Supporting Struggling ELLs Using Collaboration

Collaborative Teaching between ESL and General Education Teachers

Jan 16, 2009

Collaborative teaching between ESL and general education teachers helps supports struggling primary school ELLs.

Collaboration between ESL (English as a second language)and general education teachers is the answer for supporting more and more struggling primary school ELLs (English language learners) in today's fast paced classrooms.

Teachers realize that speeding the curriculum is not the answer to supporting struggling ELLs but rather to find more economical and user-friendly ways to collaborate. The next logical step is for general education teachers to work strategically with ESL teachers. To complicate the problem even more for newer teachers of struggling ELLs, many school districts do not provide teachers with specific guidelines on how to collaborate, which is what is missing in many collaborative contexts in schools across the US today.

Struggling ELLs are those students who have yet achieved reading proficiency along with their native English speaking peers in a general education classroom. This makes teacher collaboration even more urgent so teachers can support ELLs so they can catch-up with their native English speaking peers.

Many general education teachers realize that their struggling ELLs need more than just reading support. Discussing these critical needs can help teachers learn more about how the other teacher provides more decoding and fluency activities to support the early reading skills struggling ELLs need.

Steps to Building a Collaborative Plan

Teachers need to define struggling ELLs in both general education contexts and ESL learning groups. Can they read and understand meaning of the words they read? Are they still stuck with technical reading? Knowing the oral abilities of struggling ELLs helps teachers pinpoint the necessary knowledge they need to target oral English proficiency objectives and implement instruction in both ESL and general education contexts.

Next Step: ESL and General Education Teachers Differentiate Instruction

Once teachers are able to do a thorough pre-assessment of their ELLs, they can differentiate instruction based on various groupings that support oral language skills ELLs will need to practice and understand words and texts on a deeper level of understanding. In ESL and general education collaborative groups, teachers can decide on criteria according to critical areas of instruction.

Collaboration Helps Create Supportive and Structured Teaching Environments

For both teachers and struggling ELLs, collaboration creates a supportive environment that is only successful when built up gradually. When teachers collaborate on a frequent basis, they can maximize their collaborative relationships by providing strategies to meet all levels of struggling ELLs in both ESL and general education groups.

Collaborative teaching between ESL and general education teachers is an important tool for supporting struggling ELLs. Hopefully in time, more and more teachers will learn how to optimize collaboration in order to support their struggling ELLs.

The copyright of the article Supporting Struggling ELLs Using Collaboration in English as a Second Language is owned by Dorit Sasson. Permission to republish Supporting Struggling ELLs Using Collaboration in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.