Instructional Strategies for ELL Students

January 26th, 2009

Claude Goldenberg’s article, “Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does and Does Not – Say” is a thorough summary of major research on educating English Language Learners (ELLs). He sites three major findings, one of which is how teaching students to read in their first language promotes higher levels of reading achievement in English. Given the diversity of languages and limited resources of our schools, teaching students in their first language isn’t always possible. However, his two other findings are something teachers can and do everyday. They are: what we know about good instruction and curriculum in general holds true for ELLs and teachers must modify instruction to take into account students’ language limitations.