Inquiry question # 2

What are good educational strategies that promote the literacy of students learning English?

First of all, teachers should know their students. We should not stamp all ELLs with the same stamp of limited language proficiency: they all have diverse backgrounds, languages, educational experiences, interests, etc. Just like native speakers, ELLs can have various levels of cognitive abilities. Oftentimes, when students struggle with schoolwork, it is attributed to limited background knowledge rather than intellectual ability.  This is why it is important to assess students' background knowledge prior to introducing  new material. Students are a lot more likely to be interested, get more engaged in a topic that they have some knowledge of rather than in something completely unfamiliar to them e.g. baseball, social problems in the US, space exploration, etc. If students turn out to have no or little background knowledge, it is teacher's task to build it, give the students some foundation for the lesson that they can add on to. New knowledge is proven to be internalized better when it is linked to students' existing knowledge. This is supported by brain-based theory of learning. This is why it is important not to underestimate the importance of background knowledge when teaching literacy to ELLs.


Another successful strategy based in many years of educational research is SIOP model - lesson planning and instructional model of sheltered instruction. Building background knowledge is one of the key eight components of the model along with preparation, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice/application, lesson delivery, and assessment.  The SIOP model suggests the following strategies that can help teachers promote literacy among ELLs. First, as the students of limited language proficiency learn the language while learning content, it is important for the teacher to identify the language demands of the content course and ensure that the language aspect of the lesson is reasonably within the students' abilities. Teachers need to make sure the students have the tool - the language - that will help them master the content. Second, teachers need to make language objectives of the lesson clear to the students. That would include stating objectives related to the key vocabulary and language structures, reading or writing skills, listening or speaking tasks. Third, educators need to emphasize the development of academic vocabulary during their lessons, as academic language proficiency takes much longer to develop than communicative proficiency, and it is a lot more important for school success. However, it takes a lot more effort on students' part to retain academic vocabulary and to use it skillfully. Unfortunately, the lanugage component often gets overlooked by educators, who often expect the students to succeed without giving them the means to reach that much needed academic success.



Echevarria, J. & Short, D. (2005). Teacher Skills to Support Language Learners.

            Educational Leadership, 62, 8-13. Retrieved February 27, 2011, from

           http://www.kckps.org/teach_learn/pdf/group2/t_l9_teacher.pdf