10 Recommended Reads for Teaching English Language Learners

 

Assessing English Language Learners, 2^nd edition by Margo Gottlieb

Ten years ago, the first edition of Margo Gottlieb’s Assessing English Language Learners changed the dialogue about how educators envision educational equity for students. Since then, the ELL and dual language student populations have grown exponentially, and so has the need for forward-thinking and effective approaches to facilitating students’ academic language development alongside their content knowledge.

This thoroughly updated edition of Gottlieb’s classic delivers a complete set of tools, techniques, and ideas for planning and implementing instructional assessment.

 

Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners by Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria Dove

Teacher collaboration and co-teaching are proven strategies for helping students with diverse needs achieve academically. Now this practical resource provides a step-by-step guide to making collaboration and co-teaching work for general education teachers and English as a second language (ESL) specialists to better serve the needs of English language learners (ELLs).

The authors address the fundamental questions of collaboration and co-teaching, examine how a collaborative program helps ELLs learn content while meeting English language development goals, and offer information on school leaders’ roles in facilitating collaboration schoolwide.

 

Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators by Diane Staehr Fenner

English Learners (ELs) are the fastest-growing segment of the K–12 population.  But ELs and their families—who are in the process of learning English and navigating an often-unfamiliar education system—may not have a powerful enough voice to articulate their needs.  Consequently, all teachers and administrators must advocate for this all-important diverse group of students who will become tomorrow’s workforce.

 

Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts by Margo Gottlieb and Giserla Ernst-Slavit

With the rigorous content of College and Career Readiness standards, academic language use has moved to the forefront of educational priorities. School leaders and teachers must ensure that academic language becomes the focus of new curricula, instruction, and assessment, with special attention to linguistically and culturally diverse students.

The author’s six-book series on academic language is already the definitive resource on the topic. This companion volume provides a concise, thorough overview of the key research concepts and effective practices that underlie the series.

 

Common Core for the Not-So-Common Learner, K-5 and 6-12 by Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria Dove

Under the best of circumstances meeting the Common Core can be a challenge. But if you’re a teacher of academically or linguistically diverse students—and who isn’t these days—then that “challenge” may sometimes feel more like a “fantasy.” Finally, here are two expert educators who are brave enough, knowledgeable enough, and grounded enough to tackle this issue.

The grades 6-12 follow-up to Dove and Honigsfeld’s best-selling K-5 volume, this outstanding  resource is packed with all the advice, tools, and strategies you need to build struggling learners’ language skills in today’s Common Core climate.

 

Language Power: Key Uses for Accessing Content by Margo Gottlieb and Mariana Castro

Here, at last, is every K-8 teacher’s playbook on the critical role academic language plays in content learning and student achievement. What exactly is so different? Margo Gottlieb and Mariana Castro distill the complexities of language learning into four key uses through which students can probe the interplay between language and content, and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. It’s as straight-forward as that.

Best of all, Language Power is jam-packed with hands-on, replicable resources to help you seamlessly integrate academic language into your daily routines: targeted examples, activities, and templates.

 

Academic Language Mastery: Conversational Discourse in Context by Jeff Zwiers and Ivannia Soto

By now it’s a given: if we’re to help our ELLs and SELs access the rigorous demands of today’s content standards, we must cultivate the “code” that drives school success: academic language. Look no further for assistance than this much-anticipated series from Ivannia Soto, in which she invites field authorities Jeff Zwiers, David and Yvonne Freeman, Margarita Calderon, and Noma LeMoine to share every teacher’s need-to-know strategies on the four essential components of academic language.

The subject of this volume is conversational discourse. Here, Jeff Zwiers reveals the power of academic conversation in helping students develop language, clarify concepts, comprehend complex texts, and fortify thinking and relational skills.

 

Academic Language Mastery: Grammar and Syntax in Context by David E. Freeman, Yvonne S. Freeman, and Ivannia Soto

The subject of this volume is grammar and syntax. Here, David and Yvonne Freeman shatter the myth that academic language is all about vocabulary, revealing how grammar and syntax inform our students’ grasp of challenging text.

 

Academic Language Mastery: Vocabulary in Context by Margarita Espino Calderon and Ivannia Soto

The subject of this volume is vocabulary. Here, Margarita Calderon reveals how vocabulary is best taught as a tool for completing and constructing more complex messages.

 

Academic Language Mastery: Culture in Context by Noma LeMoine and Ivannia Soto

The subject of this volume is culture. Here, Noma LeMoine makes clear once and for all how culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy validates, facilitates, liberates, and empowers ethnically diverse students.