Resources

High school teacher Kristan Taylor shares strategies for journaling and oral history with English Learners and includes supports in the students' first language in developing these activities. 

A blog post from Judie Haynes looks at the trend of collaborative teaching and some of the concerns this has raised for ESL professionals. As the Common Core State Standards introduce the idea that every teacher should be a language teacher, more responsbility is falling on ESL teachers to step up and help content area teachers meet that goal, and the author suggests some strategies to fulfill this role.

This new paper, released April 2014 by TESOL and written by Guadalupe Valdés (Stanford), Amanda Kibler (UVA), and Aída Walqui (WestEd), builds on the previous TESOL paper on the same topic and reviews the shifting landscape of  ESL teaching with the introduction of the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

The paper discusses a the language demands of the standards, two key challenges for ESL professionals, recent examples of possible roles for ESL teachers, (re)conceptualizing language and language instruction, and supporting teachers with resources and expertise.

A summary of the TESOL International Association Convening from April 2013: Implementing the Common Core State Standards for English Learners: The Changing role of the ESL Teacher.

This document, written by Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner, provides some key takeaways from a meeting of ESL teachers, administrators, education experts, and researchers from Maryland and the District of Columbia regarding how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) will change the roles of those who teach ESL. This report first provides background on the role of the ESL teacher in the CCSS and then shares findings that arose from the convening.

Blueprint for English Language Learner Success

The New York State Department of Education has put together a short 5-page document with 8 principles that they believe will help guide educators at all levels to support ELs in achieving academic success, especially in the context of the Common Core State Standards. The blueprint addresses classroom instruction and also the implications for the school- and district-wide approach.

Share My Lesson (a collaboration of AFT and TES) hosted a series of webinars, one of which was by Kenji Hakuta called Common Core Success for English Language Learners  (recorded October 9, 2013). The webinar addresses the need to support language acquisition while simultaneously providing rigorous content-area instruction.

Orange County (CA) Department of Education Coordinator of Services for English Learners Tracey Gaglio put together an informative presentation looking at the paradgim shift for teaching, learning, and assessment that is brought about by the Common Core State Standards and how it relates to the needs of English learners.

This post from Edutopia lays out eight strategies for teaching academic language to ELs:

1. Encourage students to read diverse text
2. Introduce summary frames
3. Help students translate from academic language to social language (and back)
4. Have students complete scripts of academic routines
5. Dynamically introduce academic vocabulary
6. Help students diagram similarities and differences
7. Have students write with a transition handout
8. Teach key words for understanding standardized test prompts