My experience has been almost exclusively on the high school level, grades 9-12. I enjoy this level because the students are just sophisticated enough to be able to recognize and appreciate literature on several levels. A freshman class reading Animal Farm doesn't just keep track of which animals do what, they can begin to recognize the story as an allegory for the Russian Revolution. That way they can see how seemingly “harmless” literature can hide serious social messages.
A senior class reading Oedipus Rex sees not only a play about a man solving a mystery, but can understand the moral lessons the story teaches, and in turn, can learn about the culture that learned from the play – a culture which has left its mark on our own.
This leads to the greatest advantage of teaching high school students – they're already familiar with their own culture, and will be able to recognize parallels between it and the cultures represented in the stories they read. My first law of literature has always been “There's no such thing as an original story; every idea comes from somewhere.” The stories we read, the movies we watch, the music we listen to; it's all been done before. My ultimate goal as a teacher is to help my students realize that, and open their idea to worlds radically different yet strangely familiar to their own.
I would say that when it comes to teaching ESL students, or indeed, any student from a non-native background, the trickiest issues come not so much from the language difference, but from the cultural difference. Without a common cultural background, it's more difficult to find something for a class to use to build new information on, and every teacher should know how important it is to base new material on previous knowledge. Scaffolding is a crucial part of any educational process, regardless of the languages involved.
As a literature teacher, I often find myself illustrating story lines from classic works in terms of movies, music, and other aspects of pop culture which many students, as it turns out, haven't been exposed to – my Thanksgiving misadventure last week was a prime example of this.
While many of the historical myths of the US are quickly fading, pop culture remains as strong as ever. I once had a class discussion in an honors class comparing the story of King Arthur, the Star Wars saga, and the Harry Potter series. A student who hasn't grown up surrounded by American popular culture wouldn't make the connections. However, for better or for worse, there's little escape from American pop culture.
Rather than start assigning movies to my ESL students, one option find the aspects of their culture that they are familiar with, for them to make new connections with the literature in class. This could be an opportunity not only for me to learn more about my students, but for the ESL student to overcome anxiety by proudly demonstrating something of their own culture, which reinforces the (very true) belief that the culture they are coming from is every bit as important as the one they are entering.
How to use knowledge about the nature of language as a system to teach listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills – Probably the most important thing to remember about the system is that it is a system. Careful attention must be paid to all four of these skills, and they are best developed in a certain order: usually passive skills (listening and reading) must develop before productive skills (speaking and writing), and the oral skills will develop before the written ones. A teacher should structure their lessons so that all four of these skills are put to use, and that, over the course of the school year, the skills emphasized follow a pattern that allows them to master the language system in its proper order.
Students are going to spend a lot of time listening before gaining enough knowledge or confidence to produce – what linguists refer to as the “silent period.” The first step for ESL teachers is to tailor expectations accordingly, and not demand large amounts of produced language in the beginning. That will probably mean no major speeches or essays at first, instead giving the students time to absorb language via lectures and reading groups (preferably with English-speakers) to take in English until they feel ready to produce language.
One of the most useful lessons I've learned about language acquisition is the Critical Period Hypothesis, which states that a language learner only has a set window of time in order to learn a second language with native-like proficiency. By the time a student reaches high school, that window has most likely come and gone, but that doesn't mean that they can't learn. First and foremost, expectations of their language development need to be adjusted – if they're not going to speak like natives, they shouldn't be expected to – not according to any set schedule, and certainly not within the confines of a school year. Communication, not perfection, is the goal.
Second, language learners are going to learn a lot more from their peers than from the classroom, so with that in mind, make group and cooperative learning an important part of any teaching strategy. Language learners partnered with native speakers will have to communicate in order to complete their assignments, and in so doing, students will be developing their language skills by using them in relevant ways.
The goal of any ESL teacher is to integrate content with language, and in this area I believe that my particular subject matter will be of the most use. Literature is, after all, a medium of language in which a particular culture expresses its values and ideals. When I taught World Literature, I acquainted my students with the concept of the hero (the works of mythographer Joseph Campbell is especially useful). Every culture create heroes as role models that exemplify the values of the culture they came from.
“Who are these heroes?” I would ask the class, “and what do we learn about the culture they came from?” For example, ancient Greek heroes such as Odysseus, Perseus, and even Oedipus were famous for their intellect, which was highly valued by the society which created them. Medieval characters such as King Arthur and Dante the Pilgrim showed great religious faith, a hallmark of their period. “Who are the heroes of your culture? What makes them special?” This is an opportunity for students of every culture to showcase their heroes, from their native culture's history, literature, even mythology. And if the student isn't familiar enough with their own culture to know their heroes, it's an excellent chance for them to research and learn.
My teaching strategy was, at first, to unite the students under a common goal – to understand literature originating outside either of their cultures. But then I realized that too much of this approach would put ESL students at a disadvantage, since they would be faced with both a culture and a language barrier, while the English-speaking students would only face a different culture. Then it occurred to me to add literature (both classic an contemporary) from the the students' own culture into the canon.
For example, many World Literature texts include selections of Middle Eastern literature and poetry which often gets overlooked by teachers (In one of my previous schools, I was the only teacher who chose in include selections from The Arabian Nights in class). In a classroom with a large Middle Eastern population, ESL students, working in groups with English-speakers as much as possible, would add their knowledge of their own culture to class discussions as well as small group or student-paired projects and presentations.
The advantages are many: First, since the ESL student is learning about their own history and culture, they are far more likely to be eager and motivated to work. Second, they will be discussing their own culture with their English-speaking classmates, which not only gives the ESL students more exposure to English in academic as well as peer/social situations, but also motivates them to learn English so that they may better understand the great works of their own culture.
Hanging over all of this, as always, is the issue of WIDA and state curriculum standards, and the question of assessment. The answer to this question depends on what level of English proficiency my future students will be on. But in general, the important thing is going to be to determine that level as quickly as possible (assuming the students haven't been tested beforehand, and that data is available to me), and model one's own teaching style, from the nature of assignments to the way a teacher speaks in class, according to their level.
Using my own experience in Multicultural World Literature as an example, a level 2 student should be able to “summarize examples of story lines from native cultures using visuals or graphic organizers (e.g., outlines) in literature circles using L1 or L2” (http://www.wida.us/standards/6-12%20Standards%20web.pdf). I could arrange a lesson in which students created such a visual media (a flowchart, for example) that organized key points in a story's plot, summarizing each one according to which character caused it and why, showing clearly how each event led to the next one in the story. A small group or pair of students working on such a chart would demonstrate sufficient skills at a 2nd level in accordance with the WIDA standards.
A level 4 student on the same WIDA scale should be able to chart a character's development from the beginning of a story to the end. For this level, I would propose a similar assignment with a different focus: rather than follow the story line, the flowchart would follow the actions and events surrounding a single character, and make note of how each event changes the character, for better or worse (A character slowly learning an important moral, or another character's descent into evil/madness, for example).
The WIDA standards provide a guide for identifying what a student should be able to accomplish in order to advance both their language and content skills. A teacher's responsibility is to know the guide and implement it to the best of their ability.
Of course, in so doing, all language skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, must be integrated into lessons. The value of performance-based activities in the classroom cannot be understated – which is why I believe that drama teachers have the best potential to be great ESL teachers. Having a group of students read a section from a novel or short story and then, in groups, act out the scene in front of the class, has always proven to be very effective in developing students' abilities to read, comprehend, and then perform. And why stop at literature? Couldn't students just as easily “act out” scenes from history, or even scientific concepts? I once saw a group of students, wearing signs that read “T-cell” and “virus,” represent the immune system in front of the class.
When performing scenes from plays, I've found a variant which works well, and is enjoyable to do besides: In a dialogue, or similar scene with a small number of characters (I've used the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet in the past, but if the students aren't ready for Shakespeare, any play will do), each character is assigned to two students who have prepared ahead of time: One student reads aloud from the text, giving the lines the necessary voice, emotion, etc., which the other “performs,” pantomiming the action of the scene in front of the class. In this way, one student reads and speaks, the other listens and acts. The lesson can either begin or end with a short essay or similar written assignment in which the student describes their character's action in the scene. In this way, opportunities for listening, speaking, reading, and writing have been combined in a single lesson. These are just a few possibilities to combine content and English instruction in a classroom.
In summation, we have to always remember that language does not exist in a vacuum, nor should it be studied strictly for its own sake -- language is both a product of and a tool to understand a particular culture, and students who wish to be truly bilingual must also strive to be bicultural -- learning their new culture while never losing sight of the importance of their own.
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