Essential Guide for Educating Beginning English Learners

Put all English learners on the path to success—right from the start!

Beginning English learners are at risk of being lost in a system that doesn′t know how to reach them. With more and more ELs entering U.S. schools every year, educators need to act quickly to create school- and classroom-based programs that work. Veteran educators Debbie Zacarian and Judie Haynes provide templates and tools—along with vignettes illustrating real-world challenges—to help teachers and administrators:

• Create a welcoming environment for English learners and their families who are unfamiliar with the American education system
• Reach out to students from literacy and non-literacy-oriented homes
• Engage parents to become a part of the school community
• Learn strategies for teaching beginning level ELs across the curriculum
• Develop instructional models for students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE)
• Build sensitive practices for students who have experienced trauma

The Essential Guide for Educating Beginning English Learners provides a realistic and comprehensive framework for effectively reaching and teaching this growing population.

"This book provides a wonderful look at the complexities of providing newcomers with a welcoming school environment and appropriate instruction."
—Michelle DaCosta, Bilingual Resource Teacher
Framingham Public Schools, MA

"This book gets at the heart of working with beginning ELs and helps educators gain a complete understanding of these students′ needs and the factors that influence them."
—Yvonne S. Freeman, Professor of Bilingual Education
The University of Texas at Brownsville

Dr. Debbie Zacarian, founder of Zacarian & Associates, provides professional development, strategic planning, and technical assistance for K-16 educators of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. She has served as an expert consultant for school districts, universities, associations, and organizations including the Massachusetts Parent Information Resource Center and Federation for Children with Special Needs. Debbie has worked with numerous state and local education agencies and written the language assistance programming policies for many rural, suburban, and urban districts.  Debbie served on the faculty of University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she co-wrote and was the co-principal investigator of a National Professional Development grant initiative supporting the professional preparation of educators of multilingual learners.  Debbie also designed and taught courses for pre- and in-service administrators and teachers on culturally responsive teaching and supervision practices, multilingual development, and ethnographic research.  In addition, she served as a program director at the Collaborative for Educational Services where she provided professional development for thousands of educators of multilingual students and partnered with Fitchburg State University in co-writing and enacting a National Professional Development initiative that supported STEM education. Debbie also directed the Amherst Public Schools bilingual and English learner programming where she and the district received state and national honors.  The author of more than 100 publications, her most recent professional books include: Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities. Schools and Classrooms; Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students; Teaching to Empower: taking action to foster student agency, self-confidence, and collaboration; and Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress.   Judie Haynes is a freelance professional development provider and teacher with 28 years’ experience in teaching English as a second language. She has published six books, including Getting Started With English Language Learners (ASCD, 2007) and Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas (ASCD, 2010). Judie also contributed chapters to Integrating the ESL Standards Into Classroom Practice, Grades K-2 (TESOL, 2000) and Authenticity in Language Classroom and Beyond (TESOL, 2010). She was also a columnist for TESOL′s Essential Teacher. Judie is the editor and owner of everythingESL.net, a website for teachers of English learners. She is cofounder and moderator of #ELLCHAT, an online chat for teachers of English learners. She provides keynote addresses and workshops to TESOL affiliates and school districts all over the United States.