Where Do We Go From Here?

Chapter 6

Researcher

After reading the final chapter I felt at a loss. For my research I looked into what others are doing to help teach student English. My hope was to find the “magic solution.” To my disappointment, I did not find the secret. I found two articles that stated similar ideas to what Valdez discussed ad presented as key principles for teaching ELL students. In the first article I found Danling Fu (2003) discussed how student in his program were native Chinese speakers learning English. Fu (2003) in summation shared a lot of the same philosophies as Valdez, including, immersion into English but allowing for support in the native language. Fu (2003) focused on teaching writing to students I never realized how difficult each writing style (Poetry, Narrative, expository) was until Fu (2003) described teaching it to his students. The second article I found by Taylor (1983) although older still held the same principles true. Taylor (1983) discussed the need for a communicative structure to teaching the “target language,” this directly correlates to the research Valdez et. al. conducted in our book with the “One-on-one Language.” Essentially, my conclusion to aiding ELL students in language acquisition is to motivate the students to show the “need” as Valdez et. al. describe (2011, p193) for learning the language. Additionally, providing meaningful, structured, and developmentally appropriate means for verbally communicating with native speakers. Finally, we need “[assess] student’s ability to engage in grade-level work without modification or accommodation and not on the accuracy of their production.” It is not an easy task but it is an achievable feat, the question remains; Are you prepared to help them?

Fu, D. (2003) An Island of English Teaching ESL in Chinatown Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Retrieved from http://www.college.heinemann.com/shared /onlineresources/E00481/chapter5.pdf on October 24, 2011.

Taylor, B (1983) Teaching ESL: Incorporating a Communicative, Student-Centered Component. TESOL Quarterly, Volume 17, Number 1, March 1983 , pp. 69- 88(20).Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL).Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tesol/ tq/1983/00000017/00000001/art00006 on October 24, 2011.