the class generated ——— list of questions about ———
at the seashore. They spent the next two weeks investigating their topics.
* See Appendix H for the text without deletions.
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Appendix J
Example of a Cloze Text With Every
Ten Words Deleted*

about marine life. When the students returned from their field trip,
they ——— their specimen bags. There were lots of shells, most ——— them
very small, but some impressively large. Some students ——— collected
a variety of pebbles and stones. Other students ——— quite a collection of
seaweed, which was now dry ——— no longer glistened as it had in the water.
——— some of the shells, there were still fragments of ——— remains
of shellfish.
Once their bags were empty, the ——— began to classify their
specimens. They sorted their shells ——— to color, size, and shape. One
student who knew ——— lot about shellfish sorted his shells according to
the ——— family to which the shell belonged, such as mussels ——— clams.
When students sorted their fragments of seaweed, they ——— used shape
to help them categorize. For example, some ——— flat and wide, whereas
others had bobbles at the ——— . Students who sorted stones also used color,
size, and ——— to guide them. Some students wanted to sort their ———
according to the type of rock, so they borrowed ——— book from the library
to help them. After sorting ——— specimens, the class generated a list of
questions about ——— at the seashore. They spent the next two weeks
investigating their topics.
* See Appendix H for the text without deletions.
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Appendix K
Example of a Selected Feature Cloze Text:
Past-Tense Verbs*
about marine life. When the students ——— from their field trip, they ———
their specimen bags. There ——— lots of shells, most of them very small, but
some impressively large. Some students ——— a variety of pebbles and stones.
Other students ——— quite a collection of seaweed, which ——— now dry
and no longer ——— as it ——— in the water. Inside some of the shells, there
——— still fragments of the remains of shellfish.

Once their bags ——— empty, the students ——— to classify their
specimens. Students ——— their shells according to color, size, and shape.
One student who ——— a lot about shellfish ——— his shells according to
the shellfish family to which the shell ——— , such as mussels and clams.
When students ——— their fragments of seaweed, they often ——— shape to
help them categorize. For example, some ——— flat and wide, whereas others
——— bobbles at the end. Students who ——— stones also ——— color, size,
and shape to guide them. Some students ——— to sort their rocks according
to the type of rock, so they ——— a book from the library to help them.
After sorting their specimens, the class ——— a list of questions about life at
the seashore. They ——— the next two weeks investigating their topics.
* In this version of a cloze text, past-tense verbs have been deleted. See Appendix H for the text without
deletions.
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Appendix L
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry Touchstone Texts
Fiction
Originally appearing in The House on Mango Street, the stories in this collection are rich
in craft elements. In Hairs/Pelitos, a child describes the different kinds of hair people
have in her family and how the smell of her mother’s hair makes her feel safe.
Craft elements: written in English and Spanish; figurative language (my father’s hair is
like a broom; my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles); rhythmic language,
such as sets of three (The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that smells like bread).
Cisneros, Sandra. (1984, 1994). The house on Mango Street. New York: Random House.
Short, short stories.
Craft elements: strong voice; dialogue (used without quotation marks); sentence length
variation (including some very short paragraphs); rhythmic language; some infusion of
Spanish words; poignant themes from childhood.
One day, some children decide to take a shortcut on their way home, but it’s along a
train track, and they almost get hit by a train.
Craft elements: strong lead (creates suspense); strong ending (use of short sentences for
impact/emphasis); terrific use of punctuation; fonts (enlarged and capitalized for
emphasis); sounds (shown by emphasizing font to illustrate the train getting closer and
closer); tension; exploded moment.
Pakistani wedding.
Craft elements: infusion of Urdu words in the English text; glossary with pronunciation
guide for Urdu words; rhythmic language, such as sets of three (for example, repetition
of a phrase: She sat watching the door . . . She sat watching out the window . . . Finally, she
sat watching the big kitchen clock over the stove).
In this story of intergenerational love, a special cup brought from India features sym-
bolically and helps a young boy learn about his family history and the history of India.
Craft elements: rhythmic language, such as sets of three (using sticks and stones and blocks);
evocative and precise verbs (thundered, giggled, whispered); infusion of some non-English
words (masala chai, beta); circular story (begins with great uncle Chachaji making tea
and ends with the mom and dad making tea).
A young boy, Ondu-ahlem, lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and raises pigeons.
Craft elements: lyrical, poetic language; powerful descriptions; respectful integration of
cultural information; pictures complement and support the text very effectively; varied
sentence length very effective (The night holds many dangers. As he turns from the coop,
he stoops to look with fear at something on the ground. Footprints.); infusion of some
non-English words; glossary for pronunciation and meaning of non-English words;
author’s note about raising pigeons.
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Pilkey, D. (1999). The paperboy. New York: Orchard Books.

The story of a paperboy’s daily routine.
Craft elements: circular story; good lead (statement that includes setting and character);
good use of punctuation; descriptive language to stretch moments; rhythmic language
(use of short sentences); bumpy font for emphasis.
Ringgold, Faith. (1991). Tar beach. New York: Crown Publishers.
A young girl dreams of flying above her Harlem home, claiming all she sees for herself
and her family. Based on the author’s quilt painting of the same name.
Craft elements: strong lead; voice; historical information about labor unions and the
building of the Brooklyn Bridge is intertwined.
A little girl loses her mom’s wedding ring on Christmas day and asks her cousins to eat
all the tamales in the search for the missing ring.
Craft elements: lead that describes the setting; infusion of non-English words (for exam-
ple, masa); dialogue; internal dialogue; conventions (for example, commas in a series);
plot that uses cause-and-effect structure.
Yolen, Jane. (1987). Owl moon. New York: Scholastic.
A boy and his father go out late at night to search for owls.
Craft elements: sensory language; strong lead (powerful, interesting statement);
descriptive, poetic language; italicized words for sounds; repetitive sentence.
A little girl gets to know her neighbor, Miz Berlin, through their daily walks. Miz
Berlin tells the little girl fantastic stories from her past.
Craft elements: strong lead; sensory language; voice; character development; italicized
font for emphasis and sounds; dialogue; punctuation; circular story.
Nonfiction/Literary Nonfiction
Bridges, Shirin Yim. (2002). Ruby’s wish. New York: Scholastic.
The story of the author’s grandmother, who became one of the first female students to
attend university in China.
Craft elements: descriptive lead; strong setting; vivid language; varied punctuation;
groups of three; good use of dialogue.
Cameron, Eileen. (2002). Canyon. New York: Mikaya Press.
The author describes the making of a canyon over millions of years.
Craft elements: poetic, rich language (cascades through the rocks, slide into creeks that tumble
downhill); vivid photographs that complement the text; laid out as a slanting, non-
rhyming poem.
This collection of labeled, hand-drawn maps shows real and imagined places, such as
the young author’s family, day, stomach, playground, bedroom, colors, school.
Craft elements: child’s humorous voice; wide spectrum of map possibilities; intersection
of drawings and labels; handwritten text.
Krull, Kathleen, & Morales, Yuyi (Illus.). (2003). Harvesting hope: The story of César Chávez.
The biography of César Chávez, a Hispanic American who founded the National Farm
Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).
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Craft elements: vivid language; powerful description of setting; Spanish words

embedded in text; varied punctuation; author’s note.
Mora, Pat. (1997). Tomás and the library lady/ Tomás y la señora de la biblioteca. New
York: Knopf.
Tomás Rivera, a young migrant farm worker boy, later becomes chancellor of the
University of California, Riverside. This story describes how books allowed him to
discover new worlds.
Craft elements: descriptive lead (It was midnight. The light of the full moon followed the
tired old car.); repetition (Tomás was tired too. Hot and tired.); sound words (The wind was
howling, whooooooooo, and the leaves were blowing, whish, whish . . .); figurative language
(Its tall windows were like eyes glaring at him); infusion of Spanish words and phrases in
the English text; circular story; engaging closure (Tomás closed his eyes. He saw the
dinosaurs drinking cool water long ago. He heard the cry of the wild snakebird. He felt the
warm neck of the dinosaur as he held on tight for a bumpy ride).
Pérez, Amada I. (2002). My diary from here to there/Mi diario de aquí hasta allá. San
The author describes her feelings as a young girl when her family decides to leave
their home in Mexico to look for work in the United States.
Craft elements: written in first person; diary format; English and Spanish; strong
emotions; descriptive language; author’s note; varied punctuation.
Schaefer, Lola M. (2001). This is the rain. New York: Greenwillow Books.
Craft elements: cumulative text (This is the ocean, blue and vast, that holds the rainwater
from the past. This is the sunshine, hot and bright, that warms the ocean, blue and vast, that
holds the rainwater from the past.); poetic language; use of colored print to help in
conveying meaning; use of rhyme; rich language (ditches, creeks, seeking low ground,
absorbed); afterword about the water cycle on planet Earth.
Swinburne, Stephen R. (2005). Turtle tide: The ways of sea turtles. Honesdale, PA: Boyds
Mills Press.
This story follows a mother sea turtle and her offspring, from prenatal to life to
early death.
Craft elements: an informational book written like a story; afterword, About Sea Turtles,
and Suggested Reading provide background information; rich, poetic language (pulled
by a rich longing to come ashore; a giant yellow moon sleeping on the sea); watercolor
illustrations complement the text.
Winter, Jeanette. (2004). Calavera abecedario/A Day of the Dead alphabet book. San Diego,
CA: Voyager Books.
This ABC book is based on the life of Don Pedro Linares, an artist who became
famous all over Mexico for his papier-mâché art—especially his calaveras (skulls).
Craft elements: strong lead; infusion of Spanish words; varied text placement on the
page; groups of three; glossary of Spanish words; author’s note.
“Show ways” are quilts that once served as secret maps for freedom-seeking slaves,
and is a tradition passed from mother to daughter in the author’s family.
Craft elements: strong voice; repetitive language; varied sentence length; various uses of
fonts; powerful ending; circular storyline; intertwines historical events from African
American history.
Appendix L 311
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Poetry
Alarcón, Francisco X. (1999). Angels ride bikes. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
A bilingual collection of poems in which the renowned Mexican American poet
revisits and celebrates his childhood memories of fall in the city and growing up in
Los Angeles.
Craft elements: free verse; varied punctuation; similes; onomatopoeia; Spanish words
embedded in English poems; informational footnotes; afterword.
Grimes, Nikki. (2006). Thanks a million. New York: HarperCollins.
Sixteen poems by Nikki Grimes that vary in form. All of the poems remind us how
wonderful it is to feel thankful, and how powerful a simple “thank-you” can be.
Craft elements: haiku; free verse; rebus; riddles; metaphors; dialogue; personification;
repetitive language; rhyme; table of contents.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett (Ed.). (1992). Through our eyes: Poems and pictures about growing up.
Boston: Little, Brown.
A collection of 16 poems describing childhood written by various authors, many
from underrepresented groups. Poems are accompanied by photographs taken by
Jeffrey Dunn.
Craft elements: rhyme; free verse; repetition; varied punctuation; alliteration; descriptive
language; table of contents.
Johnston, Tony. (1996). My Mexico/México mío. New York: Penguin Putnam Books.
A collection of poems in English and Spanish about life in Mexico.
Craft elements: similes; onomatopoeia; Spanish words embedded in English poems;
circular poems; table of contents; glossary.
Paschen, Elise (Ed.). (2005). Poetry speaks to children. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.
This poetry anthology includes a wide range of poems, historically, poetically, and
visually. There are 95 poems from 73 poets. Fifty-two of the poems are found on an
accompanying audio CD. Many of the poems are read by the poets themselves, and
some include additional information, such as Langston Hughes explaining how he
wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”
Craft elements: many poetic forms and elements; information from the publisher about
the book; editor’s introduction; table of contents; index; acknowledgments page.
Rampersad, A., & Roessel, D. (Eds.). (2006). Poetry for young people: Langston Hughes.
This anthology is an introduction to poems by Langston Hughes. The 26 poems,
paired with artwork by Benny Andrews, offer a glimpse into the racial and social
history of American culture.
Craft elements: an introduction to the life of Langston Hughes; introductions to each
poem; words/ideas defined and/or explained at the bottom of the page; metaphors;
emotion; figurative language; personification; varied punctuation; free verse; repetitive
language; table of contents; index.
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Appendix M
Picture Books to Help Spark Students’ Memories
Altman, Linda J. (1993). Amelia’s road. New York: Lee and Low Books.
A young Mexican American girl, the daughter of migrant farm workers, longs for a place
she can call home. When she finds a special place, she is able to keep memories alive.
Choi, Yangsook. (2001). The name jar. New York: Dell Dragonfly Books.
This story shows the struggles Unhei faces after she moves from Korea to the U.S.
In Hairs/Pelitos, a child describes the different kinds of hair people have in her family
and how the smell of her mother’s hair makes her feel safe. This story originally
appeared in The House on Mango Street.
Cisneros, Sandra. (1984, 1994). The house on Mango Street. New York: Random House.
Short, short stories about childhood. Told from the perspective of a Spanish-speaking
bilingual child living in a city.
Crews, Donald. (1991). Big mama’s house. New York: Greenwillow Books.
This story focuses on a family and the adventures they have while spending the summer
with the grandparents.
A group of children takes a shortcut home and faces danger when they find themselves
on the railroad tracks.
dePaola, Tomie. (1973). Nana upstairs, Nana downstairs. New York: Putnam.
The poignant story of three generations of the same family who live together.
dePaola, Tomie. (1981). Now one foot, now the other. New York: Putnam.
dePaola writes about the special relationship between a young boy and his grandfather.
Pakistani wedding.
Written by a young girl, this is a collection of labeled, hand-drawn maps of real and
imagined places, such as the young author’s home, playground, bedroom, and school.
Gibson, Toyomi (1996). The two Mrs. Gibsons. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
A young girl describes her experiences with her African American grandmother and
Japanese mother.
Hoffman, Mary. (1991). Amazing Grace. New York: Dial Books.
Grace wants to play Peter Pan in the school play, but her classmates think she cannot
because she is African American and a girl.
Keats, Ezra Jack. (1962). The snowy day. New York: Puffin Books.
A young boy has adventures in the snow.
Keats, Ezra Jack. (1964). Whistle for Willie. New York: Puffin Books.
A young boy learns to whistle, but not without a great deal of hard work and some funny
adventures along the way.
In this story of intergenerational love, a special cup brought from India features symbolically.
The cup helps a young boy learn about his family history and the history of India.
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A young boy, Ondu-ahlem, lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and raises pigeons.
Kyuchukov, Hristo. (2004). My name was Hussein. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
Set in Bulgaria, a Roma (Gypsy) boy, Hussein, is a Muslim and is forced to change his
name after soldiers occupy his village. This story is based on the author’s life.
Mora, Pat. (1997). Tomás and the library lady/Tomás y la señora de la biblioteca. New York: Knopf.
The young migrant farm worker boy, Tomás Rivera, later becomes chancellor of the
University of California, Riverside. In his childhood, books (and a librarian) allowed him
to discover new worlds.
Mora, Pat. (1999). The rainbow tulip. New York: Puffin Books.
A Mexican American first grader describes her experiences with and expresses her
feelings about speaking Spanish and having a home life that is very different from her
school life.
Perez, Amada I. (2002). My diary from here to there/Mi diario de aquí hasta allá. San Francisco:
Children’s Book Press.
The author describes her feelings as a young girl when her family decides to leave its
home in Mexico to look for work in the United States.
Pilkey, Dave. (1999). The paperboy. New York: Orchard Books.
A young boy describes the daily adventure of delivering newspapers.
Polacco, Patricia. (1988). The keeping quilt. New York: Simon and Schuster.
About a Jewish immigrant family and the special role that a quilt plays in the family’s life
over several generations. Based on the author’s life, as are many of her books.
Polacco, Patricia. (1997). Thunder cake. New York: Philomel Books.
About how the author overcame her childhood fear of thunderstorms with the help of
her grandmother.
A little girl loses her mom’s wedding ring on Christmas Day while making tamales. She
asks her cousins to eat all the tamales in the search for the missing ring.
Viorst, Judith. (1971). The tenth good thing about Barney. New York: Macmillan.
After his cat dies, a little boy remembers all the good things about his pet.
Winter, Jeanette. (2004). Calavera abecedario: A Day of the Dead alphabet book. San Diego:
Voyager Books.
This ABC book is based on the life of Don Pedro Linares, an artist who became famous
all over Mexico for his papier-mâché art—especially his calaveras (skulls). It tells about the
process of making calaveras.
Winter, Jeanette. (2005). The librarian of Basra: A true story from Iraq. New York: Harcourt.
The actions of a chief librarian who, along with neighbors, saves the books in the Central
Library in Basra, Iraq, during the 2003 invasion.
The making of “show ways,” or quilts, which once served as secret maps for freedom-
seeking slaves, is a tradition passed from mother to daughter in the author’s family.
Yolen, Jane. (1987). Owl moon. New York: Scholastic.
A boy and his father go out late at night to search for owls.
A little girl gets to know her neighbor, Miz Berlin, through their daily walks. On their
walks, Miz Berlin tells the little girl fantastic stories from her past.
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Appendix N
Types of Written Reflection in the Classroom
Logs/Journals
• Subject and topic are chosen by the writer (for example, an end-of-the-day log or a
personal journal).
• Subject is selected by the teacher, but the topic is selected by the writer (for example,
a mathematics log, but writers select their topics).
• Subject and topic are selected by the teacher (for example, a social studies log in which
writers must respond to a prompt).
Dialogue Journals
• Content may be entirely open-ended or focused on a particular subject (for example, a
reading log).
• Two or more people correspond in a journal (for example, student and teacher, two stu-
dents).
Field Notes
• Writers report and reflect on events that they are studying (for example, the behavior of
an animal, family language patterns, or the literacy development of a younger student).
• Writers keep notes similar to the notes an anthropologist might keep.
Questionnaires
• Are generally focused (for example, on content and processes)
• May be followed up with a discussion/interview
315
1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Index
choral reading, 160–161, 211
A circle game, playing the, 120
accents class meetings, 20
making it difficult to understand ELLs, cloze
133–134 alphabet, 216
teasing because of, 27 definition of, 195
Actor’s Club, playing, 104–105 every ten words deleted, 307
after-school programs, enrolling students every five words deleted, 306
in, 15 guidelines, 304
alphabet modified, 256–257, 264
cloze, 216 oral, 115
playing games with letters of, 216 selected feature, 308
anger, listing appropriate ways to express, without deletions, 305
148 code-switching, 150
antidiscrimination laws, teaching about, 27 cognates, 143, 170–173
assessment, using many different forms, 42 colloquialisms, slang, and idioms, 144. see
aural language development, 135–136 also idioms, slang, and “dangerous English”
community-building activities, 20
B community expectations and school
behavioral problems, parents of ELLs practices, dissonances between
concerned about, 60 cheating, by ELLs on tests, 39–42
best-guess gathering, 222 cultural differences affecting classroom
(BICS), basic interpersonal communicative behavior, 43–44
skills, 76, 134, 140 culturally different practices of ELL
bilingual dictionaries, 97, 142–143 families, 51–53
bingo, playing irregular past-tense, 118–119 females, not graduating, 46-48
blogs and Wikis, 110 general strategies, 33-34
books home responsibilities affecting ELLs,
about different cultures, 285–295 48–50
fiction, 309–310 male students, not listening to females,
nonfiction, 310–311 44–36
picture, 313–314 mental health services, parental
poetry, 311–312 resistance to ELLs receiving, 50–51
on tape, listening to, 78 native-English-speaking students,
wordless picture, 92–93, 298–299 working in groups with ELLs, 35–39
booksellers and distributors of books about community support organizations,
diverse cultures and written in languages contacting, 15
other than English, 283–284 comprehension, students not showing
borrowed words, 143, 173 checking for understanding, 64–66
brainstorming, for writing, 125 general strategies, 63–64
bullying, 20–25 saying “yes,” but not understanding,
66–67
C students constantly saying “I don’t
understand,” 67–68
calendars, having students create, 56
concepts, ELLs not understanding
(CALP), cognitive academic language
overview, 181–182
proficiency, 76, 134, 140–141
targeted strategies, 183–189
chain game, playing the, 120–121
confirm-or-deny sentences, generating, 121
charts, 79, 80, 122–123, 174
conflict-reduction and conflict-resolution
cheating, by ELLs on tests, 39–42
programs
316
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
community-building activities, 20–25

general strategies, 19–20 E
hostility, ELLs encountering, 27–31 echo reading, 131, 163–164
involving immigrant refugee students, editing, focused, 257–258
26–27 educational norms, explaining, 47
mainstream students having difficulty ELL families, anticipated arrival of, 13–14
working with ELLs, 31–32 English, students not speaking
overview, 18-19 general strategies for encouraging
English, 87–88
conflicts in world history, studying, 27

consonant clusters, 137–138, 302 not yet a shared language, 96–99
content material, students not understanding students in country for only a few
abstract ideas or unfamiliar content, months, 88–96
79–82 English, whether parents of ELLs should
general strategies, 76–77 speak in home, 57–58
read-alouds, 77–79 ethnic groups
contracts for group projects, 37–39 including in the curriculum, 24
cooperative learning roles, language- locating resources about, 18
appropriate, 32
copyediting, collaborative, 265–266 F
copying, as opposed to producing original fact and opinion, distinguishing between,
work, 243–246 201–203
corner talks, 95–96 familiar content, beginning with, 199–200
CPR, vocabulary workshop, 167–181 family photo books, creating, 241–242
cross-age reading experience, 205 females, not graduating, 46–48
Cuisenaire rods, for language development, fiction touchstone texts, 309–310
90, 122–124 field trips, 59–60, 102
cultural ambassadors, students as, 148 forming letters, teaching students to,
cultural differences 268–269
in student behavior, 296–297 frustration, appropriate ways to express, 148
talking about, 39–40
teaching about, 44
understanding, 43
G
geopolitical issues, influence on ELLs of, 12
culturally different practices of ELL
gestures, meanings associated with, 70
families, 51–53
grammar, teaching about
in oral language, 112–121, 127–128
D in writing, 121–127, 263–266
“dangerous English,” 143–144. see also grammatical structures in English
idioms, slang, and “dangerous English” general strategies, 112–113
decoding in English, 212–217 misuse of present or present progressive
decoding words, but not understanding, tenses, 119–120
189–199 overview, 110–112
dialogue journals, 245–246, 260-261 students confusing verb tenses, 117–118
dictation, collaborative, 247–248 students having difficulty forming
dictionaries negatives, 120–121
bilingual and picture, 97, 142–143 students having difficulty forming
picture/visual, 300 questions, 121–126
directions, students not understanding students having trouble pronouncing
complex directions, 72–75 past-tense inflections, 116–117
general strategies, 69–70 students misusing pronouns, 113–115
simple directions, 70–72 students omitting plural endings,
discourse, differences in male/female, 46 115–116
discrimination, exploring, 26 students’ speech is confusing because of
drawing activities for language development, grammar, 126–128
66, 73–74, 227 graphic organizers, 80
Dyadic Belt, 235–236 group projects, contracts for, 37–39
Index 317
1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
group reading strategy instruction, 210–211 teaching ways to support ELLs, 29

grouping students, 32 male students, not listening to females,
Guided Reading instruction, 210–211 44–46
map reading activity, 74
H mechanics, teaching about in writing,
262–266
high-frequency words, instruction in, 213
mental health services, parental resistance
home responsibilities affecting ELLs, 48–50
to ELLs receiving, 50–51
homework assignments, being flexible with
minimal pairs, 136, 302
deadlines, 50
Miscue Analysis, 203–204
hostility, ELLs encountering, 27, 30
morning greeting, 98
I N
icebreakers, 20–21
national refugee and immigrant
idioms, slang, and colloquialisms, 143–144
organizations, 16–18
idioms, slang, and “dangerous English”
native-English-speaking students, working
not using idioms and slang correctly,
in groups with ELLs, 35–39
144–146
native language
offensive language, 147–149
supporting at home and in school, 58
illiterate parents of ELLs, communicating
trying to speak students’, 103
with, 55–56
using, 149–150
immigrant and national refugee
writing in, 230–231
organizations, 16–18
newcomer centers, 15
independent reading, 161–163
newcomers to English, 20
information gap activities, 93–95
nonfiction touchstone texts, 310–311
interactive writing, 263
North America, reasons why ELLs come to,
international festivals in schools, 21–22
11–12
intonation
activities for developing, 130–140
role of in pronunciation, 129 O
offensive language, 147–149
J opinions, ELLs reluctant to share, 108–110
Jeopardy game, playing, 124–125, 178–181
jigsaw activities, 75, 105–106 P
pair reading, 164, 204–205
K pair shares, 80
parallel role-plays, 46
KWLH charts, 80, 125–126
paraphrasing, 127–128
parents, communication with
L behavioral problems, parents of ELLs
language development, questionnaires to concerned about, 60–61
support, 109 general strategies, 54
language differences, talking about, 137 illiterate parents of ELLs,
Language Experience Approach (LEA), communicating with, 55–57
164–166, 205, 216–217, 231 parents not letting children go on field
laws about minors, explaining, 61 trips, 59–60
leave-taking routine, 98 parents of ELLs declining translators,
Liar’s Club, 104–105 56–57
literacy café, 236 parents of ELLs, difficulty
literature study circles (LSCs), 21, 163 communicating with, 54–55
local agencies, contacting, 18 whether parents of ELLs should speak
English in home, 57–58
M past-tense activities, 116–117
past-tense bingo, playing irregular, 118–119
mainstream students
difficulty working with ELLs, 31 patterned texts, 264
318
………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Peacemakers, conflict resolution program, shadow, 131

25 shared, 159–160, 246–247
peer partners, using, 68 reading behaviors, irregular, 208–209
photography activities, 89 reading comprehension
pictorial input charts, 79 decoding words, but not understanding,
picture books to help spark students’ 189–199
memories, 313–314 ELLs’ knowledge of English words is
picture dictionaries, 97, 142–143 limited, 167–181
picture talks, 101 ELLs not understanding concepts,

plagiarizing, 248–249 181–189
poetry, 131–132 irregular reading behaviors, 208–209
poetry touchstone texts, 311–312 read-alouds, 199–203
Positive Action Program (PAP), conflict reading skills, difficulty with higher-
resolution program, 25 level, 199–203
PowerPoint presentations, 103–104 reading/writing log, 261–262
presentations of ELLs, hard to understand, real-life projects, 104
134–135 realia, using to build understanding, 71,
previewing and summarizing or 183–184
paraphrasing, 78–79 reinforcement games, 177–181
printing before cursive, teaching, 269 religion, ELL students encountering
private time, providing, 67 hostility because of, 30
projects in which ELLs are experts, setting religious groups, contacting for support,
up, 31 28–29
pronunciation reluctant speakers
adding extra syllables or sounds, general strategies to help, 99
137–138 intermediate/advanced students who
difficulty understanding ELLs’ accents, don’t talk in class, 99–102
133–134 students who have other students speak
difficulty with particular sounds, for them, 102–105
135–136 students who talk in class only during
general strategies, 130–132 activities, 105–108
presentations of ELLs, hard to students who won’t share opinions,
understand, 134–135 108–110
Web sites, 301–303 reluctant writers
publishing students’ writing, 234–236 general strategies, 220–236
students not knowing what to write
Q about, 236–242
Resolving Conflict Creatively Program
question word chart, making a, 122–123
(RCCP), 25
questionnaires to support language
Retrospective Miscue Analysis, 203–204
development, 109
revision strategies when writing, 259–262
questions, treating with respect, 100
role-playing, 46, 107–108, 131
routines, importance of, 89
R Running Records, 203–204
racial groups, including in the curriculum,
24
read-aloud-plus, 246
S
scavenger hunts for pronunciation, 136
read-alouds
scenarios, creating, 40–41, 89–90
general strategy, 157–159
self-evaluation, opportunities for, 135
interactive, 159
shadow reading, 131
students not understanding, 77–79
shared reading, 159–160, 246–247
targeted strategies, 203–207
shared writing, 232–234
Readers’ Theatre, 205–206, 211
Silent Way, 90
reading
similar meanings, words with, 174–175
limited purposes for, 209–211
Index 319
1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
slang, colloquialisms, and idioms, 143–144.

see also idioms, slang, and “dangerous WXYZ
English” Web sites for ELLs, 139, 145–146, 172–173,
social agencies, contacting for support, 301–303
28–29 word walls, using, 214–215
sounds, showing students how to articulate, wordless picture books, 92–93, 298–299
136 writers, ELLs not improving as
speakers from community agencies, 61 students continue making the same
mistakes, 251–258
story walk-throughs, 77
stress writing not very sophisticated, 258–262
activities for language development, writing
130–140, 302–303 incomprehensible, 266–272
role of in pronunciation, 129 interactive, 263
struggling readers, 151–156 publishing students’ writing, 234–236
student-authored texts, 227–230 revision strategies, 259–262
student presentations, 31 topic generation in, 238–241
summarizing or paraphrasing and writing workshops, 220–226
previewing, 78–79 written reflection in the classroom, types
syllable pyramids, 138 of, 315
T
table talks, allowing time for, 80
Teacher/Learning Points sheet, 252–253
teasing, addressing, 28
tests, teaching students how to take, 41
think-alouds, using, 192–195, 197, 200, 204
think-pair-share, 67, 109
tolerance, setting up norms for, 22–23
topic generation in writing, 238–241
Total Physical Response (TPR), 64–65
touchstone texts, 222–223
fiction, 309–310
nonfiction, 310–311
poetry, 311–312
translators, 54–55
TRIBES, conflict resolution program, 25
U
unit of study, inquiry approach to writing
workshop, 220–226
V
Venn diagram, 80–81, 114
visual support, 97
vocabulary
development activities, 170–181
found names in words, 168–169
general strategies, 141–142
limited vocabulary problems, 142–143
mini-workshop, 167–181
320

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Teaching English Language Learners: Grades 6 & Up © Katherine Davies Samway & Dorothy Taylor, Scholastic Teaching Resources

Acquiring Editor: Lois Bridges

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 11

Chapter 2: Listening Situations 62

Students Don’t Understand Content Material 76

confused—as if they’ve stopped listening. 82

Chapter 3: Speaking Situations 85

Chapter 4: Reading Situations 151

the words. 209

Chapter 5: Writing Situations 218

My ELL Students Don’t Seem to Be Improving as Writers 251

Grammar and Mechanics 262

Influence of Geopolitical Issues

Information is the key to being prepared to help newly arrived immigrant

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 13

programs, including professional development. Also, it is important to

Why is it taking my more recent immigrant and

Targeted Strategy 1: Check into students’ backgrounds.

Targeted Strategy 2: Teach students how to “do” school.

Targeted Strategy 3: Contact community support organizations.

Targeted Strategy 4: Enroll students in after-school programs.

Targeted Strategy 5: Enroll students in newcomer centers or schools.

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 15

Which countries, languages, and

Targeted Strategy 1: Contact national organizations.

c Catholic Charities USA

c Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)

c Central Alberta Refugee Effort Committee (C. A. R. E.)

c Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)

c Cultural Orientation Resource Center (COR)

c FCJ Refugee Centre

c Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB)

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 17

c U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)

c U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Targeted Strategy 2: Contact local agencies.

Targeted Strategy 3: Locate resources about ethnic groups.

Conflicts Between Students

native-English-speaking population or among groups of ELL students. These

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 19

c Talk and read about different cultures.

Some of my newcomers are

• Our team likes (an activity). We have lots of (object used in

twice a week. Above all, soccer makes us strong. We are a very

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 21

—Draw pictures of the geographic location where they were born.

Targeted Strategy 2: Set up norms for tolerance.

c Ignore or walk away from the bully.

If You See Bullying

of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Targeted Strategy 3: Monitor high-incidence bullying areas.

Targeted Strategy 4: Prepare class for ELL students.

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 23

Targeted Strategy 5: Include diverse racial and ethnic groups

Targeted Strategy 6: Establish conflict-reduction/conflict-resolution

c Peacemakers is a set of lessons that teaches the value of peaceful behavior.

Targeted Strategy 7: Survey parents.

Chapter 1: Sociocultural Situations 25

I sometimes see conflicts between groups of

Targeted Strategy 1: Acknowledge the suffering, but distinguish

Targeted Strategy 2: Explore and compare periods of discrimination.

Targeted Strategy 3: Teach about antidiscrimination laws.

Targeted Strategy 4: Study conflicts in world history.

My ELL students are teased and/or