Empowering English Language Learners to Grow as Writers

Research and experience teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) has continually shown that there are particular strategies and techniques that help these learners develop their abilities to write. These strategies can be categorized into four areas:

Instructional methods that are carefully constructed to support learning needs of students in general should have components that are highly effective in the instruction of ELLs. The strong instructional methods and carefully constructed lessons in the Empowering Writers curriculum series support the diverse levels of student writing abilities in an English as a Second Language (ESL) inclusion classroom. Empowering Writers promotes consistency across classrooms and grade levels, encourages connections across the curriculum, provides teachers with rich language development models and lessons for writing instruction, and enhances students' confidence in writing by building the writing process through the attainment of the requisite skills.

Consistency:

For ELLs, more than nearly any other group, consistency in instructional methods and vocabulary is essential to maximizing their confidence, learning growth, and demonstrated ability.  Because ELLs struggle to understand and master each word, sentence, and set of instructions that they encounter in the educational setting, it is imperative that educators build and utilize familiar frameworks of instruction.  In doing this, teachers allow ELLs to move beyond simply working to comprehend the directions and allow them to put more cognitive work into the completion of the learning task.  This consistency allows ELLs to function in the classroom more similarly to their English language peers.

At the core, Empowering Writers curricula encourage educators to utilize consistent frameworks for analyzing literature with students and consistent methods for teaching writing strategies, skills, and vocabulary.  This consistency across and between classes and grade levels ultimately allows teachers more assurance that ELLs will eventually gain writing skills and allows ELLs to make greater gains over several years than instruction that is fragmented and augmented from classroom to classroom and grade level to grade level.  In narrative writing, Empowering Writers encourages an understanding of the pattern of story using the visual image of a diamond.  This remains the consistent framework for narrative writing from kindergarten on.  After being introduced to the Narrative Writing Diamond, students will see this framework applied consistently in both reading and writing instructional settings and will begin to apply this framework to their own analysis of literature and then to their written creations.  The visual element, paired with the linguistic, enhances ELLs' initial comprehension.

Consistency in writing instruction between classrooms is especially important for students who are pulled out for some of their literacy time to work with ESL instructional specialists.  If the frameworks used in the two learning environments are inconsistent, students often end up more confused and display decreased confidence in one or both settings.  Consistency enhances ELLs’ confidence and allows learners to take more risks as writers, because they come to know and understand good writing and they obtain a clear understanding of what is expected of them.  ESL specialists can easily be trained in the teaching strategies, frameworks, and vocabulary of Empowering Writers, creating consistency with classroom writing instruction.  Empowering Writers provides methods by which any language-building experience can and should be used to consistently support growth in writing ability.

Empowering Writers focuses writing instruction on specific skill areas that are introduced and revisited throughout each year and across grade levels.  The methodology encourages teachers to introduce a skill through the use of literature, model the skill by creating writing samples, and then circulate during students focused guided practice of each skill, providing immediate feedback and guidance as well as assessing students’ demonstrated competence.  Because of the nature of language learning, this model supports ELLs’ learning needs. Exposure to the language during the introduction of the skill in literature is enhanced by powerful teacher modeling.  Guided practice, including mini-conferencing and informal assessment, proves very strong in an ESL inclusion setting. Uncertain about how to communicate in English, ELLs often struggle to write a very small amount and then wait for confirmation before proceeding.  When the teacher has modeled correct application of a skill and then is circulating to provide feedback, ELLs spend much less time waiting for this initial re-assurance.  This immediate feedback on the specific focused skill not only helps ELLs see their success or understand corrections, but also helps the teacher know how to focus their comments and guidance.

ELLs often progress in their demonstration of language ability in dramatic increases followed by plateaus.  When teachers are able to assess learning on a day-by-day basis, they have a much clearer indication of where the child is in this language learning pattern.

In ESL inclusion classrooms it is often difficult for teachers to know when to move on in instruction because their students have such a wide range of language abilities.  Using the guided practice model that includes frequent informal assessment, when the majority of a class demonstrates mastery of a particular skill, the teacher can move instruction to the next skill area.  With Empowering Writers consistently implemented across classrooms and grade levels, the teacher can be confident that the prior skill will be revisited so that students who are still struggling will get additional opportunities for achieving competence later on.  This allows instruction in ESL inclusion classrooms to progress smoothly, not limiting English speaking students, while still giving ELLs multiple chances over extended time to master each skill as their language abilities develop.  The frequent assessment of students’ skill mastery in writing also can open up productive dialogue between classroom teachers and ESL specialists, assistants, or classroom volunteers, ensuring that areas where students are struggling can be reinforced and supported by others.

Recommendations for Enhancing Consistency for ELLs:

BACK TO THE TOP

Connections:

When introduced to a new environment where a foreign language is spoken, routines are unfamiliar, people are different, and new cultural norms prevail, ELLs often feel overwhelmed.  It can seem to them that everything is disconnected.  Teachers can enhance the comfort level as well as support the learning of ELLs by integrating areas of the curriculum as much as possible.  Enhancing curricular connections and making the ties between subjects and learning frameworks more concrete helps students find meaning in several areas at once.  Empowering Writers directly promotes the integration of reading and literature experiences and writing.  The curriculum also enhances connection to other areas of learning such as science, social studies, and art and encourages the use of multi-modal learning formats.

The Empowering Writers methodology introduces each skill area by helping students to recognize its application in literature, then by teacher modeling of that writing skill, and finally by having students create writing that practices the new skill.  Using literature as the foundation for writing gives ELLs a context for learning new language patterns and gives them the opportunity to hear language in use before being asked to consider producing it.  In addition to providing an excellent model for student writing, basing writing topics on literature ensures that rich language experiences support the development of the writing activity.  When working with students with limited English proficiency, it is natural to default to the use of language that is easily understood as this may initially be less difficult for both student and teacher.  Instruction that is rooted in the language of model literature helps reduce the urge teachers often feel to limit or over-simplify language for ELLs.  This ensures the rich language experiences that ELLs must have for maximal growth of language ability.  The consistent analysis of literature in connection to writing also serves to enhance ELLs’ reading comprehension by making them aware of predictable patterns in stories.  Teachers should be aware that ELLs may not fully be able to consistently identify the application of a particular skill in literature until after they are able to create it in their own writing.  This is the inverse of the expected growth pattern for students whose first language is English.  Despite their initial restraint from active participation in these discussions, ELLs benefit from listening to the analysis of their teacher and other students.  For this reason, literature analysis is particularly effective in ESL inclusion classrooms where all students benefit and grow in understanding from the discussion regardless of their ability to actively participate.

To build ELLs’ confidence in writing, it may help to initially select model literature and writing activities that focus on topics familiar to them.  This empowers them to make connections to the text and gives them a basis from which to create their own writing.  Highly emotional topics should be avoided until ELLs gain some confidence in the classroom setting. Often different cultural norms prevent ELLs from being comfortable discussing or writing about emotionally charged topics.

ELLs may need time to contemplate a topic and create a concrete graphic representation of the topic by making a related art piece.  The supplemental art activity suggestions in the resource guides as well as Empowering Writers book Easy Art Activities That Spark Super Writing serve as excellent guides for teachers in connecting meaningful visual art activities with writing.  Acting out new vocabulary through pantomime, such as the Empowering Writers “No More Went and Go” activity described in Getting Ready to Write, often helps support the connection of language to particular actions.  If there is a large amount of new vocabulary related to a particular writing topic, providing labeled pictures either from language learning dictionaries or directly from the picture book that was used as the pre-writing discussion and modeled activities provide useful guides for ELLs.  Talking with students about images or artwork, either created by the student or related to model literature, using simple detail generating questions (numerous examples of these questions are provided in the Empowering Writers teacher resource materials) and identifying vocabulary for various elements depicted supports students in vocabulary building and strengthens their ability to describe using the English language.

Recommendations for Enhancing Connectivity for ELLs:

BACK TO THE TOP

Rich Language Development Experiences:

Rich language development experiences allow ELLs to draw on all their English language experiences (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) when producing a written piece.  These experiences are founded in the connections discussed above, but also extend further.  Language must be taken beyond its normal application and thoughtfully broken down into manageable pieces for student learning.  Where connections across the curriculum provide breadth, rich language development experiences that are focused both in topic and skill area provide essential depth for language growth.  Instruction for ELLs needs to include substantial modeling of the creation of meaningful written language.  It is primarily through modeling that ELLs begin to initially understand the flow of the English language.  In classrooms were written language is collaboratively modeled by the teacher, language growth in all areas – listening, reading, speaking, and writing – progress more rapidly.  The modeling should focus primarily on content and the communication of ideas, however it can also systematically integrate appropriate language conventions.  Expanding ELLs' language abilities includes extending their functional vocabulary and enhancing their sentence fluency and variety.  This can also be initiated during modeling, and reinforced during student writing by rich language examples readily available as posters or quick reference pages.

Completing an entire story is often overwhelming for many students, but particularly for students with limited English language ability.  By focusing on one skill area within writing, the task becomes less daunting.  The Empowering Writers materials focus on lessons and practice related to one skill area within writing at a time, effectively breaking the process down for teachers and their students.  The focus on a particular skill and repeated recognition and modeling of that skill in conjunction with practice allows ELLs to gain confidence in skill application.

The modeling step in the Empowering Writers teaching methodology is immensely important to the growth of ELLs writing ability.  Though all teachers should model effective writing strategies for their students, teachers with ELLs in their classrooms should spend even more time purposefully modeling the creation of writing.  Watching and listening to the correct formulation of language enhances ELLs' ability to understand meaning and replicate correct flow and usage.  Focus on content, rather than writing conventions, builds ELL confidence which then leads to enhanced ability to integrate other English conventions in both spoken and written language.  Empowering Writers focus on the creation of effective content within writing helps to maintain focus on this rather than succumbing to the tendency to get bogged down in correcting ELLs pervasive and tedious errors in conventions.  Teacher modeling of the creation of both content and conventions allows ELLs to listen to and watch this process repetitively.

Learning grammar and parts of speech in the context of modeling and guided practice is much more effective and meaningful then rote memorization or disconnected practice.  Teachers of ESL inclusion classrooms should carefully integrate grammar and conventions lessons that focus on the particular struggles of their students. Lessons should systematically repeat the modeling of these elements over an extended period of time and teachers should highlight the relevance of these conventions by using them in other areas such as daily conversation, literature, science, or social studies.  After sufficient experience, teachers can gradually increase the required expectations for demonstration of these conventions in the students’ writing. In an ESL inclusion classroom meaningful language cues and easily accessible references (posters, reference pages in student notebooks, desk memos, etc.) must be readily available to students.

Teachers of ELLs should attempt to focus their constructive criticism or corrections of student work to skill areas and conventions that have been observed in literature, modeled repetitively, and specifically required by the teacher in guided practice.  This keeps ELLs from playing a guessing game with teachers, trying to figure out how to meet seemingly mysterious expectations.

Teacher modeling gives students many examples to emulate and also provides more diverse vocabulary.  Collaboratively expanding vocabulary from a base of common words during modeling gives ELLs multiple opportunities to expand language beyond the initial level of words that they know.  Frequent modeling of the use of these new words in context (spoken and written) helps students to functionally incorporate new words into the spoken and written repertoire.  Topic relevant vocabulary lists that have been generated as a class during modeling sessions should be made readily available to students during guided practice.  This is done most simply by posting lists on classroom walls.

Through their modeling teachers can highlight and encourage the development of sentence fluency and variety.  The Empowering Writers sentence starters, provided both in the teacher’s resource guides and as posters, significantly enhance ELLs' ability to create fluent writing.  The use of sentence starters is initially a much more effective strategy in enhancing ELLs' sentence fluency and variety than teaching ELLs how to flip the sentence subject.  Though eventually having a plethora of sentence starters available is advantageous, initially it may be helpful to narrow choices of sentence starters used by ELLs to a few frequently applicable ones, ensuring that students know the meaning of each particular sentence starter before applying it to their writing.  Abbreviated lists of sentence starters can be made available to ELLs in their writing notebook or as small cards affixed to their desk.  After learning the correct application and consistently using several sentence starters, ELLs will be amazed at their own writing ability and the fluent sound of the work that they create.  This empowers them to continue writing and working to include additional variety in their written language.  Building the number of sentence starters over time along with the students’ language growth assists ELLs in developing writing effectiveness and insures that sentence starters are not indiscriminately applied.

The Empowering Writers curriculum series supports teachers in consistently teaching the application of spoken and written language at multiple levels (content, vocabulary, sentence variety, punctuation, and spelling).  Systematically and repetitively reviewing and revisiting each skill ensures that all learners eventually pick up on effective aspects of written English.  Classroom talk that goes on in any subject area and specifically in the creation of the written word supports ELLs in their overall development in understanding the meaning of the English language.

Recommendations for Ensuring Rich Language Development Experiences for ELLs:

BACK TO THE TOP

Continual Reminders of Success

ELLs need frequent positive feedback on the success of their oral and written communication. They need to observe people understanding their attempts to communicate. Focusing instruction on particular skill areas and content as opposed to an entire piece of writing and conventions helps to lay the groundwork for student success. Organizing students writing over the course of the year allows ELLs to positively reflect on personal growth over time by comparing their first writing samples to their most recent ones. Taking time to celebrate the triumphs and highlight growth is very important for all students, particularly ELLs. They more frequently need to be told when their writing "sounds good," because they often can not differentiate this for themselves. If the focus is on final product and not on individual growth, ELLs begin to compare their writing ability with other English speaking children and feel frustrated that they can not create equivalent work. Initially ELLs are likely to be hesitant to share their written work with others. Encouraging them to share a segment of writing that the teacher has deemed effective and possibly has even rehearsed with the ELL student helps the student gain the confidence to read aloud. Encouraging peer feedback on writing and framing the nature of the feedback around the successful elements helps all students to gain confidence. ELLs gain substantial boosts in confidence when their peers compliment their writing.

Through consistently using set frameworks and instructional patterns in the teaching of writing skill areas, students and teachers can be assured greater growth of all students over time. Providing strong cross-curricular connections enhances relevance and value of writing on particular topics and helps to build pre-requisite knowledge and vocabulary. Ensuring rich language development experiences primarily through teacher modeling and immediate feedback during guided practice, as well as through the abundance of visual guidance around the classroom enables all students to progress more quickly in the growth of their writing abilities. All students need to have their successes highlighted to build their confidence and motivate them to achieve even higher levels of success. Empowering Writers effectively integrates all these elements of effective writing instruction that have power for all students including ELLs.

BACK TO THE TOP

References on Writing Development and Instruction for ELLs

Allen, V. (1986). Developing contexts to support second language acquisition. "Language Arts," 63, 61-66.

Bello, Tom (1997) Improving ESL Learner's Writing Skills. ERIC Digest; ED409746

Betancourt, F., and Phinney, M. (1987). Sources of writing block in bilingual writers (Report No. 143). ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 281 361.

Carroll, P.,  Blake, F., and Camalo, R. (1996) "When Acceptance Isn't enough: Helping ESL Students Become Successful Writers." English Journal,v85 p.25-33.

Crandall, J., Spanos, G., Christian, D., Simich-Dudgeon, C., and Willetts, K. (1987). Integrating language and content instruction for language minority students. Silver Spring, MD: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Dolly, M. (1990). Integrating ESL reading and writing through authentic discourse. The Journal of Reading, 33, 360-366.

Edelsky, C. (1986). Writing in a bilingual program: Había una vez. Norwoood, NJ: Ablex.

Flores, B., et al. (1985). "Bilingual holistic instructional strategies." Chandler, AZ: Exito.

Gomez, R., et al. (1996). Process Versus Product Writing With Limited English Proficient Students. The Bilingual Research Journal, Vol. 20, No. 2, p. 209-233.

Hamayan, E. V. (1989). Teaching writing to potentially English proficient students using whole language approaches. Program Information Guide Series (No.11). Washington: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Hamayan, E., and Pfleger, M. (1987). Developing literacy in English as a second language: Guidelines for teachers of young children from non-literate backgrounds. Silver Spring, MD: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Harste, J., Woodward, V., and Burke, C. (1984). "Language stories and literacy lessons." Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Heald-Taylor, G. (1989). Whole language strategies for ESL students. San Diego, CA: Dormac, Inc.

Hudelson, S. (1988). Children's writing in ESL. ERIC Digest. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Hudelson, S. (1986). Children's writing in ESL: What we've learned, what we're learning. In P. Rigg and D.S. Enright (Eds.), "Children and ESL: Integrating perspectives." Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Hudelson, S. (1999). "ESL Writing: Principles for Teaching Young Writers." ESL Magazine, v2 n3 p.8-10,12.

Hudelson, S. (1984). Kan yu ret an rayt en ingles: Children become literate in English as a second language. TESOL Quarterly, 18, 221-238.

Hudelson, S. (1987). The role of native language literacy in the education of language minority children. "Language Arts," 64, 827-841.

Hudelson, S. (1989). Write on: Children writing in ESL. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Johnson, D., and Roen, D. (1989). Richness in writing: Empowering ESL students. New York: Longman

Kreeft Peyton, J., and Seyoum, M. (1987). Teacher strategies and their effect on student writing. Dialogue, 6(1), 3- 5.

Montague, N. (1995). The Process Oriented Approach to Teaching Writing to Second Language Learners. New York State Association for Bilingual Education Journal v10 p13-24

Pfingstag, N. (1984). Showing writing: modeling the process. Writing and Composition: TESOL Newsletter, 13(1), Supplement No. 1.

Samway, K. (1987). "The writing processes of non-native English-speaking children in the elementary grades." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Rochester, NY.

Silva, T. (1990). Second language composition instruction: Developments, issues, and directions in ESL. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom (pp. 11-23). New York: Cambridge.

Urzua, C. (1987). "You stopped too soon": Second language children composing and revising. "TESOL Quarterly," 21, 279-304.

Valdés, G. (1992). Bilingual Minorities and Language Issues in Writing. Written Communication, 9(1),85-136.

Valdés, G. (1988). Identifying priorities in the study of the writing of Hispanic students: Final report. Berkeley: Center for the Study of Writing, University of California.

Young, M., Arroyo, P., and Brown, M. (1994). Simulating Writing in ESL/Bilingual Classrooms. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, v13 p. 163-174.

Zamel, V. (1983). The composing process of advanced ESL students: Six case studies. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 165-186.

BACK TO THE TOP