Post 3: Teaching Strategies for EAL Preschool Students

After learning about the multiple intelligences in my previous blog post, I wanted to do some more research on a new question that I developed that supplements my big question "what strategies can I use to teach EAL students language that is meaningful and will fit with their MI?"

I tracked down the video "Preschool for ELLs: Language and Learning Assessment"

This webcast features the phenomenal Dr. Rebecca Palacios and offers information on the following components of a PreK English Language Learner (ELL) program: language instruction, curriculum, professional development, and family outreach.

The video is a little bit lengthy at 22:38..... but I really recommend watching it as she gives some fantastic strategies for helping ELL preschool students gain English language acquisition. If you don't have time to watch the video, I have summarized my key learnings below.

Summary of my key leanings from the video

Reflection

After watching this video, it didn't give me as much information as I had hoped for. As you can see above, I did take away some key leanings in regards to teaching strategies for EAL students. The video more so focused on assessment than teaching strategies, and was general in the description of the strategies.

The assessment portion of the video was a pleasant surprise. Assessment is an important part of teaching EAL students as it is the main way of documenting their growth, tracking where their difficulties are, and helping them discover what multiple intelligence they may be to help them succeed in their language learning.

This lead me on my next journey, to find more teaching strategies.

References

Reading Rockets. (2014). Preschool for ELLs: Language Learning and Assessment. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/webcasts/3007