Class: TED 523, Teaching Emergent Bilinguals

In this assignment, I was asked to create a one-pager in response to the article Meeting the
Unique Needs of Long Term English Language Learners by Laurie Olsen. This article focused on
the importance for educators to be trained specifically on how to best teach English language
learners. Doing this assignment made me further realize the importance of gaining as much
knowledge and skills as I can to best support the diverse needs of my students.

Meeting the Unique Needs of Long Term English Language Learners

By Laurie Olsen, Ph.D
Image Connection

Something that the article mentioned was how

LTELLs often have less access to electives
and extracurricular activities because of extra
ESL or support classes they have to take. Last
year I often subbed for these support classes,
and many of the students seemed extremely
bored and unmotivated to learn. They didn’t
have the opportunity to take classes that
interested them, so they were less motivated
to work hard in school. I hope that in the
future teachers will be better trained to
address the needs of these students so that the
extra classes won’t be as necessary and they
will have the opportunity to explore content
areas they are passionate about.

Something I Can Take Into the Classroom Question

The main thing I took away from this article How can teachers advocate for more training
is that I want to do everything I can to be for educators in order to better serve ELLs?
prepared to teach LTELLs. The success of
these students highly correlates with the
amount of training educators receive in the
area, and I want to make sure that I am
prepared to help all students. One way I can
make sure I am meeting the needs of all of my
students is by making sure I understand their
educational and language backgrounds so that
I can best serve them. I also want to
incorporate literature that is written by people
of various backgrounds, and that represents a
diverse variety of cultures.
 Section 1 Quote
“‘Being stuck’—academic
struggles and lack of progress
toward English
proficiency—is the key to
defining Long Term ELLs,
not the number of years it
takes them to become English
proficient.”
Section 2 Quote Section 3 Quote
“The strength of educator “The most effective educators
training and approach to know how to help Long Term
language development—and English Language Learners
the consistency and build academic language as
coherence of the well as content skills.”
program a student receives
across grade levels—greatly
impacts students’ long term
academic outcomes