120 Content Strategies for English Language Learners: Teaching for Academic Success in Secondary School

by Jodi Reiss

Written by renowned author, Jodi Reiss, 120 Content Area Strategies for Teaching English Language learners offers practical instructional and assessment strategies built on a strong foundation of second language acquisition theories and principles that you can easily incorporate into your daily classroom instruction. These strategies address how to build background knowledge and learning strategies, read for comprehension, give clear instructions, assess learning, consider culture & its impact on learning, and more. All 120 strategies are concise and easy to follow with helpful guides to help you maximize your secondary students’ performance potential in the content areas at every level of English language development. New to this

Genres: School

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

A well-meaning but increasingly proscriptive way for teachers to learn the need to include English Language Learners in their classrooms. The many, many strategies begin with a sensible warning from the author that reading her book alone “will not make you a better teacher; using the strategies in this book will” (p. xiv). As if new teachers don’t have enough of the theory/practice divide in their lives! Most of the tips and trade secret she writes about are easy to follow and ingenious with a proper amount of awareness placed on how how instructions may be misunderstood. It is not until the final chapter that the ulterior motive for this book is revealed: the struggle to keep schools open in the post-NCLB United States has created a generation of keep-in-line teachers, who transfer their not rocking the boat paranoia onto their students, the most perceptive ones being ELL students having just fled oppression in another country, and would probably now be considering a hike across the Canadian border as the situation show no sign of getting better. Teachers I guess can have their Reissian book club, patting themselves on the back for following instructions to a T, but missing the bigger picture and their role in making education such a divisive, US or them place.

[Carly Smoot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really practical. Really approachable. Definitely a book that I will turn to frequently when I need supports, tools, and ideas to support my ELs.