Blog 7: Literacy For ELLs

     The chapter by Hinchman discussed several different strategies to work with ELLs in the classroom. One of the important themes was the idea of focusing on language in all content areas. Students need to learn key content vocabulary and the academic language to be able to communicate in that content area. Another strategy was the idea of "juicy sentences." This is an activity asking students to do a case study of sorts of a grammatically and linguistically complex sentence. This helps ELLs see examples of concepts and rules of the language and study them in detail. Finally, the authors discussed the importance of annotation. I definitely agree with the point the authors made about content-specific language. I think that often teachers take this to mean vocabulary only. This is important, but often different subjects have different conversation structures, or even different sentence structures. As an example, I am much better at English-related subjects than science. I think part of the reason for this is that the language of science is so different than that of English; everything has to be precise and focused, in contrast to the language of literature, which is more fluid and idea-focused. I was never taught to communicate as a scientist, so this affected my understanding and my ability to communicate in the subject. This example shows the importance of teaching all students, especially ELLs, content-specific language.
     The chapter in Adolescent Literacy brought up many strategies for teaching ELLs. One that was discussed was the importance of teaching students the basic structures of English, since they may be different from their native language. Another was that students should be allowed to communicate and even continue to develop their native language, possibly in a bilingual program. It was also stressed that teachers need to be sensitive to their students' cultures and backgrounds that may affect the way they communicate (or do not communicate!) in class. Finally, the authors discussed the strategies of teaching academic language phrases and structures and letting students write out their thoughts first. This last strategy of writing before speech was very helpful to me. I was placed in a classroom with a lot of ELLs last semester, and often they did not contribute in whole group discussion. However, in small groups where there was less pressure and they had more time to prepare, they did participate. I think that having students write their thoughts out first both decreases pressure and allows them to organize their thoughts so that they can share them. I also thought that the idea of bilingual instruction was a great one, but a little idealistic. Of course I want students to keep their native language and their culture, but what if my school does not have "echo classes" or something like that? The concept seems overwhelming to attempt on my own.

Discussion questions:
Is there an important difference between ELL and EAL? If so, why does the difference matter?
How can teachers implement elements of bilingual instruction into their classrooms in a practical manner?
What are some of the characteristics of the "languages" of different contents? Math/music/history?