Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

Summary of Fitzgerald’s “English-as-a-Second Language Learner’s Cognitive Reading Processes: A Review of the Research in the United States”             In this article, Jill Fitzgerald reviews the research on English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) learners in the United States to date (1995) [1] .   She notes that ethnic and racial diversity continues to increase in our country; thus educators’ concerns about ESL students and their instruction continues to rise.   Out of necessity, there has been a growth in ESL research, research that explores various aspects of the ESL learner and instruction.   This article is mainly concerned with characterizing and making sense of research pertaining to ESL learners and their cognitive processes during reading.             In this research review, Fitzgerald uses the federal definition of ‘limited English proficient’ as given in public law 100-297 (146).   To be categorized as such, a person needs to meet the following criteria:   a.) not born in

A Teacher's Reflection:  How My Post Masters Classes in Reading Informed My Practice ELL students clap for a fellow classmate after a presentation My Classroom (in 2009)            The teaching context is high school English language arts (ELA) and English language learners (ELLs).   My students are in grades 9-12.   I teach in a large, diverse school of approximately 2300 students located in Burke County.   I typically have between five to fourteen students in any given ELL class and between twenty to thirty-two students in an ELA class.   This past year, I taught an ELL course for novices just starting to acquire conversational English.   I also taught a reading class aimed at providing students with strategies to survive in their content courses like world history and biology.   I taught a communication skills course that focused on all the domains of language usage:   reading, writing, listening, and speaking.   All of my students were native Spanish speakers from Guat