Non-Latin Based ELLs

Some students come from native countries in which their writing systems do not use the same characters.

  For example, Chinese or Arabic.  

Imagine if a teacher wrote the following Arabic sentence on the board. As an experiment, get out a piece of paper and notice what it is like for you to copy this sentence from right to left, as they do.

استخدم قلم رصاص لبدء الكتابة

• How many times did you have to look at each letter before you could move on to the next letter? 

•  Do you think you could be focused on the meaning or instructions of the sentence or only how to construct the letters?  

• How fast can you write this when you have to look up and down again and again?

• How did it feel to write from right to left?