Webliography

“Activities for ESL Students.” The Internet TESL Journal. 1995-2006. Teachers of English as a Second Language. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://a4esl.org/>.

Provides activities for English language learners. I have witnessed an English speaking ESL teacher using this site successfully with ELLs. Provides good hands-on practice for learners at various levels of learning English. Website produced by Teachers of English as a Second Language. Useful for emphasizing various English language acquisition skills.

Antunez, Beth. “Reading Research and English Language Learners.” Reading Rockets. 2002. Reading Rockets. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.readingrockets.org/articles/342>.

This articles cites research that shows a direct correlation between English language learners’ level of literacy in their native language to their ability to read in English. Studies suggest that if a non-English speaker does not have proficiency in reading in his native language, he should be taught to read in his native language before teaching him to read English. English language learners may at the same time learn to speak English, providing the “phonologic awareness” base for them to learn written English. They further recommend that if materials are not available in the student’s native language to teach him reading, he should learn the fundamentals of spoken English before starting formal English reading lessons. This is in contrast to the practices in place in Arizona. The State standard is to teach ELLs to read in English, regardless of their literacy in their native language, probably because schools do not always have access to materials in students’ native languages.

“Bank Street Literacy Guide: English Language Learners: Working with children for whom English is a new language.” 2001. Bank Street College. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.bankstreet.edu/literacyguide/ell.html>.

This site was founded as a result of the America Reads Challenge and the passage of the Reading Excellence Act legislation in 1999. It contains a whole section on tutoring ELLs one-on-one, which was developed in 2001. Activities are targeted to younger children, as Bank Street College is known for early childhood education. Nonetheless, the ELL section contains some useful information, such as the nine stages of language acquisition, that may be useful to anyone teaching an ELL.

“English Language Proficiency and Academic Achievement.” 1999-2006. Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/pathways/achieve3/english.asp>.

This website provides links to professional educational research supporting the teaching of ELLs. It is rich in resources for a variety of teachers and librarians looking for resources to help ELLs. Resources offered through this site would be useful to any classroom teacher or school librarian.

“The Internet TESL Journal For Teachers of English as a Second Language.” The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XII, No. 8, August 2006. 1995-2006. Teachers of English as a Second Language. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://iteslj.org/>.

Articles, Research Papers, Lessons Plans, Classroom Handouts, Teaching Ideas & Links, ESL Acronyms offered through a monthly online journal. Although this site is primarily for ESL teachers, there are useful lesson plans and teaching tips for any content teacher or librarian who teaches ELLs. For example, one article offers 10 classroom games to teach vocabulary. These activities would be useful for any core content teacher.

Meltzer, Julie and Hamann, Edmund T. “Meeting the Literacy Development Needs of Adolescent English Language Learners through Content-Area Learning.” The Education Alliance at Brown University. 2005. Brown University. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/adlit/adell_litdv2.pdf>.

This is a 100 page treatise designed to help content area teachers teach the increasing numbers of ELLs in mainstream core content classrooms. It is certainly a useful resource for those teachers who have the time to read it.

“National Council of Teachers of English – Secondary English Language Learners.” 1998-2006. National Council of Teachers of English. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.ncte.org/collections/secell>.

Provides links to teaching strategies, professional articles, and related resources for teachers of English language learners in the language arts classroom. An excellent site for language arts teachers and librarians who collaborate with language arts teachers in teaching ELLs.

Peters, Sandy and Thomas, Ed. “TOPICS: an online magazine for learners of English.” TOPICS Online Magazine. 1997-2006. TOPICS. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.topics-mag.com/>.

This is an online magazine by and for learners of English. It would be a useful site to which teachers could direct their students to read writings by ELLs, to read about international food information, to get ideas for class projects, to meet other ELLs, to get travel information, etc. It might be fun for a class to write poetry, short stories, or personal narratives to submit to TOPICS to publish their work online.

“SDL International Translation services.” 2000-2006. SDL International. 16 Oct. 2006 <http://www.freetranslation.com/>.

This website provides free and/or professional translation services to the public. It may be useful to teachers or librarians who need to provide supplemental resources for their ELLs. I have not tested this site to see whether translations are accurate or take into account colloquialisms of various language, but it would certainly be something that may be useful to teachers of monolingual non-English speakers in English immersion classes.