6 ESSENTIAL STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING ELLs

A lot of students migrate from different parts of the world to take admission in Karachi colleges, but the main issue they face is the language. Teaching ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) has always been challenging. But the challenges are worthwhile when you see that learners are succeeding. Ninis Tutors has a team of educators who are working with ELLs for a long time. Learn more. Here are a few ESOL strategies that will help you in improving the English of those who are struggling to master a second language.

ESOL STRATEGIES

1. CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS AND BE CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE

A flourishing classroom is one in which learners feel appreciated, known, and comfortable taking intellectual and emotional risks that demands consistent messaging and intentional planning by the teacher. You as a teacher should make your students embrace their language and culture as a foundation of who they are and consider their acquirement of a new language as an additive, not as subtractive.

2. CREATE A COMFORTABLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

ELLs are bound to make mistakes. Another ESOL strategy is to correct errors with compassion, that’s how they will learn. Try positive reinforcement strategies by rewarding effort and good work. Remember that ELLs will most likely need to translate the given questions, formulate a response and then again translate it to English

This whole process can be a bit time taking, so it’s necessary to give learners some time rather than demanding a quick response.

3. EMPHASIZE PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE

All your teachings should be based on every letter of the acronym ‘SWIRL’, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, and Listen. The approach purposefully privileges skills of productive language from the start. Productive language skills i.e. writing and speaking, are hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency that should be emphasized from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

4. USE CHARTS AND GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

You can use graphic organizers and charts, such as KWLH (what I ‘Know’, what I ‘Want’ to learn, what I ‘Learned’, and ‘How’ I learned what I learned), timelines, and Venn diagrams.All of these can help learners focus on their listening. For example, you can make the learners watch a video. Before watching the video, they will have to complete a KWLH chart, and once they are done watching it, they will have to complete a Venn diagram.

5. COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT

You have to speak in such a way that learners can understand what is being said. You can do that by slowing down the rate of speech and enunciating, avoiding figurative language and idioms, and using gestures and total physical response (TPR). By using TPR, students will be able to learn to associate a movement with a word, and that will make it more likely that they internalize that new vocabulary.

6. MAKE IT VISUAL

The last ESOL strategy is to avoid giving instructions in the air. ELLs mostly are not able to process spoken language. So, whenever possible, you can write down instructions, or even basic directions for classroom procedures on the board. Challenging concepts should be supported with pictures or be diagrammed. Along with that, representing students what a completed product should look like or modeling the steps of a process can go a long way towards helping students understand.