Pedagogical Principles for Language Learning

3 Focus Points

• "Know Your Learners"
• "Monitor and Assess Language Development"
• "Collaborate within Your Community of Practice"

"Know your learners"

• Summary: Learners need their teachers to know about their linguistic, educational, cultural, and geographic backgrounds for leveraged learning opportunities. (TESOL 6 Principles)
• Importance: Lessons will feel more accessible, and connections can be forged more readily with peers, their teachers, and their community.
• In Practice: Spend time at the beginning of the year playing games to highlight the groups commonalities and individual differences (see below), or engage in shared experiences (i.e. a field trip).
• Activity 1: Form small groups and give students a pile of cue cards. The objective is to build the tallest tower. In order to add a card to the tower, they must write something EVERYONE in the group has in common.
• Activity 2: Alternative human bingo. Rather than trying to fill a paper filled with arbitrary pre-designed ideas of what someone did over the summer, have the class design one where every box has a name. The catch is that fact must be UNIQUE to that individual (no one else can have that in common). Celebrate your differences!

"Monitor and assess language development"

• Summary: ELL's need their teachers to assess their English skills on a different framework than their native speaking peers, at the beginning of the year and throughout the year. Feedback should be timely and specific on the different facets of literacy (reading, writing, oral).
• Importance: ELL's have a different starting point and progression of language skills acquisition than their native speaking peers and should be assessed as such so that the teacher can best differentiate their teaching for that particular learner.
• In Practice: Assessing the students on each of the parts of literacy skills (speaking/listening, reading/viewing, writing/representing) independently.
• See: https://ellsd68.weebly.com/assessment.html for an array of assessments that align with BC's current ELL Standards, which have a helpful quick scale matrix with examples from K-12!

"Collaborate within community of practice"

• Summary: Learners benefit when their teachers have time to engage and share what they know about the student! They can also discuss their assessment findings, and collaborate about in class content and vocabulary.
• Importance: Classroom teachers can benefit from having time to collaborate professionally with their specialized colleagues. Students benefit when all of the adults in their community are on the same page about their progress and skills.
• In Practice: Many students in one classroom teachers class go to an array of LST teachers for support, so collaboration can be challenging to find time for (preps hardly align). Going to administration to advocate for time to meet with specialists regularly, within contract hours, is in students' best interests.

recommended resources

• BC English Learning Standards https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/...
• Language and Learning in Multilingual Classrooms: A Practical Approach (Coelho, 2012) p. 56-60, 84-85.
• Elementary ELL Resources, L. Richardson. SD68. https://ellsd68.weebly.com/assessment.html

My sources

• “The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners.” The Principles, www.tesol.org/the-6-principles/the-6-principles.
• WIDA, The Cornerstone of the WIDA Standards: Guiding Principles of Language Development
• Li, Jun. “Principles of Effective English Language Learner Pedagogy. Research in Review 2012-3.” College Board, College Board.