Language Acquisition Principles for ELL Students
Abstract
Within this paper we will take a brief look at the Language Acquisition Principles and how they work on the behalf of ELL students. We will see how these principles can be applied within our own learning environment. There is much information from Walqui article that gives a brief overview of ELL students and how things looked in the past for these students. Now that times has change we will see how educators can make the requirements for ELL students better and more effective for teacher and students. Hopefully, as we look at ways of changing learning for our ELL students we must remember that every student learns differently. Even if you follow the principles from 1-8 we must keep in mind that everyone is unique and process things within their own time table.
When reading the article, “Principles of instructed second Language” by Professor Rod Ellis (2008), he gives us a brief overview of eight principles that we can use to help ELL students. L2 (second language learners), must be able to adapt to the language of America. As educators we must find the correct road map to assist these students. SLA researchers are not so sure that we can help these students to achieve this goal. Professor Ellis does believe with some guidance that educators can have “provisional specification”.
The first principle Professor Ellis talks about is, “instruction needs to ensure that learners develop a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule base competence.” Here is where Professor Ellis talked about the Natives who use larger number of formulaic expression more than SLA. He also went on to explain how rote learned materials were internaliz...
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...nts up to speed. ELL students do face the challenge of learning a new language while still having to learn other subject areas.
We as educators must first develop reading skills for our ELL students so that they will get in the habit of reading and writing. We must also look at different avenues to increase their literacy skills. We must work on the strengths of our ELL students. When we work on what our ELL students already know then we can help build upon students learning from multiple languages. We can even have the ELL students share their native language with other students. This can help make learning interesting when they share their cultural background.
Works Cited
Citations
Ellis, R (2008) “Principles of Instructed Second Language” Retrieved July14, 2010, from: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/digest_pdfs/Instructed
The purpose of the study is to compare divergent teaching methods in Canada and China, and to identify which teaching approaches are effective to Chinese ELL students. The research contains pre- and post-tests, and one open-ended survey for 20 Chinese ELL students at one university in Canada.
Teachers who work with English Language Learners know that academic language takes longer to achieve proficiency in than does conversational language. On average, ELL students need at least two years to achieve conversational language and, five to nine years to develop academic language proficiency. Many English words ELL students are exposed to in school, they have not yet learned or even heard in their first language, which makes transference of knowledge impossible. The vast differences in the ability to use conversational versus academic language can be a hindrance to these students and have lasting effects on their academics and therefore, their lives.
Metalinguistic awareness increased within the ESL students, therefore their phonics increased as well and they scored higher than some L1 students. Students who know multiple languages at an early age are proven to do better in both languages than students who only know one language.
Because America is such a diverse country, public schools are faced with the challenge of providing students from all over the world with a quality education. As Chen points out “public schools have embraced the linguistic challenge presented by immigrant students” (¶1). Then, No Child Left Behind law was approved, and it required every public school should have an English Secondary Language (ESL) program that will provide the “academic support” for English Language Learners (ELLs). ELL parents are happy that their children are getting education help from the school, but it has raised the question of how successful are the ESL programs? Do ESL programs provide enough “academic support” to all ELL students? Do ESL programs have enough tools to help students learn English? Some ELL parents complain that ESL programs do not help their child learn English. A successful ESL program is not based solely on the test scores, but also the ability to connect parents, teachers, and students together to strengthen tools that will help ELL students to learn a new language in reading, writing, and speaking.
To obtain a complete understanding of the word knowledge of students who are learning English, it is important their reading abilities (WTW, 2012). There are many ways to assess the reading abilities for ELL’s. For example, spelling inventories help explore the literacy knowledge of an ELL; however, the test should be first administered in their primary or first language. According to Words their way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling instruction, “a spelling inventory in students’ spoken language can indicate their literacy levels in the primary language, and more specifically, show which orthographic features they already understand” (WTW, 2014). Bilingual learners rely on knowledge of their primary language to spell words in a second language (WTW, 2014). Teachers can also assess ELL’s reading comprehension through sequencing activity (Ada, 1990). For example, teachers can have ELL’s write individual sentences from the text on separate sheets of drawing paper; then read or have the students read each sentence and illustrate it (Ada, 1990). Teachers can also informally test students’ ability to sequence material from a story by printing sentences from a section of the story on paper strips, mix the strips; have students put them in order (Ada, 1990). According to Spanish-Language Children’s Literature in the Classroom, teachers should “read to newcomers every day” (Ada, 1990). Appropriate reading material for beginning English Language Learners (ELL) should include numerous illustrations that help clarify the text, story plots that are action-based, little text on each page, text that contains repetitive, predictable phrases, high-frequency vocabulary and useful words, text that employs simple sentence structures (Ada, 1990). When you read to beginning ESL students, be sure to make language comprehensible to them (Ada,
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School should thing about having more material for ESL students. This type of students need a lot of assistant and help because first English are not the first language and second the system of here and their hometown is different. The first year when I came to USA, I take ESL class because my English was very bad. I stay in ESL class for two years, I do not know why but after I start taking regular English. Sincerely, I didn’t learn anything from my ESL class because everything was still new for me than some teachers were tell me I was supposed to see this before. I think ESL class should be include with regular class that will not make ESL students missing class. Analysis found very important program that will increase the understanding of ESL students. For example “providing students with visuals and realia, carefully pacing speech, scaffolding difficult language, and using the home language whenever possible and feasible” (qtd. in Elfers et al).in this example, we can understand that ESL students like working with image, song, and games. The teachers can sometimes wake the subject fun for them because when a student has an image of the lesson in their head , they will never forget what they should do when it comes to homework at home because this image, or song, or game will always come back. Another research was found that the learning place is very important. Sometimes
Teaching students a language that is foreign can really be challenging for students as well as for the teachers. The dynamic rule for implementing instructing in a diverse class to English-learners is to use resourceful life skills such as diligence, hard work and patience. There are also methods that are involved in teaching English as a second language that can be creative for the teacher, yet beneficial to the student. First building a strong foundation that is essential to English learners will promote the language acquisition process. To do this teacher’s should always start with preparation. Advance preparation is essential in order to provide necessary adaptations in content area instruction and to make content information accessible for second language lear...
Many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students who seek admittance to a university where the foreign language, here English, is the medium of instruction do not have sufficient language skills to understand lectures, comprehend textbooks, particip...
The idea to include L1 as part of the language teaching system has been debated upon in recent years. The strong anti-L1 suggest on a complete prohibition of L1 in classrooms, while many others see L1 as a tool to better students’ learning of the TL. This section will highlight the pros and cons arguments for using the L1 in classrooms, along with further evidence supporting the advantages mother tongue bring to the language learning, and teaching process.
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