Teaching English Language Learners (ELL): An Introduction

This course focuses on effective strategies for English language instruction. Participants will go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to explore and implement innovative ways of teaching vocabulary and grammar, listening and speaking, reading and writing, and designing fair and accurate assessments. Learn more about ELL (English language learner) students and their needs and how to choose the most appropriate materials and activities for the classroom. Explore how teachers can choose and fine-tune the principles that exactly fit their teaching situation. Participants will rethink the traditional native vs. non-native distinction, see why teaching English is so different from teaching other subjects, and explore innovative approaches like Communicative Language Teaching and the lexical approach.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Use a number of general language-teaching principles to guide your choice of classroom activities.
• Discover some different ways to select and teach words and phrases that are especially useful for your students, and get to know the lexical approach.
• Examine listening, speaking, and reading skills while exploring what you can do to help learners communicate more effectively in English and improve their comprehension and reading speed.
• Select appropriate tasks and topics to help your students compose texts more effectively with a better sense of why writing is the most challenging ability for language learners.
• Be a more effective and reflective teacher, as well as see the importance of continuing your professional growth now and throughout your career.