BY: HILLERY MONTEL

Using the TESOL Standards

What are the TESOL standards?

In response to the changing political and educational context for ELLs in schools TESOL published a revised set of language standards.

These standards build on the theoretical framework and exemplify the academic language that ELLs must develop in order to access the academic content of the general education curriculum.

Language of the School

What is the language of the school? The language of school is the distinct, multifaceted

type of English used primarily in classrooms.

ELLs must develop competence in using social English to interact in the classroom while simultaneously acquiring the academic language associated with many specific content areas.

Language of the School

What is social language? Social language includes the everyday and

instructional registers used in face-to-face interactions within the school setting.

What is academic language? Academic language is the language necessary for

success in school.

TESOL standards/Content standards

TESOL standards are grounded in national and state ESL and academic content standards.

Academic language Relationship with Content

The development of specific content-area academic language is a critical component of developing understanding within a content area.

For example if you are teaching a lesson on genetics the students need to know the vocabulary, grammar, distinctive language functions, genres, and discourse styles specific to this topic.

What are the Principles of TESOL?

1. Language proficiency is an outgrowth of cumulative experiences both inside and outside of school.

2. Language proficiency can reflect complex thinking when linguistic complexity is reduced and support is present.

3. Both social and academic language proficiencies are necessary for school success.

4. Academic language proficiency is developed through sustained content-based language instruction.

Proficiency Standards cont…

5. Academic language proficiency is developed through sustained content-based language instruction.

6. Native language proficiency-in particular, academic language proficiency in the native language-facilitates the acquisition of academic language proficiency in English.

How do the principles help?

The principles allow ELLs a way to complete the standard in way that is appropriate for them.

For example principle 2 suggest looking at the student’s level to discover where they should be performing. Pg 28

Why teaching TESOL standards?

These strategies and standards are not only beneficial for the ELL students but they also are great strategies for ALL the students in your classroom especially the students that struggle.