ELL Resources

Since virtually all SLIFE students are English Language Learners, it is important for the teachers of those students to become very familiar with the strategies and principles involved in supporting ELLs.  We have found it necessary to be selective about the use of these resources, however, because they sometimes seem to presume that the student has first language literacy skills and that first language and/or bilingual resources are available.  Those conditions simply don't exist for many SLIFE.  We need to keep in mind that it is a very different thing to translate skills or concepts from one language and culture to another versus never having been taught those skills and concepts in the first place.

That being said, the provision of appropriate ELL programming and supports is a necessary foundation for any SLIFE programming.  The student's language development is a crucial part of their education, regardless of their educational history.  Most of the strategies found in the ELL literature are useful and appropriate for SLIFE or can be made so with a few adaptations.

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Supporting English Language Learners is the website developed by Alberta Education for use by teachers, administrators and consultants working with English language learners.  It is a great place to start in developing programming for ELL students, including SLIFE.  It contains:

• the Alberta K-12 ESL Proficiency Benchmarks.
• student writing samples with benchmark analysis.
• videos of students engaging in content learning with teacher commentary on proficiency levels and benchmark analysis.
• programming information on organizing for instruction.
• assessment tools and strategies 
• links to research and further resources

Chapter 9 of Making A Difference: Meeting Diverse Learning Needs with Differentiated Instruction (Alberta Education, 2010) provides a very comprehensive summary of strategies that can be used to differentiate instruction in order to meet the need of English Language Learners.  It is well worth a look.  You may find that you need to look to other resources to find more specific information about these strategies, however.

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Some other useful articles can be found at sites like Colorin Colorado or its sister sites, Reading Rockets and AdLit.  Here are a couple of good ones to begin with:

Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Reading Instruction
By: Portland Public Schools (OR) and Colorín Colorado

Reading in Upper Elementary, Middle, and High School
By: Colorín Colorado (2007) from Reading and Writing Instruction for ELLs