Stages of Language Acquisition

1. Pre-Production In this stage speakers are:

a. Developing their vocabulary
b. Rely mostly on repeating the teacher
c. Affective filter is important at the early stage to promote self-confidence to the
speaker. Affective filter can be lowered, or improved, by giving the learner ability
appropriate tasks, not over correcting them, and not laughing at their mistakes.
d. The silent period is a stage of pre-production where the learner will not speak the
language, but simply attempt to acquire it through listening.
e. An effective strategy would be to be to focus on listening comprehension and
building vocabulary rather than speaking at first to ensure that students begin to
develop an accurate and active vocabulary that they know rather than repeating
what the teacher has said.
2. Early Production In this stage speakers are:
a. able to use a receptive and active vocabulary of around 1000 words
b. Speak in one to two word phrases
c. Use language chunks that are memorized to communicate, though usually with
incorrect context and grammar
d. An effective strategy would be for teachers to ignore the grammatical and/or
syntax errors in favor of focusing on correct concepts and ideas. The other areas
can be developed over time using correct modeling by the teacher rather than
correction immediately after speaking.
3. Speech Emergence In this stage speakers are:
a. Working with an active vocabulary of 3000 words
b. Speaking in simply phrases that may have grammatical flaws
c. Are able to comprehend short passages when assisted with pictures and other nonlingual context
d. An effective strategy would be to have the students participate in group reading
aloud, read modified texts of more complex natures, generate brief stories or
reflections, and generally focus on developing expressive skills through continual
practice.
4. Intermediate Fluency - In this stage speakers are:
a. Have an active vocabulary of around 6000 words
b. Use more complex sentences while writing and speaking
c. Use their native language to develop strategies for learning the new language
d. Are able to synthesize material from what they learned in the past
e. An effective strategy would be to focus on correcting all the minor errors in their
grammar and syntax and refining their expressive skills. It is still advisable to not
hone in too much on their errors, though at this stage their affective filter would
be low due to an elongated exposure to the language.
5. Advanced Fluency In this stage speakers are near native ability in speaking and writing.
They will outperform other students in class and seem to have become fully fluent. They
will continue to need support in writing and social studies, but otherwise are ready to
move beyond ELL classes. An effective strategy would be to explain complex concepts
in history/social studies using the English language to help refine their understanding of
those concepts

Methods of Co-Teaching
1. Supportive is a very commonly seen method of co-teaching where one teacher teaches
the class and the other (often a special education teacher) goes around supporting the
students individually. There is a danger of the role of the support teacher being demeaned
as an assistant which should never be the case. An effective method of implementing
supportive co-teaching with ELL students would be to have the support teacher
specifically go around to struggling students and provide them with the kind of assistance
their native speaking peers would not need. This should be balanced by also having the
supportive teacher switch off with the principal teacher often to keep mutual respect for
one another and allow the whole class to benefit from ELL instructive methods.
2. Team Teaching is a method of co-teaching where each teacher has an equal or semi
equal role in the instruction of the whole class. This can be implanted using different
tasks and specialties such as one teacher focusing on the different aspects of a story in
literature while the other takes the story as a whole. The challenge with this method is
effectively breaking up the work evenly and making sure the students are not confused on
how the lesson is being taught or who to focus on when. An effective method of team
teaching ELL students would be to have a member of the team focus on listening
comprehension and testing for both content as well as language knowledge through
reading quizzes and feedback from the lesson they just taught, which serves to benefit
both ELL and native speaking students.
3. Parallel is a method of co-teaching where the class is broken up into separate parts and
each teacher focuses on instructing one section of the class. This helps keep the ratio of
teacher to student low and gives each student more individual attention. There are
challenges to this method, as with dividing the class, students may be getting different
instruction and content from their peers in a class that only has one test or lesson plan. It
is important also not to subdivide students into ELL and non-ELL groups, as this
segregates them from their peers and could have serious implication in their ability to
speak and comprehend native speakers who are not their teachers. An effective method
for parallel teaching ELL students would be to have an even mix of ELL and native
speakers in each group and have each teacher engage in those language acquisition skills
with all their students, to help develop their understanding of the content better.

4. Complementary is the most difficult and challenging method of co-teaching as it

involves one teacher who fulfills a role as a verbal communicator while the other teacher
focuses on nonverbal communication and lessons learned from visuals. The difficulty
here can be to comprehend if students understand both teachers and how the content of
each teacher complements the lesson as a whole. An effective method of instructing ELL
students in Complementary teaching would be to have the ELL trained teacher fill both
roles at different times in order that the ELL students dont simply focus on nonverbal
forms of communication, which might hinder their language practice and learning skills.