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=Future of ESL Instruction: Blending Traditional and Modern Strategies =



=By: Beth Klandrud, Jo Pang, Jeffrey Straus = =Introduction = Teaching children whose first language is not English is a heavy task charged to all educators, in-field and out. It is unlikely that any teacher will share background knowledge of all their students’ languages, let alone previous experiences learning a second language themselves. Taking this into account, one of the most pertinent strategies and skills that should be applied is making the new language accessible through comprehensible input. In order to accomplish this one must be aware of effective strategies and models for lesson plans when instructing ELLs as well as understanding all the unique stressors that face English Language Learners (ELLs). Some of these dilemmas include: the ill-perceived assumption that ELLs are slower learners and thus destined for some level of illiteracy, reconciling two cultures and languages, standardized exams, and living in a country where the majority including teachers are monolingual. In the past teachers have been more or less limited to using some type of picture flash card game to introduce new vocabulary and overcome these challenges. However, as technology becomes more accessible to teachers in the classroom they will be able to hone in students' literacy skills (Writing, Reading. Listening and Speaking) while creating cyber communities for their students via the Alice software designed by the FBI-sponsored Alice Project which allows students to create 3D video sequenced stories or using Red Bubble to empower students to share their original works such as writings and art.

=**Why is it important to teach ESL?** = The first question asked by non-educators is normally what is ESL? ESL stands for English as a Second Language and refers to students in the education system whose primary language is not English. However, even among current teachers there is some ignorance about ESL students. It is important to remember that simply because English is not a student's first language does not mean that they are unable to succeed in the classroom. For example, Christina Gardner of Millennium High School in New York City said in an article to CNN, “It's not necessarily the case that English as a Second Language students are not as good at doing this. In fact, they sometimes work even harder in order to compensate for a deficiency." This quote was referring to the problems facing teachers trying to teach reading, writing, listening and speaking skills to students.

Gardner pointed out the significant role that ESL teachers have in being intercessors for their students; filling in academic gaps between the first and second language. According to Lev Vygotsky, a soviet psychologist from the mid to late 20th century whose theories have significantly helped shape the American education today, instructors must also use effective scaffolding techniques to aid students in achieving what was previously impossible for them. True scaffolding takes place when an adult models an end-goal for a child and gradually removes him/heself from the equation by allowing students to perform tasks with peers and eventually by themselves. One common strategy used to form this bridge in ESL classrooms is Think-Pair-Share activities. This strategy provides each student with at least one peer and then together they formulate thoughts on a particular theme. Thus, sharing background knowledge and laying the groundwork to access the new information being imparted by the teacher and hence being able to complete the new task. Vygotsky called this difference between ability and inability the Zone of Proximal Development. According to the Soviet psychologist himself, this term is defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, p. 86, 1978).

Compounding the situation of the academic gap that exists for many English language learners (ELLs) between their first and second language is the unique status of ELLs who have immigrated here from different countries as being simultaneously American and ethnic. W.E.B. du Bois, an African-American Scholar from the early 20th century described this element of newcomers to the United States as "double-consciousness." In his chapter Of Our Spiritual Strivings from his novel //The Souls of Black Folk//, Du Bois described this term as "a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a [foreigner]; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one body." Teachers of ESL must be ever-aware of this special quality of their students. Although it is a journey of reconciliation that the students must complete themselves, teachers can play a significant role in aiding the process simply by using supplementary materials or main texts that feature characters from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, and by decorating their classroom with cultural artifacts such as flags or posters displaying traditional clothing. Students with personal backgrounds different from the majority population feel more motivated to succeed when they can see themselves in the lesson. Furthermore, it should not be ignored by U.S. citizens that in the United States today nearly 1/5 of population do not speak English as their primary language. Teachers especially, not just those in the field of ESL, must play vital roles in closing the gap between the educational inequity found between ELLs and native English learners.

=What does an ESL teacher do? = The main difference between a foreign language teacher and an ESL teacher is that foreign language teachers in the United States normally share a basic common language (English). This differs from an ESL teacher, whose classroom could have a variety of native languages with little to no basic knowledge of English. In order to communicate with all the students in the classroom, ESL teachers are taught a basic knowledge of linguistics, other cultures, and a variety of instructional strategies such as using/creating manipulatives (ie. photos, video, gestures, hands-on activities). ESL teachers help ESL students to feel confident while using the English language when they exceed at incorporating these various bits of information. Oftentimes, English learners have a lack of confidence to speak or use the new language. Jo Pang, a former ESL student, said, "Sometimes I feel it's very difficult to create what I want to say up to the standard; I often time feel like failing." So the other job that ESL teachers is to eliminate that kind of feeling or thought in ESL students. In the article, "New Teacher Tips - How to Make Adult ESL Students Feel More Comfortable in the Classroom," Dorit Sasson said, "A good ESL teacher is one who can provide the tools for the language learner so that she or he becomes more linguistically and semantically aware of the language being used when communicating with others. Therefore, helping the students become aware of his/her errors is much more productive to helping [English language learners] (ELLs) acquire a second language because they are constructing their understanding of the second language as they become more aware of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of learning a second language." Keeping this thought and attitude in mind when ESL teachers prepare their classrooms and lesson plans will encourage more efficient progress and a level of comfort and confidence for their students.

=What is the current teaching style in ESL? = One of the most popular systematic approaches to teaching English language learners (ELL) since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001 is the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP). This program was authored by Jana Echeverria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short in 2000 and has progressively gained support in many teaching preparation programs as it is used in "most of the 50 states and in hundreds of schools across the U.S. including several other countries" (SIOP Institute). According to the SIOP Institute website, Echeverria, Vogt and Short created this model of instruction with the intent to "facilitate high quality instructions for English learners in content area teaching."

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Historically, schools relied on intensive drilling of grammar skills to catch their ELL students up to speed with mainstream students. This often entailed using the still-popular strategy of ESL Pullout in which ELLs are removed from subjects to be taught by a specialist for 30-50 minutes. This means loss of class-time for these students to be learning the content that is found on class tests as well as the national standardized exams. Utilizing the three dimensions of SIOP (Preparation, Instruction, and Review/Assessment) to sharpen lesson plans, however, the antiquated Pull-out method could be terminated as all lessons will, as a result, be of a higher caliber. According to //99 Ideas and Activities for Teaching English Learners with the SIOP Model//, ﻿during the preparation stage of lessons teachers should determine the "content and language objectives for each unit as well as assembling the supplementary materials to contextualize their lesson." In the Instruction portion teachers would: pay special attention to connecting to background knowledge, modify speech so that it is comprehensible for students' levels, employ effective scaffolding (progressively allowing the students to perform tasks individually), and using various manipulatives (hands-on activities) to further enhance understanding/attainment of the lesson's objectives. Finally, the emphasis of SIOP's Review/Assessment category is that teachers prepare for themselves what types of informal assessments they will perform of their students in additional to formal exams (ie. One-on-One sessions or asking questions randomly).

=Digital Manipulatives: Using Technology to Create Comprehensible Input for ELL Students = Even someone who makes only a general observation of adolescents and youth can see that they are intrigued by electronics. It is rare to walk down a high hall in the 21st century and not see students texting, surfing the web on cell phones or jamming to music on their Ipods (sometimes doing all of these at once). Therefore, teachers should take advantage of this interest shared by nearly if not all of their students and incorporate activities featuring technology in their lessons.

As previously stated, included in the best practices for ESL instructors is making use of many manipulatives to aid the formation of comprehensible input that is both clear and relevant for students. One such cutting-edge online activity that would be beneficial to newcomers to English is the Alice Project (a link to an introduction to Alice is uploaded below). According to Dennis Cosgrove, one of few that has been on the Alice Team since its inception in the early 1990s, the original scope of this project was to create "a rapid prototyping tool for constructing head mounted display based virtual environments." Today the Alice Project has evolved into an exemplar of what an introductory program to 3D design should be. Alice can be used exclusively for telling stories using Storytelling Alice or new vocabulary units could be introduced using the most recent Alice 3.0 released in the summer of 2010. According to the article "Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Instructional Approach" by Moskal et. al, the "visual nature and immediate feedback of program visualizations makes it easy for students to see the impact of a statement or group of statements" (Moskal, p. 2, 2000). As Alice features an easy drag & drop approach to digital programming even elementary students could participate. Furthermore, implementing Alice as a hands-on activity in lessons will allow students to take mastery of their own learning as they create their virtual cyber worlds via familiar images while building new vocabulary in their target language.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">As an extension to Alice software, teachers may benefit from introducing their class to the Red Bubble network at www.redbubble.com. Red Bubble is a website dedicated to the sharing of original art, written stories and photography. Like most user-sharing websites, everyone is able to submit their works free of charge and can provide instant feedback to fellow users' recently uploaded entries. After allowing the students to familiarize themselves with new vocabulary using the visual strengths of Storytelling Alice a follow-up or concurrent project could require students to translate their 3D story into a written product using story writing techniques. Upon completion the teacher should then, with parental approval of course, encourage students to post their stories on Red Bubble and require them to leaving constructive criticism compliments on several of their classmates' submissions. Doing this would transform the imaginary 3D worlds they created into a live interactive community among peers.

====**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Disclaimer: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Like any online activities there exists the potential issue of students getting off-task or performing inappropriate searches. As Red Bubble is open to the public teachers must create a disciplinary plan prior to the start of a project as well as taking preventative measures (ie. update the safe filters). Another possible disadvantage to Alice is whether the school's computers have the most recent updates in order to run the software. The advantages to using these technologies far outweigh the risks, however it is always a positive to make sure that everything will run smoothly and that the district is ok with the proposed use of on-line communities. ====

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=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">What are the difficulties teaching in ESL? = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">A difficulty of teaching ESL is that not all teachers are equipped with more then one language. In most ESL teaching programs, learning second language is not a requirement, as a result. Not having a personal experience in learning a second language could make it potentially troublesome for teachers to fully understand the reasons for their students' struggles. Consequetly, it becomes a frustrating task for instructor and students alike when they don't understand each others' perspective..The problem that teachers facing is hard to break down the culture background to influence and teaches ESL students English component. For instance, in Asia, teachers are asking students to memorize rather than discuss their course work. ( Inoue, p. 4 1999).<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Without that skill imparted to ESL students, they find it hard to understand the logic behind the language or retain information because oftentimes they just memorize the make-up of the language instead of comprehending its nuances. When this occurs there sometimes exists a "false" literacy as the students will most likely be able to master interpersonal and social language from this mode of instruction. However, accessing academic literacy becomes increasingly difficult the longer students are not exposed to comprehension activities of long texts.

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">This video tells some of the difficulties that teachers facing in the ESL classroom; the use of programs and other technological items in the class helps not only to teach students, but to help them retain important and useful knowledge.

=**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Conclusion: **= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">It should now be apparent as to why it is important to help teach students whose first language is not English. Any teacher who has a minority language student in their classroom must always keep in mind the unique struggles of ELLs while they are constantly processing through two languages and two cultures. Familiarizing oneself with The SIOP Model can only improve lessons as it takes into account preparation and implementation strategies with the needs of ELLs in mind. While the uses of technology in classrooms are expanding at a rapid rate, utilizing modern relevant activities that transcend the language barrier between teachers and ESL students will also become increasingly accessible. Programs like Alice and Red Bubble can provide help for students who would otherwise be unable to understand new material completely. As time passes and new technology is presented, teachers of ELLs may find these sources to be a great tool in helping teach students the valuable life skill of bilingualism and biliteracy.

=**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Works Cited: **=

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Alice. Carnegie Mellon University, 2011. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=people/people.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Du Bois, W. (1903). The souls of black folk. Cambridge, MA: University Press John Wilson and son. Retrieved February 11, 2011, from http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Echevarria, J., & Vogt, M. (2008). //99 Ideas and activities for teaching learners with The SIOP Model//. Boston, MA: Pearson.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">ESL (n.d.). In SOS Classroom. Retrieved February 12, 2011

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Holland, S. (2011, January 4). Subject Matters: Readi ng, writing -- and readying for tests [Electronic version]. CNN.

Inoue, Y. (1999). ESL Undergraduate Students' Perceived Difficulties in American Classrooms. Retrieved from EBSCO//host//.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Moskall, Barb, Deborah Lurie, and Stephen Cooper. "Evaluating the effectiveness of a new instructional approach." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">﻿﻿. FBI, Jan. 2000. Web. 10 Feb. 2011

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Sasson, D (2011). New Teacher Tips - How to Make Adult ESL Students Feel More Comfortable in the Classroom [Electronic version]. []﻿.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">SIOP Institute. Pearson, 2008. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. <http://www.siopinstitute.net/>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.