October 2021
TESOL News
1 Best Practice Tip
1 Nugget of Information about EL's
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October Best Practice Tip: Provide Grade Level Material for newcomer students
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As educators work to support students who are new to the English language, they have to make an important choice: Will I provide grade appropriate material in the students home language, or will I provide English learning material at a lower grade level? The overwhelming and obvious choice to provide grade-level material in the students home language. Doing that is not easy. Below are some tools that I urge you utilize in order to provide grade appropriate material in students home language. Click on the embedded links to learn about and utilize these tools.
Google Translate - translate your class as you speak
Immersive Reader - translate webpages
Slides Translator - translate Google Slides
TalkingPoints - communicate with students and parents in their home languages
DocTranslator- use this to translate PDF's and Word Documents while maintaining format
TLTR (TOO LONG TO READ)?
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Click the links to get directions for translation tools you can use daily
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It takes the middle school brain 4-7 years to know English at an academically proficient level
OCTOBER EVENTS
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September 15 - October 15
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Hispanic Heritage Month
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October 11, 6:00-7:00
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Children's Latinx Literature Panel
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VIRTUAL, Anytime
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DC Latino Street Murals
October Information Nugget:
How Long Does Language Acquisition Take?
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According to a study conducted at Stanford University, it takes English Learner's 3-5 years to develop oral proficiency, but 4-7 years to develop academic proficiency. The study even states that these estimates could be an understatement due to the study only looking at students who had remained in one district for their entire educational career. The study also outlines the widening gap that we see between English Speakers and English Learners. This is due to English Learners learning a new language, but also being tasked with keeping pace with their English speaking peers.
To read the study, or just look through some of the cool data, click here!
Hakuta, K., Goto Butler , Y., & Witt , D. (2000, January). How Long Does It Take English Learners to Attain Proficiency? . Stanford University. Retrieved October 2021.