In my 25 years of teaching ESL, I've had students from many different language backgrounds. I would, indeed, have to be very talented to know all their languages. I coordinate a program at the community college level, and we require our teachers to have a Masters in ESL or a related field. Teachers with a Masters in ESL will have courses that require them to understand lingusitic frameworks of many languages, not just the ones they know. For people who are interested in this topic, one of the books on this topic is Learner English: A teacher's guide to Interference and Other Problems by Michael Swan. It covers a number of languages, and what type of first-language interference can create misunderstandings when learning English.

Terry Pruett-Said
Macomb Community College
Michigan




________________________________
From: LYNDA OSBORNE <lyndaosborne at att.net>
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 9:49:55 AM
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3161] Re: ESL Teacher Training


Greetings, everyone.

Quick query. I'm an elementary school teacher and have wondered, "Are ESL teachers required to learn the linguistic frameworks of their students' primary languages?"  My current school does not have an ESL program, but I did work at a school several years ago that had one. I had about 33% Mexican-American Spanish-speaking students and found that their learning and use of English improved during my time with them. This may be because I speak Spanish and know the basics of the language's grammatical/conversational structure. I feel this knowledge helped me to better support English learning and conceptual understandings with these students. I know that there are some ESL courses that prepare teachers in this field over a 6-week summer course, which I'm not certain would be quite enough time to expose teachers to a variety of linguistic constucts [languages] if they didn't already have such knowledge. 

My success with those students may also be attributed to their level of comfort with me knowing that I respected them [and their language enough to learn and practice, etc.]. Since language is so intricately tied to the thinking process, a teacher's ability to "understand where a student is coming from" in terms of how they think and speak [and culture] can serve to motivate student learning and help the teacher to access gaps, needs, strengths, etc. I suppose that my final question rounds out to be, "What is the general focus for ESL training and do you think that ESL teachers are prepared adequately in these training programs?

Thanks for your input!

Lynda Lee

Lynda Lee Osborne
Teacher of the Year 2008-9 
FLL Robotics Coach
Global Economics Project Coordinator
A. Philip Randolph Elementary 
Fulton County Schools
lyndaosborne at att.net

 



________________________________
From: "Liden, Astrid" <Astrid.Liden at state.mn.us>
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 12:17:02 PM
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3158] ESL Learners with Low Levels of Literacy


Special Topic: Research and Best Practice Concerning the Instruction of ESL Learners with Low Levels of Literacy
We are pleased to announce that the 25th anniversary volume of the MinneWITESOL Journal is now available online at www.minnewitesoljournal.org. The first section of this volume includes articles that concentrate on our special topic: research and best practice concerning the instruction of ESL learners with low levels of literacy.  Articles include an overview of research-based methods for teaching ESL students with low levels of literacy, a report on a year-long research study on teaching learning strategies to students with low levels of literacy, and several reviews of materials for low-literacy students.
Astrid Liden 
ABE Professional Development Coordinator 
Minnesota Department of Education 
Adult Basic Education (ABE) 
1500 Highway 36 West 
Phone: 651-582-8424 
Fax: 651-634-5154 
Email: astrid.liden at state.mn.us  
Roseville, MN 55113-4266
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