Class: TED 522, Teaching Emergent Bilinguals

In this assignment I was asked to create a one-pager after reading the article Educating English
Language Learners by Diane August. The article explained why emerging bilingual students
often have a harder time learning content, and gave strategies for teachers to help these
students succeed in their lessons.

Educating English Language Learners

By Diane August

Image Connection

The article mentioned how some English

language learners may not be ready for more
challenging comprehension strategies that
students proficient in English are ready for.
This reminded me of a situation that happened
to my friend in high school who was an
exchange student from Japan and was still
learning English. There were many activities
that were challenging for her, because
completing them required a level of English
understanding that she had not reached yet.

Something I Can Take Into the Classroom Question

This article gave so many great ideas and What strategies can be used with ELLs in
strategies to effectively teach English higher grades who are at a significantly lower
Language Learners. One thing that especially level of English understanding than the rest of
stood out to me was the effectiveness of the class?
peer-to-peer learning. I have always utilized
group work, but have never deeply considered
how this strategy benefits ELLs. I will
definitely be making more use of this strategy
in my classroom.

Something New I Have Learned Quote

Something I was not aware of is how “Speaking is important to generate feedback,

frequently ELLs are underdiagnosed or encourage syntactic processing, and challenge
overdiagnosed with a learning disability. This students to engage at higher proficiency
article emphasizes the importance of levels.”
consistent monitoring of student progress, so
that each student can be assisted effectively.
One strategy recommended was frequent
assessments of student written work, as it is a
great source to identify challenges that
students are still facing in their language
learning process.