Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

New York’s classrooms are some of the most culturally and linguistically diverse in the country. Our TESOL certificate program prepares NYS-certified teachers to provide responsive, comprehensive education to students of every background. 

What You’ll Learn

The 15-credit program includes five courses—each with carefully designed fieldwork experiences—that emphasize both academic content learning and English fluency for English Language Learners.

With advanced certification, not only will you be able to more effectively and compassionately serve diverse student populations, you’ll increase your value as an educator and improve your career prospects.

Paola Higuera is a NYC public elementary school teacher. She always wanted to be an ELL teacher and “is excited to be taking courses at Touro in the TESOL Certificate program. I was once an ELL student myself and look forward to providing ELL services to the future generations.”

Differentiated Instructional Activity Assignment
The differentiated instruction definition refers to an approach to education whereby teachers make changes to the curriculum and the way they teach to maximize the learning of every student in the class (IRIS Center, 2021). This is not a singular strategy but a framework that educators can utilize. Carol Ann Tomlinson also notes that in differentiated instruction, the teacher anticipates the varying levels of students’ interests, readiness, and learning profiles. Subsequently, they can provide diverse ways of learning, enabling students to learn without being anxious because academic tasks are too difficult for them or being unmotivated because assignments are not challenging for them (ASCD, 2011). However, differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction.

For your Differentiated Instructional Activity Assignment, you will use one of your content lesson plans you have already taught and make modifications to the following segments:

practice (how teachers deliver instruction to students),
process (how the lesson is designed for students),
products (the kinds of work products students will be asked to complete),
content (the specific readings, research, or materials, students will study),
assessment (how teachers measure what students have learned), and
grouping (how students are arranged in the classroom or paired up with other students).

In the differentiated lesson, students will play equivalent fraction four in a row, equivalent fraction bingo and concentration equivalent fractions. Using games in the classroom increases student engagement, participation and motivation.

Paola Higuera, Touro University TESOL

Video demonstration Paola Higuera, Touro University TESOL

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
New York is a state that speaks many languages. We need teachers who can find the common ground. Touro University offers TESOL & Advanced Certificates in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program helps NYS-certified PreK-12 teachers more effectively teach and communicate with a diverse student population.

Crystal DeMarco is a candidate in the TESOL Graduate Program at Touro University. She completed her undergraduate degree at the College Of Staten Island where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education in Social Studies. Crystal DeMarco writes that she “loves teaching, and learning new innovative ways to create an engaging curriculum for my students!”

The assignment description:

1. Differentiated Instructional Activity Assignment

The differentiated instruction definition refers to an approach to education whereby teachers make changes to the curriculum and the way they teach to maximize the learning of every student in the class (IRIS Center, 2021). This is not a singular strategy but a framework that educators can utilize. Carol Ann Tomlinson also notes that in differentiated instruction, the teacher anticipates the varying levels of students’ interests, readiness, and learning profiles. Subsequently, they can provide diverse ways of learning, enabling students to learn without being anxious because academic tasks are too difficult for them or being unmotivated because assignments are not challenging for them (ASCD, 2011). However, differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction.

For your Differentiated Instructional Activity Assignment,  Tools for differentiated Instruction.pdf Download Tools for differentiated Instruction.pdfyou will use one of your content lesson plans you have already taught and make modifications to the following segments:

1. practice (how teachers deliver instruction to students),
2. process (how the lesson is designed for students),
3. products (the kinds of work products students will be asked to complete),
4. content (the specific readings, research, or materials, students will study),
5. assessment (how teachers measure what students have learned), and
6. grouping (how students are arranged in the classroom or paired up with other students).

You will submit both the original content lesson and plan and the lesson plan with differentiated instructional activities, with a reflection of your professional growth completing this assignment. Your product for Differentiated Instructional Activity Assignment will be:

1. A paper including the original lesson plan/differentiated lesson plan with all materials
2. 3-4 minute video showcasing (this means you are pretend teaching) one specific aspect of one Differentiated Instructional Activity – your video submission must be a link, not a file.  You may use YuJa, Screencast-O-Matic or any other tool.  You can also upload your file to Google drive and share that link.  No files which need to be downloaded to view will be accepted.

Video Touro University TESOL Candidate Crystal DeMarco

https://touro.yuja.com/V/Video?v=7544329&node=32277497&a=128877952&autoplay=1

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
New York is a state that speaks many languages. We need teachers who can find the common ground.

Touro University offers TESOL & Advanced Certificates in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program helps NYS-certified PreK-12 teachers more effectively teach and communicate with a diverse student population.

The assignment: Text Analysis & Critique Assignment Description 

Following discussion on the cognitive and linguistic demands of the content areas, you will apply these ideas by closely analyzing a chapter, or an aspect of one content-area text currently in use or recommended by New York State/BOE. Upon analysis of underlying concepts, you will develop a thesis and purpose of your analysis. You will sequence your ideas with evidence from the text supporting important points. Your Critique will feature substantial, logical, and concrete development of ideas describing what makes that concept or section challenging for ELLs. Length: 3-4-page paper (typed, double-spaced, 12-point font) please see grading rubric. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Demonstrate an understanding of various text analysis techniques in relation to educational content-area texts. 
• In written form effectively articulate, evaluate and critique educational content-area texts concepts using professional TESOL language, theory and standards.  
• Ask questions from the view of an ELL/ESL learner that can be meaningfully answered using content-area text analysis. 
• Evaluate evidence; interpret data such as: ELL students cannot glean meaning from context when they have too many words to decipher.  
• Express yourself effectively on graduate level writing 
• By analyzing lexical density of the text, come to a conclusion whether the text is informative and difficult or not.

Classroom teachers need to help ELLs build background knowledge and teach unfamiliar vocabulary before presenting a new concept. Some specific challenges that ELLs face when reading new material include the following:

• Comprehending a text that contains a large number of unknown words. Students cannot glean meaning from context when they have too many words to decipher. 
• Understanding text that includes a profusion of idioms, figurative language, imagery, and symbolism. 
• Using homonyms and synonyms. 
• Deciphering regional U.S. dialects. 
• Grasping literary terms such as antagonist, protagonist, and denouement. 
• Understanding the cultural background depicted in a literary piece. 
• Recognizing correlations between letters and sounds. ELLs may come from a language background where the sound/symbol correspondence is very different from that of English. 
• Comprehending the meaning of a text. ELLs will often memorize the rules for decoding written English and read fluently; however, they do not understand what they have read.

Touro University TESOL candidate Dayna Stechel is from Queens, NY, and is in her 3rd semester at Touro University. She attended SUNY New Paltz for her undergraduate degree in early childhood and childhood education. She is substitute teaching in the NYC public elementary schools.

Lexile Levels and ATOS Levels are used to analyze texts and books. Both of these systems, as well as others, determine the readability of a text. “ATOS is a measure of readability—in other words, a readability formula designed to guide students to appropriate-level books. ATOS takes into account the most important predictors of text complexity—average sentence length, average word length, and word difficulty level” (ATOS, 2022). When analyzing this text, Chapter 3, Models of The Earth, using the ATOS Levels, I analyzed a section discussing topographic maps.

Dayna Stechel, Touro University TESOL candidate

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
New York is a state that speaks many languages. We need teachers who can find common ground. The Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program helps NYS-certified PreK-12 teachers more effectively teach and communicate with a diverse student population.

This week’s DB is constructing a mindmap of comprehensible input strategies AND connecting those to teaching strategies. Share the mindmap in your DB as a screenshot. You need to include your name in the mindmap, title it, and show the connections of comprehensible input strategies to YOUR teaching IN your CLASSROOM. Make sure you include all sources in your mind map.

Dayna Stechel is from Queens, NY, and is close to completing her Masters in TESOL at Touro University. She attended SUNY New Paltz for her undergraduate degree in early childhood and childhood education. She works as an elementary substitute teacher for NYC public schools.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
New York is a state that speaks many languages. We need teachers who can find common ground. The Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program helps NYS-certified PreK-12 teachers more effectively teach and communicate with a diverse student population.

This week’s DB is constructing a mindmap of comprehensible input strategies AND connecting those to teaching strategies. Share the mindmap in your DB as a screenshot. You need to include your name in the mindmap, title it, and show the connections of comprehensible input strategies to YOUR teaching IN your CLASSROOM. Make sure you include all sources in your mind map

Alexa Armentano is a candidate in the TESOL Graduate program at Touro University. She attended Hofstra University for her undergrad where she earned a dual degree in Early Childhood Education and Childhood Education and a Psychology degree. Fun fact! She coaches the Commack High School dance team. Her mindmap showcases different comprehensible input strategies.