Subcategories for Inquiry Groups: English Language Learners and Literacy

Factors that influence literacy development- Natalie
Technology for ELLs: Charlotte
Pre-reading activities/building background knowledge: Anna
Differentiated Instruction: Maggie
Bi-lingual Special Education: Shannon

Annotated Bibliography Prospectus

These books will supplement a unit on teaching food vocabulary in Spanish. The class is a 7-8th grade class of average learners in Spanish 1.

Nelson, Robin. Las Frutas. 2003.

Nelson, Robin. Los Cereales. 2003.

Nelson, Robin. Los Productors Lacteos. 2003.

What are some challenges that English Language Learners face?

I will be blogging periodically this semester about issues of literacy in English Languager Learners (ELLs). Today I want to start at the beginning, and discuss what some of the difficulties are that ELLs have to deal with. I reviewed Challenges for ELLs in Content Area Learning and found a couple things that I hadn't considered before. First, a good amount of our literature that is taught in middle or high school English classes is "culture bound." Students from other countries or cultures may have no knowledge of genres like fairy tales, tall tales, or other mythical stories. Even if the student understands the vocabulary, they may not grasp the meaning of the story. I'm reminded of a Latin-American literature class I took while studying Spanish during my undergrad work. I hadn't considered the genre of the story I was reading, and couldn't understand why the material wasn't making sense. The main character seemed to be experiencing life backwards; I thought my Spanish must be horrible if I couldn't understand what was going on. I realized suddenly that the story's title was "Journey to the Seed" (translated) and it was part of the magical realism genre. I understood the language; I just hadn't understood what was going on until I knew what kind of story it was. It's the same way for ELLs reading fictional pieces that involve different creatures. Stories like C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia or J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit could be completely lost.

The lack of knowledge about our culture can also effect ELLs who may be reading about modern characters. If the material being covered has any references to U.S. history or geography, this will not make sense to ELLs. There are certainly parts of our history that still effect us today. Students without cultural background knowledge would not understand racial tensions between African Americans and Caucasians in the south, for example, or between Hispanics and other groups in the west. Episodes taking place in New York may contain inferences about 9/11. This not effects comprehension of the meaning of the text, but comprehension of vocabulary words that are related to these pieces of our culture. Building background knowledge and activating prior knowledge are essential when teaching works like these.

Haynes, J. (2009). Challenges for ELLs in content area learning. Retrieved from http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/challenges_ells_content_area_1_65322.php on 13 February 2011.