Unlocking Multilingual Learners’ Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible

by Diane Staehr Fenner, Sydney Snyder, Meghan Gregoire-Smith

“Schools are not intentionally equitable places for English learners to achieve, but they could be if the right system of support were put in place. Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder recommend just such a system. Not only does it have significant potential for providing fuller access to the core curriculum, it also provides a path for teachers to travel as they navigate the individual needs of students and support their learning journeys.”

— Douglas Fisher, Coauthor of  Visible Learning for Literacy





A once-in-a-generation text for assisting a new generation of students

Content teachers and ESOL teachers, take special if you’re looking for a single resource to help your English learners meet the same challenging content standards as their English-proficient peers, your search is complete. Just dip into this toolbox of strategies, examples, templates, and activities from EL authorities Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder. The best part? Unlocking English Learners’ Potential supports teachers across all levels of experience.



The question is not if English learners can succeed in today’s more rigorous classrooms, but how. Unlocking English Learners’ Potential is all about the







Along the way, you’ll build the collaboration, advocacy, and leadership skills that we all need if we’re to fully support our English learners. After all, any one of us with at least one student acquiring English is now a teacher of ELs.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2024

Reviews

[Angela Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books on how to support MLL students in your classroom

[George Kasnic · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has some nice examples of what to do, probably too many of them with not enough granularity on how to implement.

Lots of flow chart and graphic organizers on how to make decisions as teachers, but this tends to replace rather than supplement the actual process for thinking through the steps. Definitely geared towards a more "type A" way of approaching instructional decisions.

I did find the constant reference to giving up non-compensated time, like during lunch or after-school to accomplish collaboration/planning/outreach to be rather insulting and not reflective of where we are going in education. It smacked of "that's part of the job..." thinking that hidebound admin and leadership tend to reference when their failures to plan and advocate for the resources (and educator time is a resource that admin and leadership need to start treating as the precious commodity it is) that are needed to execute initiatives to support students. In the advocacy portions of the text there is nothing said about the responsibilities of communities themselves to demand quality ELL education, it is again put back on the educators to use their own time and effort to accomplish this.

So from a techinical standpoint, there are methods and ways to educate ELL learner's, but from a leadership dynamic, the book is lacking on pragmatic ways to accomplish this and make cultural change.

[Emily Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book to have as a resource to provide the appropriate and accurate support for English learners to access grade level content. From cultural relevance to content and assessments, this book has it all to support your everyday teaching in a successful level. Love how the published even provides links to handouts and resources provided throughout the book.

[Valencia Mikulski · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an ELL teacher this book really helped a lot. It gave many resources to use and scaffolds for ELs. I can't wait for the workshop in the fall! :)

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book months ago as required reading for the third TESOL class in a program my district graciously paid entirely for. A few weeks ago I made the difficult decision to drop the class and thus this book got placed on the back burner, especially as I read the books I gave my students to choose from for their book club.

That being said, I finished the last chapter today. While I did not derive much from the class, I am thankful for most of the books I received, also free of charge, including this one. The authors include so many practical tips and examples of the entire gamut of teaching English Language Learners in the content classroom. I recommend this to all teachers who have even one ELL in their classroom or may in the future.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has many practical strategies for supporting ELLs in content classrooms. Chapters cover: cultural responsive teaching, academic conversations, teaching academic language, vocabulary instruction, teaching background knowledge, reading for multiple purposes and text dependent questions (TDQs), and using formative assessments with ELs. Great for an EL teacher or any teacher of language learners. Contains good resources and planning tools as well.

[Lydia Shearer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is laid out so well with practical, useful strategies. These strategies will help ALL learners, not just English language learners. Most of the book ended up underlined because it was all so good. This is one of those books I'm not sure I will be able to lone out because I'm pretty sure I'll be referencing it all year.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great read for all in the field of Education. Very helpful when learning ways to help EL students in the classroom!

[Jenna Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great application activities for educators of English Language Learners! A lot of which could be applied to teaching students with disabilities or with diverse learning styles.

[kathryn donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fenner provides some easy-to-follow advice about how to incorporate ESL scaffolds into lesson plans. I found the book very useful.

[George González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful resource

This book is a must for anyone working with ELLs. The tools it offers are applicable across all content areas and grade bands.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely helpful book! I loved that they not only explain the strategies, but provide examples and organizers to assist educators. I highly recommend ALL teachers to read this book.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat familiar with all of this required reading. Lots of valuable info here. Total snoozefest though. People who write textbooks like this must be wired differently. Guaranteed to cure insomnia.

[Robin Pelletier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was invited to partake in a book study with fellow educators for this book. I found it to be optimistically helpful, but also unrealistic in some aspects (sadly). It did reaffirm things I am doing in my classroom to help ELs. And I did take away one nugget I want to implement from each chapter to use next year!

[Link2Grow by Jorge Castillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this excellent book yesterday. I finish reading it 5 minutes ago. It’s Sunday, 2:32 AM. Now it’s underlined, full of notes, and I have plans for several professional learning sessions. I’ll be honored by quoting Dr. Staehr and Dr. Snyder in my future posts.

[Cassie Cappelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got so much out of this book. Every single chapter was a hit for me!