Adriana Navarro

ANT 312
Professor Armstrong-Sanchez
October 13, 2014

Written Assignment #1

Recommendations for Elementary Teachers working with ELL

Dear LAUSD Teachers,
There is often a strong presence of English Language Learners (ELL) in your
classrooms, so this letter will clarify the use of code-switching and the benefits of learning the
similarities of morphological information of both languages to the expand on the students
English phonemic awareness. Some misconceptions teachers may think about their codeswitching students that they have forgotten words, are lazy, or uneducated, but in fact is now
know that code-switchers switch between two languages due to their extensive speech economy.
Students may also switch between two languages due to the linguistic phenomenon, where the
speaker may have forgot a word in a certain language, so they will switch to the second language
in order to not obstruct their flow of speech. The switch also allows the speaker to continue to
say as much as possible, as fast as possible, and as short as possible. The functions of codeswitching may include to send a message of identity, solidarity, emphasize a point, or to make
polite conversational changes.
Here are some suggestions to keep your students on task with the English language
expectations in the classroom. First, teachers must also acquire the morphological information
about their students first language in order to be a resource to their students (Hickey and Lewis,
76). Second, Instructors should understand that there are similarities in languages, and
identifying them with the student will help the student clarify the differences between the
languages and support the students morphological awareness. Lastly, when designing your lesson

plans it is important to keep in mind the power teachers have in supporting their bilingual
students. When a teacher makes a student realize that their students bilingualism is an asset, then
the teacher in turn supporting that students academic achievement (Hickey and Lewis, 76).

Work Cited
Hickey, Pamela J., and Tarie Lewis. "The Common Core, English Learners, and Morphology
101: Unpacking LS.4 for ELLs." The Language and Literacy Spectrum 23 (n.d.): 69-83. Web. 6
Oct. 2014.