ESOL in Every Minute of the School Day

Childhood Education, Winter 2004/2005 by Szecsi, Tunde, Giambo, Debra A

Five kindergarten students, who speak Spanish and Haitian Creole, sit around a table during the daily 15-minute English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) session with an ESOL assistant. This is the only time during their day when they receive instruction geared toward their needs as ESOL students. The ESOL assistant reads out questions, such as, "What is this?," and the students respond in full sentences, "This is a book. " The children, who can use only a little English when they interact with their English-speaking classmates are frustrated and bored.

Well-meaning teachers are often unprepared for the influx of ESOL students in their classrooms. Most often, the programs serving ESOL students in public schools include immersion, submersion, and sheltered instruction. Occasionally, bilingual education programs are an option. Consequently, general education teachers are responsible for teaching limited English proficient (LEP) students in their classrooms on a daily basis. This article describes teaching methods, strategies, and activities for facilitating the English language acquisition of nonor limited English proficient children in the early grades.

How 5- to 8-year-old Children Learn a second Language

Consideration of theory, research, and best practices, in terms of where the areas of child development and second language learning intersect, results in the most effective teaching strategies for young limited English proficient (LEP) students. Children ages 5 to 8 demonstrate concrete-operational thinking, a preference for real, familiar objects and situations over abstract concepts (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). Consequently, children demonstrate better problem-solving and reasoning skills when the problem is presented through concrete objects in authentic situations, and they retain more information when it is learned in a familiar context. Cummins (1981) proposes cognitively undemanding and context-embedded situations as starting points for children's second language learning. Furthermore, Vygotsky's (1987) concept of the zone of proximal development details how the performance of a challenging but not too difficult task with the guidance of a more experienced partner facilitates children's learning, including complex mental activities. Similarly, Krashen (1982) suggests that comprehensible language input that is slightly beyond the student's current linguistic competence promotes language learning.

Krashen's second language acquisition theory (1982) emphasizes the emotional factors of language learning. Children with high motivation, self-confidence, and low levels of anxiety are more successful second language learners. Furthermore, Collier and Thomas (1996) suggest that an active discovery approach to learning, based on children's previous experiences, enables children to construct new knowledge of language and the world around them.

This review of literature suggests that second language acquisition for 5- to 8-year-old children should take place in a non-threatening, joyful environment that promotes interaction. Hands-on activities relevant to children's interests and background knowledge help to create the appropriate child-centered environment. All children could benefit, as language learners, from the teaching strategies described here for ESOL children. In the following sections, strategies for teachers to use with ESOL students ages 5 to 8 are presented in increasingly linguistically demanding content area examples to demonstrate that all sections of the school day are appropriate for second language development. Furthermore, to highlight the integrated nature of teaching, some possibilities for language and literacy development within the same context are outlined.

Physical Education, Movement, and Music

When LEP children join the mainstream, physical education and movement with music can be used to introduce the new language in a less stressful and very enjoyable way. Through modeling in these authentic situations, LEP children can learn to comprehend the teacher's verbal instructions regarding gross motor activities, such as running, skipping, jumping, throwing, and catching a ball. Children can perform these activities without need for verbal response. Furthermore, Asher (1969) argues that movement and motion will activate memory and reinforce learning. Through constructing the meaning of sentences used in games like Simon Says, such as, "Hop on your left foot" and "Lift your left arm," children learn new vocabulary, including the names of body parts. In addition, they will be exposed to a great variety of verbs, such as "stretch," "bend," and "twist," and adjectives, including "faster," "higher," and "farther." Through the commands in the game, they also will learn the imperative grammatical form. Open-ended motor activities that dramatize imitative movements, such as "Crawl like a spider" and "Dance like a butterfly," can be instructional and can inform the teacher about the child's knowledge. Furthermore, through involvement in games such as dodge ball and flag Frisbee, ESOL children are exposed to authentic socialization with more competent English speakers and are encouraged to internalize demonstrated rules in the second language.