Abstract
Strategies and activities play a central role in teaching English language learners. Because of English language learners’ diverse cultural backgrounds and varied English language proficiency levels, practical hands-on strategies are especially useful for teachers of English as a second langauge (ESL) and of English language learners (ELL). Ferlazzo and Sypnieski’s (2012) book, The ESL/ELL teacher’s survival guide: Ready-to-use strategies, tools, and activities for teaching English language learners of all levels, is a useful handbook for all the ESL/ELL teachers. The book is a careful distillation of selected instructional strategies that have been used successfully by two experienced ELL/ESL educators. Based on their years in classrooms, the authors give a list of practical strategies across a broad range of classroom contexts from setting up an ESL-friendly classroom, motivating and interacting with students, exploring ways to communicate with parents of English learners, to navigating the challenges inherent in teaching ESL students.
The book contains 13 chapters divided into five parts. In the introductory part, Ferlazzo and Sypnieski describe the ELL population in the USA, introduce several key concepts in ESL instruction, and provide the reader with a quick tour of ESL basic practices that serve as a guide for the strategies and activities presented in the following chapters. Meanwhile, the authors have highlighted the three Rs in building a positive and effective learning ESL learning environment: relationships, resources, and routines.
Part II (Chapters 3–4) is devoted to aspects of teaching beginning English language learners. Chapter 3 overviews the key learning and teaching activities that are regularly incorporated in a beginning ESL classroom. Chapter 4 further describes with concrete examples the application of these elements on a day-to-day basis: reflection, homework, field trips, assessment, picture word inductive model unit plan, year-long schedule, and other activities.
Part III (Chapters 5 and 6) deals with key elements of a curriculum and daily instruction for intermediate ELLs. The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) is one of the key learning and teaching activities that the authors regularly use in a beginning ESL classroom. It is a literacy instructional strategy designed for early literacy instruction. Part IV (Chapters 7–10) focuses on teaching English language learners in the content areas. Specifically, Chapter 7 deals with English language learners in the mainstream classroom. Using the framework of Organizing Cycle, the authors explain various strategies to develop mainstream classroom ELL’s competence and confidence in a new language, a new academic environment and a new culture. In the subsequent chapters (Chapters 8–10), on the basis of the same framework of Organizing Cycle, the authors described how to teach ELL/ESL social studies, science and math.
Part V (Chapters 11–13) is devoted to further strategies in ESL classroom to ensure classroom success. Chapter 11 focuses on the qualities of good learning games which can ‘trick’ learners into learning while not realizing it. Chapter 12 elaborates on how to handle potential challenges in ELL/ESL classroom, such as student motivation, textbook integration, error correction, multilevel classes and classroom management. The next chapter (Chapter 13) proceeds with the key principles in assessing English language learners. To conclude the book, in the afterword the authors stress that these recommended strategies, tools and classroom activities come out of classroom experience and well-documented research from multiple sources. However, they are no substitute for schools’ long-term relationships with high-quality professional development organizations that can provide on-site assistance for educators. Thus, only with tailored teaching strategies and ongoing support from related organizations can an ELL/ESL teacher achieve success in classroom.
Readers will not only appreciate the usefulness of the various strategies and activities in ESL/ELL teaching but also the clarity and accessibility of the whole book since each part identifies the central aims of each chapter with sample plans. Also, each chapter begins with a folk tale aimed at changing language teacher’s teaching beliefs, such as the view of learning as a process of guided self-discovery and less of a ‘sage on stage’, more of a two-way conversation instead of a one-way communication. This book emphasizes the importance of learners being co-creators of their education. The use of folk tales not only enriches the ideas put forward by the authors, but also serves as guidance to the activities to be described in each chapter.
The book is especially useful because its lessons are designed to connect with core standard and technology applications. In addition, the authors have included a wealth of research-based instructional techniques that have proven to be effective with English learners at all proficiency levels. Another distinctive feature of the book is the online resources, including interactive exercises, rubrics, test-prep strategies, and up-to-date information for ELLs. Furthermore, the authors understand the realities of what language teaching work is actually like. It does not offer a one-size-fits-all strategy that would assume that educators operate in an ideal classroom world all the time. The point of the book is not to claim it is the be-all and end-all for ESL teacher professional development, but to provide one way of on-site assistance for educators.
Overall, the book offers educators a practical way to challenge traditional top-down instructional method, promotes instructional improvement that is central to the renewal of classroom teaching and learning and presents the reader with research-based and empirically tested strategies and techniques.