Teaching English Language Learners through Teachnology

1.2 — The Process of English Language Learning and What to Expect .-Principle 1: Give ELLs Many Opportunities to Read, to Write, to Listen to, and to-Discuss Oral and Written English Texts Expressed in a Variety of Ways-Principle 2: Draw Attention to Patterns of English Language Structure -Principle 3: Give ELLs Classroom Time to Use their English Productively -Principle 4: Give ELLs Opportunities to Notice their Errors and to Correct their English -Principle 5: Construct Activities that Maximize Opportunities for ELLs to Interact with Others in English-1.5 — Not All ELLs are the Same-Stages of Cultural Adjustment-Cultural Practices at School-1.6 — Culturally Responsive Pedagogy -1.7 — Not All Parents are the Same: Home–School Communication -Ideas: On Fostering Access-Ideas: On Fostering Approachability -Ideas: On Achieving Good Follow-Through -1.8 — English Language Learners with Special Needs-Part 2 —What We Know from Research-2.1 — Taking the Lead from Vygotsky-The Social Origins and Cultural Bases of Mind—Fundamental Concepts -Tools, Signs and Mediated Activity-Regulation -The Zone of Proximal Development-Sociocultural Theory in Second Language Acquisition Research -2.2 — Differentiated Instruction, Project-Based Learning, and Constructivist Pedagogy Principles -Differentiated Instruction -Project-Based Learning -Constructivist Pedagogy-2.3 — Making Accommodations for ELLs and Infusing Technology into a Lesson -2.4 — Principles of Technology Use in Educational Settings-Know Your Students Choosing Materials -Students Working with Technology-Language Use-Challenges of Technology Use in Classrooms -2.5 — Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Research -Part 3 — Teaching ELLs through Technology-3.1 — Orientation-Contents ix 3.2 — E-creation Tools and Self-Made Computer-Based Resources: Getting ELLs to
Play and Be Creative with Language-Orientation -How to Create and Use E-creation Tools-How to Use E-creation Tools in the Classroom -3.3 — Communicative-Facilitating E-tools: Getting ELLs to Produce Language -Orientation -Definition -Email-Listservs.

No educational issue has proven more controversial than how to teach linguistically diverse students. Intertwined issues of ethnic and cultural differences are often compounded. What is more, at the time of writing, December 2007, how immigrants and their heritages ought to fit with the dominant culture is the subject of rancorous debate in the United States and a number of other nations.
However thorny these issues may be to some, both legally and ethically, schools need to accommodate the millions of English language learners (ELLs) who need to be educated. Although the number of ELLs in the United States has burgeoned in recent decades, school programs generally remain organized via traditional subjects, which are delivered in English. Many ELLs are insufficiently fluent in academic English, however, to succeed in these programs. Since policymakers have increasingly insisted that ELLs, regardless of their fluency in English, be mainstreamed into standard courses with all other students, both classroom enactment of the curriculum and teacher
education need considerable rethinking.
Language scholars have generally taken the lead in this rethinking. As is evident in Part 1 of the volumes in this series, language scholars have developed a substantial body of research to inform the mainstreaming of ELLs. The primary interest of these language scholars, however, is almost by definition the processes and principles of second language acquisition. Until recently, subject matter has typically been a secondary consideration, used to illustrate language concerns. Perhaps not surprisingly, content-area teachers sometimes have seen this as reducing their subjects to little more than isolated bits of information, such as a list of explorers and dates in history or sundry geological formations in science.
In contrast, secondary school teachers see their charge as effectively conveying a principled understanding of, and interest in, a subject. They look for relationships, seek to develop concepts, search for powerful examples and analogies, and try to explicate principles. By the same token, xiv Teaching English Language Learners through Technology they strive to make meaningful connections among the subject matter, students’ experience, and life outside of school. In our observations, teacher education programs bifurcate courses on content-area methods and (if there are any) courses designed to instill principles of teaching ELLs.One result of this bifurcation seems to be that prospective and in-service teachers are daunted by the challenge of using language principles to inform their teaching of subject matter. For example, Gloria Ladson-Billings (2001) has experimented with how to prepare new teachers for diverse classrooms through a teacher education program focused on “diversity, equity,
and social justice” (p. xiii). Teachers in her program are expected, for instance, to confront rather than become resigned to low academic expectations for children in urban schools. From LadsonBillings’s perspective, “no matter what else the schools find themselves doing, promoting students’ academic achievement is among their primary functions” (p. 56).
The authors in this series extend this perspective to teaching ELLs in the content areas. Forexample, how might ELLs be included in a literature lesson on Hardy’s use of landscape imagery in The Mayor of Casterbridge, or an economics lesson on the principle of comparative advantage, or a biology lesson on the ecosystem of a pond? Such topics, experienced educators quickly recognize, are often difficult for native speakers of English. How can teachers break down these subjects
into topics in a way that is educationally significant for ELLs?
The purpose of this series is to assist current and prospective educators to plan and implement lessons that do justice to the goals of the curriculum and make sense to and interest ELLs. If the needs of diverse learners are to be met, Ladson-Billings (2001) underscores that innovation is demanded, not that teachers merely pine for how things once were. The most obvious innovation in this series is to bring language scholars and specialists in the methods of teaching particular school subjects together. Although this approach is scarcely unique, it remains relatively uncommon. Combining the two groups brings more to addressing the problems of instruction than
could be obtained by the two groups working separately. Even so, these volumes hardly tell the reader “everything there is to know” about the problems addressed. But we do know that our teacher education students report that even modest training to teach ELLs can make a significant difference in the classroom. We hope this series extends those successes to all the content areasof the curriculum.