English-Only Teachers in Mixed-Language Classrooms: A Survival Guide

Today English language learners aren't just popping up in California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas. The fastest growing populations are in states and districts that have historically taught few students who don't speak English. If you teach where English language learners are a new phenomenon, you may feel underprepared to meet their needs and wonder if you can even teach them at all. You can, and English-Only Teachers in Mixed-Language Classrooms: A Survival Guide will lead you to success every step of the way. English-Only Teachers in Mixed-Language Classrooms: A Survival Guide is just that: a brief, practical primer for your first ELL experience - and a warm, comforting companion on the journey into confident teaching. Written for teachers in grades K - 6 with little or no expertise in second language teaching, it shows the essentials of helping nonnative speakers succeed - even when you don't speak your students' home language. Joanne Yatvin explains what types of strategies build students' confidence, competence, and fluency in English while helping them understand and retain vital content. She covers ESL teaching for the most crucial aspects of instruction:

• organization and planning
• teaching beginning English
• reading and writing instruction
• content-area learning
• fostering classroom community.

Best of all, Yatvin zeroes in on smart ways to use classroom partnerships to invite English speakers and ELLs to support one another's learning through child-to-child mentorships and peer tutoring.  Sharing insight into helping ELL students adjust to their new classroom emotionally and academically while paying special attention to the importance of developing strong connections to their families, Joanne Yatvin gives you a map for navigating the uncertain terrain of your first encounter with English learners. Read English-Only Teachers in Mixed-Language Classrooms: A Survival Guide and discover that teaching second language learners is not only less scary than you might have thought, but that there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of helping children take their first steps into a new language.