By now it’s a given: if we’re to help our ELLs and SELs access the rigorous demands of today’s content standards, we must cultivate the “code” that drives school success: academic language. Look no further for assistance than this much-anticipated series from Ivannia Soto, in which she invites field authorities Jeff Zwiers, David and Yvonne Freeman, Margarita Calderon, and Noma LeMoine to share every teacher’s need-to-know strategies on the four essential components of academic language.
The subject of this volume is culture. Here, Noma LeMoine makes clear once and for all how culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy validates, facilitates, liberates, and empowers ethnically diverse students. With this volume as your roadmap, you’ll learn how to:
- Implement instructional strategies designed to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of ELLs and SELs
- Use language variation as an asset in the classroom
- Recognize and honor prior knowledge, home languages, and cultures
The culture and language every student brings to the classroom have vast implications for how to best structure the learning environment. This guidebook will help you get started as early as tomorrow. Better yet, read all four volumes in the series as an all-in-one instructional plan for closing the achievement gap.
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Author Bio
Ivannia Soto is Associate Professor of Education at Whittier College, where she specializes in second language acquisition, systemic reform for English language learners (ELLs), and urban education. She has presented on literacy and language topics at various conferences and has provided technical assistance for systemic reform for ELLs and Title III.
Dr. Noma LeMoine’s career in education spans 35 years. She is a nationally recognized expert on issues of language and literacy acquisition and learning in African American and other Standard English Learner Populations. She has written and spoken extensively on the topic and is a highly sought-after consultant to colleges, universities, and school districts nationwide. For twenty years, Dr. LeMoine served as Director of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Academic English Mastery Program and ten years as Director of the District’s Closing the Achievement Gap Branch. In this role, Dr. LeMoine oversaw implementation of the District’s closing the achievement gap initiatives intended to eliminate disparities in educational outcomes for thousands of under-achieving students. During this period the district saw improved academic achievement scores in both African American and Latino/Hispanic student populations.