Journal Article

My Life, My Stories

GENOVA, HOLLY, STEWART, MARY AMANDA

2019

Overview

When we began working together to conduct research in Holly's classroom because of our shared interest in literacy instruction with high school English learners, Holly's frustrations underscored Mandy's experience that the prepackaged secondary English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum used in many classrooms does not effectively engage students or further their English acquisition. This article shares our story of creating a curriculum we believe other teachers can emulate to successfully teach adolescents who are new to the country. The curriculum is based on students' lives and stories. Understanding newcomers' unique potential and challenges (Stewart 95), we generated our own curriculum based on the rich experiences of the diverse students in Holly's ESL classes. This included thirty-seven students from seven different countries with English language abilities ranging from beginning to high intermediate. The most obvious need for newcomers is to acquire English. They need to develop fluency and accuracy in all four language domains: reading, writing, listening, and speaking in their second language

• Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English
• Subject: Adolescents / BIOGRAPHY AS CURRICULUM / Curriculum development / English as a second language / English as a second language instruction / Fluency / Language acquisition / Language Skills / Literacy / Reading-writing relationship / Rivera, Diego (1886-1957) / Second language learning / Second language teachers / Second language writing / Secondary school students / Students / Teacher Educators