Page 23 - 2023_Jour_89-5

To assist ELs in their English writing efforts, moreover, classrooms should
reflect a continuum of writing supports. Alongside word walls that are updated as
the students learn and use the new vocabulary, teachers should display guidelines for
such basic writing strategies as mapping for fiction and nonfiction genres. Teachers
should model ways in which students can use these support systems. Thereafter, they
should work with students individually to help them incorporate these strategies into
their writing (Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, 2022).

Other Practices to Support ELs
In addition to attending to all four language domains, tracking progress, and
providing appropriate material and instructional supports, it is important for teachers
of ELs to strive to maintain certain best practices that also benefit the class as a
whole. In this regard, respect, patience, and flexibility are important keys. In terms
of respect, one must remember that ELs are developing a new sense of identity as
members of the host culture—but their self-concept is also rooted in their heritage
cultures. The more one can do as an educator, therefore, to make these students
feel that their backgrounds and their selves are valued and appreciated, the more
these students will feel comfortable and able to thrive in the learning environment.
Examples of effective measures in this regard include acknowledging ELs’ cultures
in classroom discussions, inquiring individually into their hobbies and interests,
keeping books about students’ home countries and in their first languages in the
class library, and connecting content to these nations’ histories and circumstances
(Averill, 2012; Cummins, 2005; Kafadar, 2021).
Along with showing interest in one’s students, both as members of cultural groups
and as individuals, one can support self-efficacy simply by exhibiting patience—that
is, by taking the time to understand what each student has to say. Indeed, one of the
first lessons that language teachers learn is to give each student his or her own time.
Too often, in the interest of keeping pace with the curriculum, teachers may call on
a student to answer a question, and, if the answer is not immediately forthcoming,
call on another student who may have his or her hand raised. This practice gives
little time for an English learner to process the question (in their home language if
they are at the entering or beginning level), translate it, and formulate an answer
in English—all of which is not an easy proposition for a student learning a new
language! By contrast, exercising patience—and reminding the other students in
one’s class to do so as well—allows ELs to complete these cognitive processes and
to contribute meaningfully even in the early stages of their experience in their new
learning environment.
The third component in the best-practice trifecta offered above—flexibility—
refers to the need for teachers with ELs in their classrooms to be ready to adapt
instructional methods as these students develop or if they are observed to be
struggling in a given area. More than this, however, it is also important to adopt
a flexible, broad-based approach to language and communication (use gestures if
needed; ask students if there’s a word for a given concept in their first language;
invent new idioms; etc.). In this regard, the so-called translanguaging movement,
which has become increasingly popular over recent decades, has many positive
contributions to make to the learning environment and to individual and group
learning outcomes. In brief, translanguaging is a set of beliefs and practices centered
on the notion that language is not, to use an analogy, a set of separate filing drawers
(labeled English, Spanish, etc.) whose contents get mixed up only by error but a

Educators’ Choice 21