Category: Language Education

ESL is a method of language acquisition where students are placed in regular English-speaking classes for part of the school day and pulled out for intensive small-group language focus during other classes.  Are you an educator or parent searching for accommodations to help ESL students? Well, look no further. Here are some ways that you can make the learning process easier for ESL students.

Classroom Accommodations: To succeed in the classroom, ESL students need access to appropriate supports, including:

• Allow extra time on tests
• Provide a quiet space to work
• Explicitly teach language objectives.
• Simplify the language used in instruction
• Give additional instruction including reviews, drills
• Use manipulatives to enhance concepts depending on the language level of learner
• Provide visual aids to enhance key concepts
• Provide for alternate seating for proximity to peer helper or teacher as necessary
• Assist the student in building a picture file of key vocabulary
• Assist students in underlining keywords or important facts in the text
• Use prompts, photocopies of notes or outlines, or highlighted texts and materials
• Utilize resources in the student’s first language
• Teach new concepts in chunks
• Provide frequent checks for comprehension
• Orient students to expectations through rubrics
• Provide simplified/additional instructions
• Allow editing and revision before grading
• Distribute a daily or weekly syllabus of class and homework tasks
• Give alternative homework or classwork assignments suitable to the student’s linguistic ability for activities and assessments
• Extend time for assignment completion as necessary
• Give students an opportunity to express key concepts in their own words
• Allow alternate reading assignments/materials at the student’s reading level
• Utilize resources in the student’s first language
• Substitute a hands-on activity for a written activity
• Utilize assignment notebooks
• Simplify language or shorten assignments
• Provide a word bank
• Allow the student to take the test/re-test individually with a teacher or paraprofessional
• Read the text aloud
• Allow for small group administration of assessments
• Utilize informal observations of performance and classroom participation as a percentage of the overall evaluation (see rubric).
• Incorporate group work into the assessment process
• Simplify the language and organization of the assessment
• Give opportunities for the student to take tests in sections/chunks
• Allow for an extended time to complete the assessment
• Provide the opportunity for a student to provide oral responses to be recorded by the teacher or paraprofessional
• Allow editing and revision before grading
• Design projects and assessments for the student that requires a reduced sentence or paragraph composition
• Use rubrics as an assessment tool in place of textbook tests

At Home Accommodations: Parents can support the work that is being done at school, by providing their children with the following at-home accommodations.

• Play language development games
• Learn the new language alongside your child
• Provide a quiet place to study
• Help with homework
• Be understanding

Since the online teaching boom began a decade and a half ago, K-12 schools, universities, and corporations have all jumped on the elearning bandwagon. This, of course, has democratized and created flexible education options for the entire globe.

Over the last decade, this trend has continued, with the language learning industry seeing the most growth. For instance, online language teachers command upwards of $30 per hour for their services, and this figure just keeps increasing.

Are you a language teacher looking for a full-time or part-time online teaching job? Well, you are in luck, as we have composed a list of the highest-paid language teaching jobs online. Good luck, and let us know when you land a gig.

1. Twosigmas– Twosigmas partners with three private language schools providing instruction to young learners in China.
2. DadaABC– DadaABC is a highly-rated Chinese online English education company.
3. iTutor– For qualified teachers, iTutor offers highly competitive wages with a pretty flexible schedule.
4. Italki– Italki is the world’s largest marketplace for online language teachers.
5. English First– English First offers teaching positions abroad in Shanghai, China, or online from anywhere in the world.
6. Englishhunt– This online teaching company is looking for native English speakers who are from the USA to teach Korean business students. 
7. Oakary– Oakary is unique in that this platform actually connects you with several teaching jobs.
8. VIPKid– Beijing-based VIPKID is one of the best paid online teaching jobs if you are interested in teaching English online.
9. Lingoda– Lingoda is unique in that you don’t have to be fluent in English to teach with this language instruction provider.
10. Magic Ears– Magic Ears is an innovative online English learning platform for students from 4-12 years old.
11. Qkids– If your schedule is already pretty full, the teaching opportunity from Qkids might be a perfect fit.
12. Landi English– Over 1000 teachers, working for Landi English, are currently enjoying their location-independent lifestyle.
13. Cambly– Cambly is a little different than other online teaching platforms.

What sites did I miss?

Sheltered instruction is a strategic approach to teaching English language learners that allows learners to understand content as they develop language proficiency. To use sheltered instruction in the classroom, you have to implement the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model, which is a research-based model of sheltered instruction designed to allow English language learners to grasp academic content while developing language proficiency.

The SIOP Model consists of eight interconnected parts:

• Lesson Preparation
• Building Background
• Comprehensible Input
• Strategies
• Interaction
• Practice/Application
• Lesson Delivery
• Review & Assessment

By leveraging instructional techniques connected to each of these parts, teachers can design and deliver lessons that meet the diverse linguistic needs and academic of English language learners.

Implementing the SIOP Model in your classroom

Are you looking to implement the SIOP model into your classroom? Don’t worry, we have you covered. The video below provides an overview of the SIOP model, and discusses how teachers can successfully use it to educate English language learners.  

We live in a global, integrated society where perhaps more than ever before fluency in a foreign language is key to success and progress. The benefits are clear and measurable:

1. It is becoming not just desirable, but essential to many professions.
2. Fluency facilitates travel. It doesn’t matter if you are completely fluent; native people appreciate that you took the time to learn to converse in their language.
3. Once you have learned a second language, the brain has memory skills called metalinguistic awareness that make learning another language easier.
4. Speaking more than one language boosts the neural pathways of the brain, allowing more channels for information to process.
5. By experimenting with new words and phrases, your brain’s creativity and logic increase.
6. Learning and speaking another language boosts self-confidence.
7. You become smarter as your memory, attention span, and concentration improve.

It has always been clear that immersion is the best way to retain a language, however, almost every school student takes two years of a foreign language but never achieves fluency. So why are more students not pursuing actually learning a foreign language not just as a satisfied requirement, but as a true skill?

One problem has been the inability to afford or the opportunity to go abroad and live in a place long enough to converse freely. That has changed with our digital age. There are ways to immerse a student more completely than ever before using technology as a help.

Immersion Strategies

1. Why watch TV in English when it is simple to change the language to the one that you are studying?
2. Your computer, smartphone, and almost any digital device have language options, as well.
3. Strange but true, soap operas in another language can also help fluency. They have predictable plot lines and repetitive language, making them a helpful choice for practicing your understanding.
4. Find a conversation partner, preferably one who is native to the country of your language. This person can help with colloquial speech and slang, too. This is much easier in a big city, but you can find a partner online, too.
5. Use an app like Nextdoor or Meetup to set up a conversation club where many people can come to talk together and socialize.
6. If you live in a larger city, shop at the stores where they speak the language you are learning and limit yourself to speaking only in that language.
7. Keep a journal in your target language.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book in 2008 called the Outliers in which he stated that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become good at something. His message was that most people are not born geniuses, but are deliberate “practicers.” He says, “The point is simply that natural ability requires a huge investment of time to be made manifest.”

Many schools today have classes that are taught partially or completely in the immersion language but unless students decide to become deliberate practicers, regardless of the opportunities available to them, they won’t truly benefit from learning a foreign language.