A How-to Guide for Teaching English Language Learners: In the Primary Classroom

Written by a practicing classroom teacher and full of the important details that only a teacher's eye can spot, "A How-to Guide for Teaching English Language Learners" focuses on the day-to-day challenges of working with ELLs and shares the joy and professional satisfaction of watching, nudging, and celebrating as children make a new language their own. Pat Barrett Dragan takes you through the first twenty days of school, showing you exactly how to get nonnative speakers in grades K-3 started on language acquisition. Then, she takes you through the rest of the school year, demonstrating how to build an inclusive classroom community that encourages and supports the efforts of language learners and sharing innovative techniques ideas for: teaching reading and writing to children who do not know the language; helping children express themselves in both their home language and their new language through movement, writing, music, and art; giving students opportunities to learn through literacy and role-playing in "play-the-book centers"; problem solving with language learners on the fly; and connecting with families even when you don't speak a common language. Filled with resources, examples of student work, and commonsense suggestions, "A How-to Guide for Teaching English Language Learners" is an ideal companion for new or veteran teachers in any classroom where students are acquiring English. As Dragan herself, writes, "Acquiring a second language can be a giant challenge for both children and adults...We need to do things together so we have things to talk about, remember, and celebrate - experiences that will connect with our learning." Read "A How-to Guide for Teaching English Language Learners" and find new ways to connect with and celebrate your students.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 1. Looking Through the Eyes of Second Language Learners; 2. Structuring the Classroom Environment to Propel English Learners Toward Success; 3. Demystifying Second Language Acquisition; 4. Getting Started Teaching ELLs: A Look at the First Twenty Days of School. 5. Exciting Ways to Get Children Talking; 6. Facilitating Oral Language Acquisition Through Poetry and Music; 7. Using Shared Reading, and Picture Books to Help Children Acquire Language and Learn to Read; 8. Enriching Language Learning Through Language Arts and Visual Arts Connections; 9. Thematic Teaching: Making Connections; 10. Writing and Publishing with English Language Learners; 11. Putting It All Together with Puppetry, Masks, and Drama; 12. Connecting with Families; Appendices; Resources and Bibliography.

About the Author :
Pat Barrett Dragan is the author of four Heinemann books: Kids, Cameras, and the Curriculum (2008), A How-To Guide for Teaching English Language Learners (2005), Everything You Need to Know to Teach First Grade (2003), and Literacy from Day One (2001). She is also the coauthor and illustrator for five published books for children. Pat has been a first-grade teacher in South San Francisco for more than thirty years. In 2005, she was honored for her teaching with Alpha Delta Kappa's International Excellence in Education Award.