Sheet 1 of 4

Literacy in the Curriculum: Challenges for ELs

Principals’ Meeting, February 2011

 Collaboration is the key to developing literacy: i.e., partners, Small

groups, Whole group.

 ELL’s don’t get enough exposure to academic language through listening

to text or academic media.

 Moving students from BICS to CALP.

 Spoken language differs from written language.

 Idioms are language and/or culture specific and can impede

comprehension.

 Academic language should have connection (in some way) to the

students’ prior knowledge.

 Plurals and Collective Nouns are difficult categories for EL’s.

 Science has more than 3000 new vocabulary words; foreign language only
has 2000 new words.

 Spanish + Latin: Connections help students develop vocabulary if

teachers bridge the information.

 Being literate in a subject is dependent upon knowing the context for the
new content.

 Core Vocabulary; Making explicit their thinking/reasoning.

 Lack of scaffolding in many cases to fully access core curriculum.

 Understanding of academic vocabulary which impedes comprehension of

text.

 ELL-have a foundation knowledge with the Metric System-used in History,

Science books, yet not always emphasized in Math still uses English-cups,
fractions etc.

 Literacy is on-going and is ever developing; It develops more rapidly (and

deeply) when language is made explicit—e.g. thinking is visible.

 Challenge: Limited vocabulary, esp. content are specific vocab. of

discipline.

 Challenge: Minimal opportunities to speak/listen academic language.

 Challenge: Connections not being made between content areas or prior

knowledge on relevance to life.
 Challenge for ELL: Incoherent speech module.

 Literacy is more than decoding and language development.

 Some sounds in English do not exist in students’ primary language.

 To build language proficiency in a content area start with concrete

examples/experiences and move abstract.
Literacy in the Curriculum: Challenges for ELs Sheet 2 of 4
Principals’ Meeting, February 2011

 When the function of word changes, i.e. verb to noun; educate vs.
education; refract vs. refraction.

 Not knowing the culture of the region they may live in.

 Literacy does not necessarily mean content literacy; students can

read/write narrative prose but can’t decode academic text
(math/science/SS).

 “Parroting” something that has been read w/out understanding is not

learning.

 They often do not have enough opportunities to practice their learning in

a meaningful context which slows down their language acquisition (to
much passive listening time).

 Articles such as definite & indefinite; such as “the” dog vs. “a” dog.

 The language of science is based in Latin—Spanish speakers don’t often

know this.

 Teachers often place unrealistic projection of academic literacy based on

BICS they only be demonstrating.

 Challenges of literacy (subject specific) need to be identified and explicitly

taught…requires collaborative planning among teachers…

 Vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary…It’s all about building confidence in

vocabulary.

 Students not only need to be able to read and write but be able to use a
range of subject specific literacy’s.

 Students need opportunities to read, reason, investigate, speak and write

about concepts within disciplines.

 Teachers must honor that English Learners are not empty vessels—they
come with prior experiences and knowledge. Teachers need to tap into
their background knowledge.

 The nuances of the language.

 In order for ELs to be literate in a subject, they must learn new vocabulary
and what the words mean in context of the subject. Most importantly,
they must see the link to the big idea.

 Language must be drawn out in the form of specific “academic content”

followed by social reinforcing of “AC” usage.
 Math Word problems are very confusing to ELL students unless they are
taught to learn what is being asked.

 Students build oral fluency at a much faster pace than reading fluency.

 Some concepts may not exist in students’ primary language.

 ELLs don’t have enough opportunities to use academic language.

Literacy in the Curriculum: Challenges for ELs Sheet 3 of 4
Principals’ Meeting, February 2011

 Not allowed to read aloud often in class, be it a story or a test.

 Language in the upper grades (3-5) becomes more abstract—de

contextualized.

 Understanding of homophones—the multiple meanings are confusing.

 Dense

 Prior knowledge

 Conceptual based

 SDAIE is not just good teaching.

 Academic Language presents challenges for ELs because it demands that

they think about abstract ideas.

 One challenge is to be able to express oneself in new ways with respect to

writing in Academic Language.

 The understanding of the big idea and how to break into comprehensible
units.

 Teachers make assumptions about what students know and don’t know
about language.

 Idioms are language and/or culture specific and can impede

comprehension.

 Limited academic English especially at the upper grades.

 Unfamiliar academic words.

 Lack extensive 1st language vocabulary.

 EL limited experiences in rich language.

 EL learners do not have the opportunity to talk vs. part of instruction.

 Literacy for ELs needs to be deliberate, intentional.

 Literacy includes what “words” they hear.

 EL students have a difficult time understanding complex sentences.

 Understanding the difference between spoken and written language.

 Teachers doing all the talking; teachers answering all of their own
questions, not allowing students to talk.

 Idioms are very hard for ELs to understand because of the literal
meanings of words in the context of the idioms.
Literacy in the Curriculum: Challenges for ELs Sheet 4 of 4
Principals’ Meeting, February 2011

 ELs and SELs may have limited background knowledge due to SES factors.

 Sentence Structure: adjective + noun vs noun + adjective.

 False cognates + non phonetic spelling.

 Use of prior knowledge to teach new concepts.

 Understanding vocabulary with multiple meanings and the context in

which to use them.

 Providing time for students to engage in talk about disciplinary

knowledge.

 ELs language skills are often invisible to teachers (not assessed; not
addressed).

 The different inferences of words—How they are used in sentences and

the tone they are presented.

 Instructional focus is often on content and/or vocabulary rather than

language.

 Teacher does not scaffold lesson to allow students to access

curriculum/content.

 Concepts grow increasingly abstract with each year. Kids face college
level texts with limited vocabulary skills.

 Content specific vocabulary.

 To build language proficiency in a content area, start with concrete

examples/experiences and move to the abstract.

 ELs may not have the same opportunities to use oral language publically
as non ELs.

 Widening gap between popular culture and academic culture.

 Pace of instruction not scaffold to make instruction clear.

 Cultural language in specific context “cream”=noun; “cream”=verb.

 Lack of: vocabulary; Academic Language; Encouragement from teachers

and peers; opportunity to develop oral language.

 Prior knowledge/proficiency plays key role to promote access to core for

our ELs.
 Building vocabulary.

 Challenge: Learning to Read vs. Reading to Learn.

 Oxymoron’s; unfamiliar context.

 Using scientific or academic vocabulary when the students don’t have the
background knowledge doesn’t help out student