Using NebraskAccess to Find Professional Journal Articles

It is important for us, as educators, to keep current on the variety of issues that impact our students and their learning. ELL students are one group of students with diverse cultural and linguistic needs. These students are in more and more classes every year and one way to learn about them and how to meet their needs is to read professional journals. Here’s how to access these articles using NebraskAccess through LPS.

 

Academic Language and English Language Learners

Students learning English as an additional language need supports in all of their academic courses. According to Lydia Breiseth (2013), “Many students, including English language learners (ELLs), have difficulty mastering the kinds of academic language needed to succeed in school, especially if they have never been explicitly taught how to use it.”

Academic language is the language of school. Although learning both social and academic language are demanding, students need to have academic language to be successful in school. Students may be at different levels of English language proficiency and the following descriptions may help teachers as they work with English learners.

Beginning stage

ELLs at the beginning stage demonstrate comprehension of simplified language, speak a few English words, answer simple questions, and use common social greetings and repetitive phrases. They make regular mistakes.

Intermediate stage

ELLs at the intermediate stage speak using standard grammar and pronunciation, but some rules are still missing. Their level of comprehension is high and they can ask or answer instructional questions. They can actively participate in conversations, retell stories, and use expanded vocabulary and paraphrasing.

Advanced stage

ELLs at the advanced stage use consistent standard English vocabulary, grammar, idioms, and oral/written strategies similar to those of English-speaking peers. They have good pronunciation and intonation. Advanced ELLs initiate social conversations. They use idiomatic expressions and appropriate ways of speaking according to their audience.

There are also language structures checklists that ELL teachers in LPS use to measure students’ progress in the grammatical structures in their English language development.

In addition to grammatical structures and content vocabulary, academic language also refers to the words and phrases that connect ideas and communicate concepts. Dr. Cindy Lundgren (2013) explains the idea that students need key words but they also need the language such as signal words and phrases that connect them.

Teachers can support their ELL students by being aware of the academic language they need and by providing language objectives as well as content objectives. For more information about language objectives, click here. According to Breiseth (2013), “The most important thing you can do is to provide examples and model the kinds of language you expect students to use on a regular basis. By doing so, you will help familiarize students with the kinds of academic language needed to succeed in your classroom, as well as the purpose of the language they are using.”

 

What Is the Difference Between Social and Academic English? Colorín Colorado (2007). Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/background/academic/

Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know, Lydia Breiseth (2013). Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/60055/

Classroom Instruction that Works with ELLs

Authors Jane D. Hill and Kathleen M. Flynn provide a different approach to Classroom Instruction that Works and Marzano’s Instructional strategies, one that includes the ELL perspective.  This text  provides instructional strategies that can be applied to ELL students in every grade level and includes specific steps and guidance for educators that will boost the achievement levels of ELL students.

This resource is available via the Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Click here to read “Classroom Instruction that Works”

Language Functions and Forms

Students learning English as their second, third, or fourth language, need support in understanding the language functions and forms in English. The functions or purposes of language could be things such as describing, explaining, or informing. The forms include the grammatical structures such as prepositions, verb tenses, and complex sentence patterns. It is important to understand the progression of how we acquire grammatical structures. For example, students understand and use present tense verbs before they understand and use past tense verbs.

The contrast between form and function in language can be illustrated through a simple medical analogy. If doctors studied only a limited portion of the human system, such as anatomical form, they would be unable to adequately address their patient’s needs. To fully treat their patients, physicians must understand the purposes of the human body and the relationships between organs, cells, and genes (Pozzi, 2004). Similarly, ELLs need to understand both the form (structure) and the function (purpose) of the English language in order to reach higher levels of proficiency.

 

Bibliography:

http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/krashen.htm

http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/real/standards/sbd.aspx

 

Second Language Acquisition

According to Stephen Krashen (2007), language acquisition occurs when messages are comprehensible and when “speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances, but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.” Krashen is an expert in linguistics and second language acquisition. He is well-known for his five hypotheses about second language acquisition.

“Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition claims that second languages are (1) acquired, not learned. The process is the same as for first language acquisition. Acquisition occurs in a (2) natural order when people receive (3) comprehensible input and their (4) affective filter is low. Rules that people learn can be used to (5) monitor the output, either speech or writing. Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition provides the theoretical base for content-based language teaching.”

Learn more about these hypotheses.  Listen to Stephen Krashen explain language acquisition.

Bibliography:

www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html

Freeman, D. and Freeman, Y. English Language Learners The Essential Guide, (2007)

http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/krashen.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTsduRreug