Childhood Education

ISSN: 0009-4056 (Print) 2162-0725 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uced20

Focus on Elementary: What Is Good Teaching for

Elementary English Language Learners?

Heather B. Cunningham & Patricia A. Crawford

To cite this article: Heather B. Cunningham & Patricia A. Crawford (2016) Focus on Elementary:
What Is Good Teaching for Elementary English Language Learners?, Childhood Education, 92:5,
409-414, DOI: 10.1080/00094056.2016.1226117

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2016.1226117

Published online: 01 Sep 2016.

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Focus on Elementary
Patricia A. Crawford and April Mattix Foster, Editors

What Is Good Teaching for Elementary

English Language Learners?
By Heather B. Cunningham and Patricia A. Crawford

Heather B. Cunningham is Faculty Instructor, Center for Urban Education and

Department of Instruction and Learning, and Patricia A. Crawford is Associate Professor of
Early Childhood Education, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Ms. Jenkins sat in the faculty meeting at the elementa-
ry school where she had been working for 12 years. Her
principal, Mrs. Morrison, was talking about the impor-
tance of supporting the increasing number of English
language learners, or ELLs, that have joined their
school over the last few years. Mrs. Jenkins thought to
herself, I am so glad that I dont have to worry about
that. I know what good teaching is, and I know how
to reach my students. I follow state standards, I create
a safe learning environment for all learners, and my
students are always surrounded by opportunities to use
language.
more teachers across the United States than ever
before have ELLs in their classrooms. According
to the National Center for Education Statistics
(2015), although 14 states still report that less than
3% of their public school students are ELLs, the
U.S. average of ELLs in PreK-12 classrooms was
9.2% during the 2012-13 school year. ELL popula-
tions are significantly higher in urban areas. In fact,
more than 25% of residents over the age of 5 speak
a language other than English at home in such
major cities as Chicago, Washington, D.C., New
York City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and
Houston (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015).

I
n classrooms around the world, second lan-
guage learners are entering schools in increas-
ing number. In the United States, the focus of
this article, English language learners (ELLs)
are a growing population in todays classrooms.
Although Ms. Jenkins reaction is a common one,
it is also a misconception: the types of pedagogy
that constitute good teaching for most students are
not always enough to meet the needs of ELLs. The
purpose of this article is to examine what consti-
tutes good teaching for ELLs, and to consider how
this might be different from typical forms of good
teaching for native English speakers. The article
will include a brief introduction to ELLs in the
United States, an explanation of key ideas about
how ELLs learn English, and a presentation of
strategies that teachers can use to make their class-
rooms academically and linguistically supportive
places for ELLs.
Understanding English Language Learners
ELL populations vary, both between states and
across various areas within these states. Overall,
ELLs in the United States represent a great deal
of diversity. ELLs may differ in terms of country
of origin, native language, literacy skills they pos-
sess in their native language, and quality of their
previous educational experiences. Despite these
differences, understanding two commonalities of
second language development can help a teacher
understand how best to support all ELLs.
The first commonality that teachers can expect is
that as ELLs learn a new language, they all prog-
ress through a series of generally accepted stages.
These stages provide a guide for what teachers can
expect from ELLs in terms of language abilities and
participation in class activities during this natural
progression (see Table 1 for more information on
these stages of second-language development).
The second commonality among all ELLs relates
to the difference between basic interpersonal com-
munication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic
language proficiency (CALP). BICS is the social
language that students need to interact with others
socially. CALP is the academic language that stu-
dents need to succeed in the classroom. Although

September/October 2016 / 409

 Table 1: Stages of Second-Language Acquisition

Name of Level Description of the Level

1: Pre-Production The Silent Period, in which learners absorb the sounds and rhythms of
the new language, rely on context clues to establish meaning, and typically
communicate nonverbally
2: Early Production Learners begin to utilize phrases involving up to three words, may sing short
songs or recite brief poems
3: Speech Emergence Utilize longer and more complex utterances; syntax errors are still quite
noticeable as utterances begin to resemble sentences
4: Intermediate Fluency Increased vocabulary; can begin and sustain conversations, recognize and
correct their own errors
5: Advanced Fluency Sufficient vocabulary; able to participate in class activities at grade-level with
occasional support, able to use English at grade-level and in same ways as
native English-speaking peers
Adapted from Diaz-Rico (2012), p. 70 and The IRIS Center (2011)

ELLs will probably develop the needed social lan-
guage (BICS) to successfully interact with English-
speaking students and adults in their lives in the
first year or two that they learn English, it usually
takes between five and eight years for them to de-
velop the proficiency in academic language (CALP)
needed for classroom success (Cummins, 1984). As
most ELLs will enter mainstream K-12 classes well
before they are proficient in academic English, they
will require accommodations to support their aca-
demic language development for years after join-
ing mainstream classrooms. Therefore, the biggest
difference between good teaching aimed solely
at native English speakers and good teaching for
ELLs is that good teaching for ELLs means provid-
ing intentional accommodations to meet these stu-
dents language development needs.
What Teachers Can Do to Support the Success of
English Language Learners
Most elementary teachers already do much that
supports ELLs language development needs. Like
Ms. Jenkins, most teachers intentionally create a
classroom climate that is supportive of all students,
encourages respect, and acknowledges and values
differences among students. This sort of supportive
and caring environment helps ELLs by decreasing
their anxiety about learning both new academic
content and the English language in front of their
English-speaking peers (Diaz-Rico, 2012). Most
teachers also agree with Ms. Jenkins about the im-
portance of a language-rich environment, where
class members are encouraged to communicate
and interact with one another. A language-rich en-
vironment gives ELLs many opportunities to prac-
tice both their oral and written skills in English,
which again promotes their language development
(Egbert & Ernst-Slavit, 2010). But although these
elements of good teaching are important for sup-
porting the needs of ELLs, teachers can do more to
make their classroom supportive of ELLs and their
language development needs.
Three additional strategies that teachers can use
to support ELLs include explicitly thinking about
the language demands of a lesson by adding lan-
guage objectives to a lesson plan, building student
background knowledge about a lesson topic, and
making lesson content as comprehensible as pos-
sible. Including these three strategies in ways that
benefit ELLs will allow teachers to make signifi-
cant progress toward the idea of good teaching for
ELLsand in ways that also benefit native English
speakers.
Adding Language Objectives
Teachers can support the academic success of ELLs
by adding language objectives to a lesson plan.
Language objectives describe the language skills a
student needs to use in order to meet the content
objectives and participate in the lesson (Egbert
& Ernst-Slavit, 2010). Teachers may ask students
to use language to describe the steps of a science
experiment, read a social studies passage, or solve
a word problem. In order to add a language objec-

410 \ Childhood Education

 Table 2: Five Starting Points for Thinking About the Language Demands of a Lesson

1. Key vocabulary, concept, or academic words needed to engage in lesson

2. Language skills needed to access information during a lesson (e.g., reading a short story or listening to a
video)
3. Language skills needed to complete activities and assignments (e.g., solving a word problem, gathering
information from an internet source, writing a paragraph)
4. Grammar or language structures common to the content area (e.g., writing descriptions or making
comparisons in science; using past or future tense to write a story for language arts)
5. Language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of a lesson (e.g., when a new chapter is
introduced, how to preview the chapter to notice bolded and italicized words, important pictures, and
diagrams)
Adapted from Himmel (2012) and Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec (2012)

tive to a lesson, a teacher first needs to think about
the lessons language demands. In other words,
the teacher might think about what the student
needs to be able to do with language in order to
access the content presented. It is likely that a les-
son might have multiple language demands, and
it is up to the teacher to decide what uses of lan-
guage are most important in any particular lesson.
Table 2 presents five ideas that teachers can use as
starting points to think about a lessons language
demands.
Once a teacher has a sense of a lessons language
demands, a language objective can be added to the
lesson that describes how students will access the
academic content. Language objectives should be
written in a format similar to content objectives.
Just like content objectives, language objectives
should be specific, measurable, and use action
verbs that explain what the student will do with
language during the lesson (Himmel, 2012). In pri-
mary social studies, students might be engaged in
a lesson in which the content objective is to com-
pare their daily lives with those of their parents,
grandparents, or guardians. A language objective
that supports this task could be listing in writing
the daily activities of their own lives and those of
others. All students in the class engage in the list-
making activity described by the language objec-
tive. After considering the lesson from a language
perspective, the teacher can explore the types of
support a particular ELL might need in order to
engage in this list-making activity. An ELL might
benefit from a word bank of typical daily activi-
ties in the home, or a graphic organizer that helps
them organize daily activities beginning in the
morning and ending at night. More supportive
strategies that might benefit ELLs are discussed in
the third strategy described here.
Language objectives also can be added to les-
sons that seem further away from language devel-
opment, such as science and math lessons. In sci-
ence, for example, students might be engaged in
identifying and providing examples of soil compo-
nents. A language objective for this lesson might
be describing components of soil to a partner. This
language objective clarifies how all students will
accomplish the soil identification task from a lan-
guage perspective, opening the door for a teacher
to consider any additional support an ELL might
need in order to participate in this speaking activ-
ity. Similarly, in math, a primary student might be
using pie charts found in a textbook to compare
fractional parts. A language objective that would
help them do this might be identifying important
math textbook features, such as chapter headings
and diagram descriptions. Again, this language
objective distills the language demands of this
fraction lesson and allows the teacher to consider
any support an ELL might need in accessing ma-
terial in the textbook. In all of these cases, the
language objective identifies what all students are
asked to do with language during a lesson, and al-
lows a teacher to consider the best way to support
an ELL in the lesson from a language perspective.
The addition of language objectives to a lesson
may seem challenging and laborious for teachers
who are new to them. However, with just a small
amount of practice, thinking about a lesson in this
way will seem as straightforward as any other
part of the lesson planning process. And adding
language objectives is very worthwhile: they are
the primary way a teacher can ensure that good

September/October 2016 / 411

teaching is also good teaching for ELLs.
Language objectives allow teachers to explicitly
think about how language is used in a lesson and
consider the language support ELLs might need.
For more ideas on writing appropriate language
objectives, teachers can consult either their state
standards for English language development
or the national non-profit organization WIDA
(2014). The WIDA English language develop-
ment standards offer examples of language tasks
appropriate for ELLs across content areas and
proficiency levels. Many states base their PreK-12
English language development standards on the
WIDA standards. More information about WIDA
can be found in the resource section at the end of
this article.
Building Background
A second way teachers can better support the aca-
demic success of ELLs is by building explicit links
between ELL background knowledge and the les-
son. Building background knowledge helps stu-
dents develop schemas, those organized patterns
of thought that help people organize information
into categories and see relationships between
ideas (DeMaggio, 1997). When teachers take the
time to build background knowledge, new lesson
content can be attached to existing schemas that
ELLs hold. This makes learning new information
much less overwhelming. Although many teachers
already recognize building background knowl-
edge as a facet of good teaching, some ELLs may
not relate to the same references that teachers use
for native English speakers or may have gaps in
their education around the content area (Short &
Echevarria, 2005). As a result, teachers may have
to think more deeply about how to activate ELLs
background knowledge. For example, students
may not have learned much previously about the
first groups of Europeans to settle in the United
States, but they most likely can relate to the per-
sonal experience of arriving in a place they have
never been before. New knowledge about the
Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock makes more sense
for ELLs when this new information is organized
around schemas relating to arriving in a new
place.
Teachers can make two types of connections
to build background knowledge: personal con-
nections and academic connections. Personal
connections explicitly link concepts from student
backgrounds and experiences to new content in-
formation, and help students recognize how the
new information may relate to them or their lives
outside of school (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2013).
412 \ Childhood Education
The challenge for teachers is getting to know the
ELLs in their class, as well as their families and
their cultural communities, well enough that they
can build upon experiences, backgrounds, and
values in a way that make sense for ELLs as they
learn new content (Cline & Necochea, 2003).
Academic connections help students explicitly
link new learning to past learning (Echevarria,
Vogt, & Short, 2012). This can occur through
something as simple as explicitly reviewing the
past days lesson. From a brain-based learning
perspective, these instructional moves help ELLs
engage in a lesson and attach the new information
to schema of information that they already know
(Diaz-Rico, 2012). A teacher can do this through
introductory or warm-up questions that take
previous learning in a new direction, or activities
such as a K-W-L chart (tracking what a student
knows [K], wants to know [W], and has learned
[L] about a topic) that helps students identify what
they already know about a topic. If ELLs have no
academic connection to or background knowl-
edge about a particular topic, teachers can help
them build this knowledge through introductory
activities such as field trips, targeted hands-on ex-
periences, or class visitors (Egbert & Ernst-Slavit,
2010). Overall, when a teacher takes the time to
build background knowledge through academic
and personal connections, ELLs are able to more
fully engage in the learning process and attach
new content to knowledge they already possess.
Making Input Comprehensible
The third strategy teachers can use to better meet
ELLs needs is the addition of content supports
that increase the comprehensibility of new infor-
mation presented in a lesson. Well-recognized
instructional moves, such as supplementing new
content with graphic organizer activities, utilizing
audio recordings of text to support reading tasks,
and encouraging students to interact with others
about lesson content, are all strategies that make
new information more comprehensible to ELLs
(Diaz-Rico, 2012; Echevarria & Vogt, 2010).
Teachers also might adjust their speech to make
a lesson more comprehensible to ELLs. Table 3
describes five ways that teachers can modify their
language to help ELLs. When teachers modify
their speech in these ways, ELLs can more easily
focus on the key ideas that are being presented.
Adding these types of supports to increase a les-
sons comprehensibility can help ELLs grasp new
content information without simplifying it, allow-
ing students to more fully engage in content les-
sons and more easily approach academic success.
 Table 3: Modifying Teacher Speech for ELLs

Speak in short phrases and sentences

Use longer pauses between sentences and ideas
Stress important words to illuminate their meaning
Avoid contractions and fused forms, such as gonna in place of going to
Avoid slang and idiomatic expressions, such as cut to the chase or spill the beans.

Adapted from The IRIS Center (2011)

Table 4: Internet Resources to Help Teachers Meet the Needs of ELLs

WIDA English Language Development Standards

www.wida.us/standards/eld.aspx#2007
Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, WIDA is a non-profit organization that
develops standards, assessments, research, and professional development for educators related
to the needs of EL students. Resources include a web-based tool that allows teachers to locate
samples of language tasks that students should be able to do in a variety of content areas based
on their language proficiency levels.

IRIS Center Module: Understanding the Needs of English Language Learners

http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/ell/cresource/q1/p02/#content
The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University offers online professional development to support
teacher effectiveness. This module helps teachers support the success of ELLs.

Colorn Colorado
www.colorincolorado.org
This organizations name comes from a popular way to end childrens stories in Spanish:
y colorn colorado, este cuento se ha acabado!, which is similar to the phrase, and they lived
happily ever after. Colorn Colorado provides research-based information, activities, and
advice for educators and families of ELLs. It is based in Washington, DC.

Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)

www.CAL.org
CAL is a national level organization that works with school districts, refugee service providers,
and state and federal agencies. CAL promotes language learning and cultural understanding
by offering a wide variety of research, resources, and policy analysis reports to the public.

Understanding Language
http://ell.stanford.edu
This Stanford University project is dedicated to heightening awareness of the language and
literacy issues embedded within standards-based educational practices. They offer free
resources that support integrated developmental language skills.

September/October 2016 / 413

Whats Next?
ELLs are becoming part of the everyday fabric
of many elementary classrooms. Although many
ideas that constitute good teaching work for na-
tive English speakers and ELLs alike, ideas such
as considering the language demands of a lesson,
considering how an ELLs background knowledge
may differ from that of a native English speaker,
and adapting teacher speech to make it more com-
prehensible help ensure that good teaching is
also good teaching for ELLs. Classroom teach-
ers have an opportunity to transform learning for
all students, including those who are ELLs (see
Table 4 for additional professional development
resources to support ELLs). By integrating the
strategies presented here and consulting additional
resources, teachers can be much more confident
that they are providing good teaching for their
native English speakers and their ELLs alike.
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FROM THE CENTER FOR EDUCATION DIPLOMACY
A series of briefs that examine how Education Diplomacy is shaping
global education initiatives as the world embarks upon a new era of development.
Read them at www.educationdiplomacy.org/briefs/
414 \ Childhood Education
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