Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators

by Diane Staehr Fenner

Embrace the future by ensuring English Learners have a voice in school. English Learners (ELs) are the fastest-growing segment of the K–12 population. Therefore, educators  must  provide a voice for their needs. This book demystifies the techniques of advocacy for ELs,
 

Genres: Teaching, Education

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 2013

Reviews

[Cindy Coons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Advocating for English Learners is a must-read for all teachers! As ENL specialists we need to not only be language specialists but also advocates for our students. Diane Staehr Fenner clearly and concisely outlines the reasons and the ways in which teachers and administrators can advocate for ELs. She presents ways to encourage parental engagement and how to continue supporting ELs after high school. This book contains helpful checklists, surveys, and other visuals to facilitate advocacy efforts. The ¨ripple effect¨ demonstrates how small changes can cause larger and more coordinated action.
A repeated theme in this book is the shared responsibility of all teachers for the success of ELs.
The central message and supporting ideas have resonated with me. I find myself observing ELs with a new lens and feeling empowered to be an agent of change for ELs.
Add this book to your personal reference library now!

[Dylon Peertamsingh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Advocating for English Learners by Diane Staehr Fenner is a must-have book for all teachers and administrators in every school setting. The purpose of this book is to provide educators with the necessary knowledge and tools to advocate for ELLs in different capacitates. For instance, providing modified assessments for ELLs is vital for ELLs to be successful. This book gives great insights as to how we can level the playing field for ELLs. Regardless of what grade or subject we teach, we all give assessments, hence, knowing how to modify them for ELLs is essential. Further, making our lessons culturally relevant is a key component in keeping students engaged in our lessons. This book provides methods on how to help make lessons culturally relevant. Additionally, this book sheds light on how educators can collaborate to expand advocacy, creating a shared sense of responsibility, increasing family involvement, and advocacy beyond the classroom. This is a must-read book for all educators, especially those working with English language learners.

[Waz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful resource for anyone that works with English language learners. It provides many strategies, tips, considerations and recommendations for advocacy. All stakeholders can apply what they learn from this book in their daily interactions with ELLs. Using translation services as appropriate, I urge English learners and their families to read this text as well. The ultimate goal is to help EL families become their own champions and advocate for their children's needs.

[Madeline Rehm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diane Staehr Fenner’s 2014 book, Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators, is the first of its kind: an academic resource whose objective is to inform educators of all levels on how they can promote success for English Learners (ELs) via advocacy. The target audience includes ENL (ESL) instructors, co-teachers of ELs, and administrators at every level of school involvement. The main takeaway of this book is to create a sense of shared responsibility among all educators for EL success. Areas in which to target advocacy include effective classroom instructional practices, family involvement, assessment, planning for a post-graduate pathway, and more. Staehr Fenner provides practical strategies that educators can apply to build a school culture conforming to this notion, most of which adhere to Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis of creating a low-anxiety environment for language learning. The reader can fully engage with this text via critical thinking questions that the author has listed in the margins. While the target audience for this book is indicated in its introduction, I highly recommend that anyone working with ELs read this book, as there is much to garner from Staehr Fenner’s insight.

[Jean Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received copies of this books at the Title Programs Conference last summer. I finally read one. I thought that I would suggest it for a book discussion, but it is a textbook, and it reads like one.

It has a lot of valuable information in text and tables. You would just need to read the overview which is in the short introduction and then the chapter(s) that pertain to your situation (But I do think that the administrators' chapter has a lot of good information for all stakeholders.) These are the chapters:

Need for advocacy for English learners
Creating a shared sense of responsibility for ELs
How teachers can collaborate to expand advocacy efforts for ELs
Advocacy overview for school and district administrators
Increasing EL families' involvement through building their advocacy capacity
Advocacy through effective instruction of ELs
Advocating for ELs in assessment
Advocacy for ELs' success beyond grade 12

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides useful information for educators who want to learn more about how to advocate for students learning English as a new language.

[Angela Rollins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though much of this book dispenses common sense advice to educators who have been working with English Learners for a while, it is an excellent choice for someone new to this role. That being said, even for experienced EL Coordinators, there are wonderful rubrics and charts to help guide professional development and lesson planning.

[Nina Morel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, an excellent book to help EL teachers understand their role as cultural bridges for families, schools, teachers, communities...