November 2021
TESOL News
1 Best Practice Tip
1 Nugget of Information about EL's
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November Best Practice Tip:
MAKE IT VISUAL
One of the easiest ways to scaffold your instruction for English Learners (EL's) is to make it visual. EL's have a more difficult time comprehending spoken language. Because of this, you will want to avoid putting directions in the air. Some alternate ways to give directions include:
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Write all directions on the board.
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even ones as simple as classroom procedures
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Act it out
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It's okay to feel silly!! Acting it out allows students to know exactly what is expected of them.
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Use all nonlinguistic representations
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Accompany directions with pictures, graphs, diagrams, and other nonlinguistic models of the material you are presenting.
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This is a simple way to support EL students in your classroom, and it will help all of your students to better grasp the concepts!
TLTR (TOO LONG TO READ)?
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Make your material visual! Write on the board, act it out, use pictures, etc.!
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Being bilingual or multilingual improves memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive processing
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November Information Nugget:
How Does Being Bilingual Impact the Brain?
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When we look at bilingual/multilingual students in our schools, it is important to consider that 1 in 5 children nationwide speak a language other than English at home. This is a huge population, and therefore, it is good to know about how being multilingual impacts the brain. According to the National Institute of Health, certain brain functions are enhanced in teens who are bilingual. One of the improved functions is that being bilingual improves the working memory. It also promotes inhibitory control, which means that multilingual students have the heightened ability to pick out relevant speech sounds and ignore others. Additionally, the code switching needed to speak both language increases overall cognitive processing. As educators, this important. It helps us open our minds and appreciate that being multilingual is advantageous for students. Often times, we fall into a deficit mindset when considering EL's, and this information can help us to combat that.
Check out this article from the NIH.
Bilingual effects in the brain. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved October 6, 2021, from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/bilingual-effects-brain.