Low Literacy ESOL

Orientation - Tools and resources for conducting orientation activities with low level ESOL students.

• Background Information
  • On Speaking and Cultural Terms – a practical guide to language and culture that highlights the difficult sounds in English for 27 languages, plus cultural information, linguistic descriptions, and syntax and grammar differences of the languages.
  • Past Schooling & Background - questionnaires for new non-native English-speaking students that allow students to frame their past educational successes and challenges. Teachers and administrators can use the results for programming and instruction. At-risk ABE/ASE and limited English proficient students may need additional support completing the form.
  • Phonemic Inventories and Cultural and Linguistic Information Across Languages – resources to raise awareness and show comparisons of students’ home languages and English.
• Diagnostic Testing
  • 5-Minute Screening Tool - ABC English offers the 5-minute screener to quickly determine if a student is an Emergent Reader (literacy-level) student or not. It can also be used to place students into groups.
    • 5-Minute Screener – the screening tool.
    • Assessment Guidelines – use these guidelines to administer the screener.
  • Beginning Alphabetics Tests and Tools (BATT) - provides a principled system for ABE/ESL teachers wanting to develop their students’ knowledge of Roman alphabet letters, English letter-sound patterns, sight or high frequency words, and transfer of those letter-sound-word skills to text fluency and comprehension. This 71-page resource includes: (1) teacher-friendly tests for determining known and unknown skills, (2) evidence-based reading instructional practices, orders, approaches, and five lesson plans* for teaching unknown skills, (3) teacher-tested lists of other activities and materials, and (4) time-saving teacher resources.
  • Native Language Literacy Screening Device –An assessment tool to informally observe the native language literacy of English language learners in 27 languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Croatian, English, Farsi, French, Haitian, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
  • Native Language Literacy Assessment – An assessment tool to informally observe the native language literacy skills of English language learners in English, Amharic, Arabic, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, and Swahili.
  • Phonics for ESL Diagnostic – A diagnostic to help determine a starting point for phonics instruction. The goal of this process is to discover students’ knowledge of these letter/sound relationships in English: short vowels, single consonants, and digraphs sh, ch, th, and ck.
• Exploration of Postsecondary and Work Options
  • Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE & ESOL Classroom - lessons and handouts to help incorporate career awareness and planning into instruction.
    Supplemental Lessons: Teachers in Texas developed modified versions of selected ICA lessons and materials to respond to the needs of a variety of student levels, including basic literacy and beginning level ESOL.
    Selected ICA Lessons Modified for Beginning ESOL (TX)
• Goal Setting
  • Incorporating Goal Setting in Adult ESL Classroom This PowerPoint presents goal-setting projects and their products in beginning level adult ESL classrooms. Descriptions of activities and images of handouts are included.

Instruction - Strategies, tools and resources for teaching low level ESOL students.

• Curriculum - Curricula for low level ESOL.
• Instructional Strategies
  • Teaching Approaches - Professional resources on methods for teaching low level ESOL.
  • Learning strategies and activities
• Resources
  • Websites

Monitoring Student Performance - Tools and ideas for monitoring student progress.

• Assessment and evaluation of student performance: posttest
• Create your own Bubble Sheets for quizzes, tests and attendance
• Regular review of progress: conferencing, updating portfolios
  • Student Achievement Checklist for Low Literacy ESOL
• Adjustment of goals and/or ILP:
  • Simple Goal Setting sheet
  • Goal-setting Checklist for Beginning to Intermediate Students
  • Following up with students regarding attendance and outcomes with documentation
    • Assign students a class buddy, connect with students via WhatsApp or TalkingPoints

Additional Reading