Schema and ELLs

The definition of a bridge is, "A structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle." As teachers we need to build these bridges for our students.

We often forget that our new ELL (English Language Learner) have had past experiences to bring to our classrooms. It is easy to think that because our new student can not speak English they must not understand the concepts we are teaching in class. Although, we need to remember that most of our students have attended school in the past and have schema ready to connect to new information. Many of the topics we teach in our classrooms are taught in other countries as well, and just like we needs to build a bridge to help people travel over obstacles, we need to make a bridge for our New English Language Learners.
So here is the hard part...how do we do this?

First of all, we need to remember a picture is worth a thousand words. When dealing with students who have trouble with language sometimes it is O.K. to take the language out of the situation. We all know that even the youngest of children recognize symbols (My daughter at two says MMMM when she sees a picture of the golden arches). Our ESOL students are no different. They may know the names of all the planets or that a (+) means to add. They just might not know the word plus means to (+). Now this does not mean that we never expose them to academic vocabulary...we just need to be more deliberate and explicitly teach so that our students can make the connections needed to learn the new vocabulary and to be successful in our classrooms.