English Learners 101 Series: Academic Content Instruction for English Learners

This is the introduction to an ongoing series of articles titled English Learners 101.

English Learners 101 is a series of articles about how to support English learners with appropriate academic content instruction. Between 2004 and 2008 I served as the English Language Development Support Teacher at a diverse elementary school. During this time I also completed a significant review of research and literature on how to best support science instruction in the classroom. While my literature review investigated English learners and science instruction, most of the instructional strategies and information are relevant to anyone teaching academic content to English learners.

In general there is a lack of research on promoting science achievement and learning among students from diverse ethnic and linguistic communities. Despite the large and growing numbers of English learners in the United States and in particular California, research into the best instructional practices for these students learning science has been limited until recently.

The English Learners 101 series provides an overview of the literature that examines the unique learning needs and challenges of English learners pertaining to science instruction by looking at academic English, the teacher’s role in the classroom, and integration of science and literacy. It also focuses on models and strategies that educators have used to successfully teach science and build academic English concurrently. These articles and the literature review is by no means an exhaustive look at general instructional strategies for English learners. My hope is that this review of current research will offer a foundation of knowledge and teaching strategies as well as offer additional resources that you can investigate on your own.

Over the next few weeks the English learners 101 series will take a look at the following topics:

• academic language,
• role of the teacher,
• integrating science and literacy instruction,
• thematic learning,
• curriculum design considerations
• cooperative groups,
• vocabulary development,
• teacher supported classroom discourse,
• affective influences,
• assessment considerations, and
• family involvement

I hope you find the English Learners 101 series informative and practical. Please join in the conversation below.

Thanks to memoossa for the photo at the beginning of this post.