English Language Learners
I am so excited about your child’s English language learning journey! As a daughter of Latin parents I know the struggle my parents had learning English. While I was born in the United States, my parents were not. They devoured newspapers, books, and movies in English and made sure I had a variety of Highlights magazines and Scholastic’s books so I could master the English language too!
If your child is new to learning the English language it can be daunting to think about how they will navigate this new alphabet and all of its nuances. Working with your child at home can be the best way to support the ENL teacher’s work in the classroom. ENL stands for English as a New Language. Sometimes the teacher working with children who are English Language Learners are also called ESL teachers (English as a Second Language).
Some strategies I have seen work in my classroom and as a parent include some of the same things I would use for any student needing additional support. For example, scaffolding the work I do with students can include strategies such as pre-viewing the lesson with the child before I begin. Scaffolding can include several strategies to help students understand what is happening in a story. Once you compartmentalize your approach, you can use this same action plan to unpack all of your child’s work across lessons. Let’s begin!
Team up with your child’s school for an action plan: Look at your child’s classwork or homework. Review it so you know what is being asked. Write your questions down. Ask for a meeting with the ENL teacher to plan for how the work should look, and so you know what strategies they are also sharing with your child that you can use at home. This will help develop consistency for your child which will help them to learn faster and in a more organized fashion. Things to ask your school principal or ENL teacher can include the following:
Ipads - are there device settings you should know about that can help your English Language Learner?
How is the school being culturally responsive to students new to the country?
What is your child’s reading level and how often are their reading levels tested?
Is your school’s library available for your child to check out books on their level?
Vocabulary and Main Idea: Define all of the vocabulary you think your child will need to know before beginning the lesson. Identify key words, as well as main idea(s) of the story or problem. Review the vocabulary with your child and discuss what themes stick out in their mind.
Pictures and Context: Pictures are key to connecting the dots for an English Language Learner. If your child is struggling with vocabulary, pictures can add an element of clarity that only reading cannot. When you combine pictures and context you will see your child recognize the connection and begin to put the story together in their mind.
Sentence Framing: This is a strategy that can be used for any level of learner but that can be especially helpful for kids learning English. Sentence frames include the beginning and the end of a sentence. You may add some choices on the side for your child to choose from, but essentially you are just providing the frame of the sentence and allowing your child to choose the fill-in word. For example, you may write a sentence like this: “Today I went to the ______ and bought _________.” The fill-in word choices can be: store, supermarket, shirt, milk. You don’t want to add too many choices - just enough to let them decide how and where the words make sense.
Culture Stories: Stories about different cultures can help students learning English to pick up language faster when they see how their own culture relates to their new surroundings. For example, in Ukraine, Santa Claus is actually called Father Frost, but they are essentially the same in that they both bring presents to children during the holidays.
Summarizing and Graphic Organizers: After reading a story to your child you can ask them to verbally summarize what they believe the story to be about by recounting what happened first, second and last in chronological order. Graphic organizers for writing are a great way to support this work. This is great way to retain details of the story as well as new vocabulary, and also a good way to remember key information for answering homework questions. Teachers will most likely review or spiral the information learned in homework during class the next day, so it’s a good idea to help your child keep everything they learned fresh in their memory with a brief summary using a graphic organizer. Graphic organizers can be found online or you may ask your child’s teachers or school to provide them.
Corrective and Constructive Feedback: This is the final and best tip I have for parents and caregivers helping their kids with learning at home. Give corrective and constructive feedback. Saying, “Great job!” is really nice to hear, but if you really want to help your little one you must be intentional about the language you choose to provide feedback with. For example, you can say, “Great job! You did ______ very well by using your knowledge of ________. You can also use ________ to help you figure out _______ as well.” Extend your feedback so your child can really use it as a tool in their tool belt the next time they are in class and need to recall a particular strategy.
Check out these links below to some helpful ELL tools:
We’re Different We’re the Same
I hope these tips are a great help in your child’s journey to mastering the English language. With lots of love for your little one’s learning, - Lexx