EdBlog Watch: ELLs in Widescreen

Those who work with English language learners (ELLs) already know what new readers of Learning the Language will quickly learn—in addition to managing classroom instruction and assessments, ELL teachers must also address the complex cultural, sociological, and psychological issues that may affect their students.

Written by Education Week assistant editor Mary Ann Zehr, the blog does an excellent job of capturing the multifaceted scope of concerns surrounding ELLs. Timely coverage and commentary on education issues such as California's NCLB compliance-driven English proficiency test are essential to the ELL educators' development. Zehr also pays attention to the serious issues of immigration law and politics, including a recent story about a deported high school senior in New Mexico.

Comments

[Bonnie Lesley]

Creative Education Institute (CEI) achieves remarkably accelerated results in moving ELLs toward English-language proficiency, both through its Essential Learning Systems and Mathematical Learning Systems programs. Many districts target ELLs for these supplemental interventions. See research, correlation documents, and results summaries at www.ceilearning.com. Areas of the ELS program that seem to be most important for ELLs are teaching phonemic awareness in English, developing a wide vocabulary, and developing fluency both in oral and written language production and in decoding. The math program teaches not only math, but math in English.

[Frank O]

To my knowledge, English Now!A/B 2.0, developed by www.LitConn.com is the only ELD product on the market that specifically teaches phonemic awareness for English learners.

[Rochelle]

Mary Ann Zehr keeps tabs on English Language Learners across the United States. It helps to keep the teaching community current in many many ways.

[evslink]

ELL teachers must exactly emphasize on cultural, sociological, and psychological issues that may affect their students to be effective.