English As A Foreign Language

ESL is stands for English as a Second Language, which is a program that?s mainly developed to supplement the Bilingual Education in order to give extra help to the immigrants to learn English. ?The profession of teaching English as a second language within the United States began to expand in the 1960s in response to increasing numbers of immigrant and refugee children entering the country, as well as to the growing numbers of international students attending U.S. universities? (Collier and Ovando, 1998). Students in the ESL program receive the instruction of their level of English proficiency, so they can learn the English from the very basic level. Once they get better with their English skills, they will be able to move out the ESL program and be as competitive as the native speakers of English in other subject classes. The first decades of ESL programs fails to help students with academic work in math, science, social studies, and other curricular areas but English. In order to improve this situation, ESL programs started to focus more in helping students with their academic works during the 1950s and 1960s (Collier and Ovando, 1998).

All these strategies gives all students an equal opportunity to practice English, participation and involvement. ELLs students when it’s time to read or participate in class they may be reluctant to speak because of their lack of proficiency in English or feel uncomfortable in an environment where they have to share their ideas. ESL teachers must provide a positive and supportive environment that offers significant influence on student comfort level, success and participation that requiring ELLs to use the language in front of class without force them

Selecting materials relevant to ELL’s experience or culture; strategically using students’ first languages to make the content delivered in a second language more comprehensible teaching word learning strategies that build on first language knowledge such as using cognates; and frequently using partner talk to give low-English-proficient students more opportunities to talk with more English-proficient

In many cases there is an assumption that by placing an ELL student into a mainstream English-speaking classroom they will quickly acclimate themselves to English because that is what they are surrounded by during the school-day. Students will hear English being spoken and will quickly pick up on what is being asked of them.

It is essential to understand English language learners’ needs because ELL students face the combined challenge of learning all the academic content as other students, while also learning the language of instruction. With the rapid growth in the size of the ELL student population in the U.S., teachers who are effective recognizes ELL students unique academic needs, unique background experience, culture, language, personality, interests and attitudes toward learning for the purpose to adjust, or differentiate, their instruction to meet students’ needs.

ELL continue to rise year after year. In EDUC 628, the class delved into the rise of ELL in America and how the best teaching methods to approach each learner with. Every ELL student is unique and has different learning process. Although the semester covered a wide variety of topics ranging from dialects to teaching methods, every module served its purpose in providing a framework for future ELL teachers. Learning about how to teach ELL was significant to me because when I first entered the school system in America, I was placed into ESL and I have gone through the process of many of these teaching methods. EDUC 628 main focus was preparing students whose goal in the future was to educate ELL. The articles and readings assigned in the class provided a funds of knowledge going into each new lesson. Coupled with the readings, hands on activities such as the mini lessons and designing lesson plans provided each student with experience that will reflect on their teaching abilities in the classroom. In my paper, I will be provided a step by step synthesis of what was learned and accomplished every week along with a brief summary of the readings. I will probe deeper into the modules and lessons that piqued my interest the most and that also challenge my mindset.

It has been estimated that by the year 2025, approximately one out of every public school student will be identified as an ESL/ELL student in the United States. ESL stands for English as a Second Language and ELL stands for English Language Learner. An ESL/ELL student can be defined as a student whose predominant language or languages at home, is other than English, and would require additional English language support to develop reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The difference between an ESL student and ELL student is minor; An ESL student participates in programs that are customarily specialized while an ELL student partakes in a traditional educational classroom. English Language Learners have surpassed other subgroups in becoming the fastest growing of the public school population. Despite the common misjudgement of some people towards the ESL/ELL population, 76% of the ESL/ELL students in elementary schools and 56% of the ESL/ELL students in secondary schools are native-born. The highest percentages of ELL/ESL students in public schools are found in the west of the United States. Taking the average of both bigger and smaller cities, ELL students make an average of 14% of the total public school enrollment and in suburban areas, ELL students make up an average of 8.5% of public school enrollment. The ESL/ELL population has more than doubled over the past 15 years and more than half of those students struggle with their academic performance. An ESL/ELL

A full range of services are provided to meet individual needs. One of these services, English as a Second Language, provides support in general education classrooms for students whose first language is not English. The English Language Learning (ELL) Program utilizes various instructional models where students work within a classroom setting, in small groups or individually

E.A.L. stands for English, as an Additional Language. It is an additional in school support provided for children whose first language is not English. If children are not supported to develop English, they are less likely to be able to

Reflecting back on my field experience, I was able to gain quality insight as well as a better understanding of the teaching and the learning process of ESOL in a mainstream classroom. My experience in Mrs. Little’s classroom has shown that the role of the ESOL teacher is to educate students in functional language skills, offer content that is academically challenging, and helps students acculturate to the new language and culture.

Acquiring and learning a second language do not refer only to handling oral communication skills. It is more than that; it takes the students´ abilities in enhancing their lexicon, their management in syntax, and their perspective about words´ influences in people. Thus, summing this up, it is indispensable that ESL students have a grand deal about linguistic knowledge. In other words, ESL learners not only require speaking, but also reading, writing and thinking in English when they complete whatever English career.

Vocabulary plays a significant role in English as second language learning process. For the majority of English as Second Language(ESL) learners, the ultimate goal of learning the language is to understand (read and listen) and communicate (write and speak) with little difficulty and the lack of sufficient vocabulary may be the constraint of such goal (Folse, 2004). As the bedrock of English and as well as language, vocabulary also facilitates the development of other language skills: lexical richness leads to the progress in the use of language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing skills (Nation, 1994). Reversely, The improvement in such skills may enhance learners vocabulary size as the exposure to more learning materials improves the capacity to acquire new vocabulary. (The importance of learning vocabulary/ why vocabulary?)

According to Dudley-Evans and Johns (1991), although ESP/EVOP has an international scope, its purpose should be specific to the needs and interests of the targeted learners. Thus, Dudley-Evans and Johns stress the international nature and scope of the ESP/EVOP approaches to English teaching. These authors attribute the emergence and international spread of ESP/EVOP to globalization and the rise of English as an international and business language. Consequently, English has found increased usage in matters of technology, scientific research, and trade. Evidently, increased demand of English for Specific Purpose can thus be attributed to globalization and the increased use of English in the international arena.

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and

English as a second language is becoming more popular all across the globe. It is not surprising, because English is the main language of business and commerce, trade, advertising, sport, of science, medicine, education, of popular music, entertainment, computers, video games and the Internet. Most of the scientific, technological and academic information in the world is available primarily in English. English unites and connects people from many different countries and cultures more so than other languages.