If you are a teacher of emergent bilinguals, you most likely have a natural sympathy that propelled you into this field where you can help those who most need the support. I make this assumption because I am confident that it is neither the money nor the prestige of teaching that attracted you to education, and if it were just for the summers off, it would be easier to teach monolingual English students. However, those of us who naturally try to empathize with our students can often fall into the pobrecito syndrome, or a pity so strong that we do not provide students the academic rigor that will maximize their abilities.

Many of our students have experienced or are experiencing trauma right now; however, this does not take away from the vast experiences or the range of giftedness that our students bring into the classroom.  And we need to make sure that while we remain empathetic to our students’ experiences that we also push our students to their maximum potential. 

To do this, I recommend incorporating Language Acquisition, Advancement, Thematic Instruction, and Authentic Products (LAATA), four strategies that can help push forward all our students.  First, we need to embed language acquisition strategies instead of reducing rigor.  Next, we need to try and accelerate content for those students who can handle it. Then, we need to allow students to process information thematically.  Finally, we need to allow students to apply their knowledge in unique and creative ways that allow them to use all of their talents.

First, we need to advance our students as quickly as possible. In general, we have a tendency to slow down content for emergent bilinguals so that they can concentrate on language; however, emergent bilinguals simply do not have enough time to learn English and then, learn the content.  And dual teachers, since we are never repeating standards, we should also not be using programmatic structures as an excuse for allowing students to fall behind their monolingual peers.  In fact, keeping up with the grade-level standards should be the very least of what we do.  Working in two languages builds cognitive skills. Furthermore, many of our students show signs of precocity even if we have to notice the precocity through their home languages or through a bilingual lens. Therefore, we need to pick up the pace. Do not be afraid to introduce a topic to students and then, to let them explore the topic further on their own while you work with others who need more individualized attention. Or if a student has learned a concept in math, let them move onto the next unit even if not everyone in your class can. Individualized programs such as IXL and iReady can also help students move forward on their own while picking up the language. Furthermore, see if you can push your class as a whole to move forward faster, especially if there is some catch up needed as a whole. Emergent bilingual students, regardless of their precocity, will still likely need language acquisition support such as vocabulary introduction, visuals, and text engineering, but we also need to remove those supports as students’ proficiency levels strengthen.

Next, present material as thematically as you can. Themes can be as non-serious as fantasy books but they can also be serious such as studying civil wars in different countries.  Students learn best when they are learning about topics of interest or of concern to them, so try to find out what their interests are. One year, I pivoted my lesson by focusing on leprechauns because the students had watched a scary movie about these fantastical creatures the night before.  The students researched online about leprechauns, learned the difference between clurichauns and leprechauns, and created informative compare and contrast essays about them. We even learned that leprechauns are 3 ft long, which led to the unexpected incorporation of the green beings into our measurement unit. When students are interested in what they are learning, they tend to do better and use all their comprehension skills to understand their second language. (Of course, this does not mean to not incorporate language support. I still used sentence stems for their essays and worked one-on-one and in small groups with students who needed the extra support.)

Finally, students need to create authentic products that require out-of-the-box thinking and creativity.  Have your students engineer popup books to teach younger kids about the topic you just learned.  Let them create documentaries to record their research. Share their work with the community, starting with school administrators and parents.  Have them create class magazines in which students’ writing appears. Let them solve real life problems using math and implement their solutions.  For example, let them create dollhouses using their knowledge of area and perimeter so that they are not just carpeting an unknown room on a worksheet, but a real room that they are constructing. Notice how in all of these suggestions, students can incorporate their talents in fine arts as well as their content area knowledge, making the activities more enjoyable, allowing them to grow their non academic talents, and also using their content knowledge.  

By using a system of LAATA, we can help maximize our emergent bilingual students’ potential.