Writing

There are four domains of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Over the next month or so, I'm going to focus on each domain and what you can do and need to remember when teaching that domain to your English learner (err...I mean, emergent bilingual) students.

The first domain I'm going to focus on is writing. First, remember that as posited in Krashen's input hypothesis, students need LOTS of input before they can produce output. Students can't write at the same level as they can read, at least not at the beginning. So keep students' current placement on their path to proficiency in mind!

Here are a few things you can do to help emergent bilinguals be successful in writing for your class.

• Read aloud the text (if one accompanies the prompt) and prompt, teaching key words and explaining as needed.
• Break up the text into smaller sections with headings and white space. This might not seem like a big deal, but it really helps!
• Allow students to use Google Translate or other online translators/dictionaries on their phones or Chromebooks to help them understand the text, the prompt, and to look up individual words or phrases to help with their writing. They should not be writing complete sentences in their native language and translating them to English.
• Give them extra time to complete the writing task.
• Look at sample responses to prompts together and score them using evidence on a rubric.
• Write a practice response together as a class, a group, or with partners.
• Give students an outline to follow.
• Model how to unpack a prompt and determine the specific focus of the writing task.
• Give sentence starters, cloze sentences (fill-in-the-blank), and/or transition words, depending on the level.

I hope this helps you feel more confident when teaching writing to your EBs!