Teaching English Language Learners:

Exploring Best-Practices

Learning from innovative pedagogical practices and

learning strategies in ‘English as Second Language’

(ESL) Classrooms

Authors: Samuel Madtha, Emma Francis, Vignesh Krishnan

Organisation: Teach for India

Contact Details: Samuel Madtha, samuel.madtha@teachforindia.org,

+91 9910602643, Office Address: Teach for India, N-23, 2nd

Floor, Green Park

Extension, New Delhi- 110016

2

1. Abstract

At Teach for India, we aspire for all our students to be thoughtful readers who critically

engage with texts from all genres, articulate writers with strong voices who express their

ideas clearly, and eloquent speakers who compel others to listen. We believe that the ability

to communicate, collaborate and contribute is key to achieving personal and collective goals,

pursuing interests and aspirations, overcoming localized and social challenges and leading a

purposeful and fulfilling life. Language is an essential enabler towards developing and

meaningfully exercising these key abilities.

The ‘Transformational Impact Journey’ (TIJ) - an annual, intra-organizational process that

allows Fellows and staff members to recommend Fellows they believe are closest to leading

their students to significant levels of learning was introduced with the aim of learning from

the journeys of teachers and students who each year raise the bar of excellence in education.

With examples drawn from the work of our TIJ Fellows, this research paper illustrates five

core practices that we believe are accelerating students’ learning of the English language.

These core practices are:

Extended Engagement with Diverse and Authentic Texts

Goal-Action-Feedback Loop

Explicit Teaching of Reading Strategies

The ‘IDEEP’ Writing Progression

Routines to build Student Expression and Voice

Key Words:

Transformational Impact Journey

SMART Goals

Graphic Organizer

Think-Aloud

Student Portfolio

Morning Meeting

Think-Pair-Share

3

2. Acknowledgements

We thank our colleagues, in particular, Ms. Romana Shaikh and Mr. Sandeep Rai,

who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research paper.

We also thank our team at Teach for India- past and present, for sharing their pearls of

wisdom with us during the course of this research and for supporting us at multiple points

while authoring the research paper.

We are also immensely grateful to the Fellows, Government bodies and School Principals

across the country without whom, we wouldn't have been able to carry out our work with

students for the last 8 years. Last but not the least, we want to extend our gratitude to SCERT

for providing us with the incredible opportunity to share our work with a wider audience.

4

Table of Contents

Page No.

1. Abstract

2

2. Acknowledgements

3

3. Introduction

5

4. Core practices

4.1 Extended engagement with diverse and authentic

texts

4.2 Goal-Action-Feedback Loop

4.3 Explicit Teaching of Reading Strategies

4.4 The writing progression

4.5 Routines to build student expression and voice

7

7

9

11

13

16

5. Conclusion

18

6. References

7. Appendix

19

20

5

3. Introduction

At Teach for India, we believe that every child has the right to an excellent, holistic education

that will equip them with the knowledge, skills and mind-sets to maximize their potential.

Currently, 1250 Fellows in 7 cities serve as teachers for two years. They teach children from

low-income communities, where the current state of poverty and environmental factors may

limit their choices in future. Our Fellows strive to give our students the holistic education

they need and deserve- one that opens up multiple opportunities and enables them to change

their life-path dramatically. Through this challenging work, we believe our Fellows become

leaders for change.

An integral part of excellent education is access to learning opportunities that expose students

to diverse perspectives, build global awareness and enable students to independently explore

and leverage a plethora of literature and material across academic and general disciplines.

English being the language that facilitates social, economic, political and other major

discourses at a global scale, English Language Learning is of significant relevance,

particularly in the context of India expanding its sphere of global participation and influence.

Teaching in English medium Government and Low-fee Private Schools, we surround our

students in an English-rich environment that allows them to take risks and feel confident

expressing ideas. We spend time on English instruction every day and focus on teaching

English as a language, in the language itself. We explicitly develop our students’ skills in

reading fluency, comprehension, writing and speaking through purposeful platforms of

expression and engagement with diverse, authentic literature.

Over the course of the past 8 years, we have continually strived to understand the impact of

our work in order to learn how we can better meet the needs of the students we serve. In

2012, Teach for India commissioned Columbia University to lead a longitudinal study which

tracked growth in student learning in English and Math in Teach For India and ‘control’

classrooms over 4 years to help us understand the impact of our work. Students in Teach for

India classrooms had an average growth of 5 times that of control classrooms in English

language learning.

6

In 2016-17, in partnership with Educational Initiatives, Teach for India conducted an ‘end of

year’ assessment in grades 3, 5 and 7 in English and Math with a representative sample

across all Teach For India sites. Although similarly performing in grade 3, Teach for India

students perform significantly higher than their counterparts in government and affordable

private schools in class 7 in both English and Math. While Teach for India students have a

long way to go to catch up with the performance of high-fee private schools, the gap is

steadily reducing, more so in English.

An annual, internal process that allows Fellows and staff members to recommend Fellows

they believe are closest to leading their students to significant levels of learning was

introduced in 2012 at Teach for India. It is known as the Transformational Impact Journey

(TIJ). Within city teams, these recommended classrooms are studied in depth and the

outcomes of teacher and student actions thoroughly analyzed. In its essence, the TIJ enables

systematic identification of what’s working in enabling transformational outcomes and to

share these learnings towards replicating them for more children.

With examples drawn from the work of TIJ Fellows (representing the top 10% of our

classrooms each year where students are making significant progress), this research paper

illustrates five core practices that we believe are accelerating students’ learning of the English

language.

7

4. Core Practices

4.1: Extended Engagement with Diverse and Authentic Texts

Purpose:

To develop critical readers and writers who love to read and write, we expose our students to

a variety of content and material that is authentic – externally published work, relevant –

applicable to their interests and aspirations and diverse – across a variety of genres, types and

contexts, giving them a world-view and exposing them to multiple experiences.

Process and In-practice:

a) We believe that it is our students’ love for reading that will lead to them becoming

life-long readers and writers. Authentic children’s literature is full of vivid pictures,

rich language, engaging plots, evolving characters and descriptive settings. TFI

Fellows begin to bring these texts to life by reading aloud to students- effectively

employing the tone and volume of their voice, emphasising important moments and

details and posing frequent questions to help students pause, think and process what

they have heard. ‘Read Aloud’ experiences then transition into ‘shared’ and

‘independent’ reading practices.

Watch grade 9 students reading Maya Angelou’s poem- ‘Still I Rise’. They engage

with the choice of language in the poem to explore the poet’s perspective. Students

then watch a video of Maya Angelou herself reciting the poem and experience how

the poet’s tone influences their interpretations.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrQHjsY6_Mc&t=80s

b) We have seen that extended engagement with authentic texts has enabled students

to build a much deeper understanding of the themes of the text, the nature and

complexity of characters and to hone their critical thinking and comprehension skills.

This happens through on-going, uninterrupted and progressive practice over a

significant period of time, in the backdrop of a single book/series. TFI Fellows

8

facilitate this extended engagement through reading longer texts with their students

and designing speaking/ listening and writing tasks that are aligned to the themes/

ideas in the text being read. This enables students to learn and apply vocabulary,

grammar patterns, and comprehension and writing skills contextually and consistently

across lessons.

In this example of a monthly plan, grade 3 students read The Enormous Crocodile by

Roald Dahl. Students begin by describing the physical traits of the character (the

Crocodile) and explore his personality by making inferences on his actions. In their

writing, they design ‘wanted posters’ to warn the public of the dangers of the

Enormous Crocodile, illustrating the Crocodile’s traits. They then create ‘police news

bulletins’ to spread the warning.

Link to the plan:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fDeCd9DW_31jnVTMI6km-H67iOlpOk7S-

86Jb5CagxQ/edit#gid=753491805

c) The examples above all illustrate the importance of the teacher choosing authentic,

relevant and diverse reading material to explore with their students. Equally important

has been our teachers focus on enabling students to independently access this reading

material for their own reading. It has been particularly important for our students to

choose their own reading material. Our teachers have facilitated this through i)

creating in-class libraries of levelled books that students can choose from ii)

encouraging reading challenges that motivate students to read an increasing ‘x’

number of books and iii) allocating time within the school day for students to read.

An in-class library in a grade 5 TFI classroom

9

4.2: Goal-Action-Feedback Loop

Purpose:

To effectively develop reading and writing in students we have found it important to

continuously evaluate their growth and use this information to instruct students at the

appropriate level. Our Fellows use a variety of assessment tools like reading level

assessments, student portfolios and performance tasks on a regular basis to understand

student growth and progress and inform their instruction.

What has been particularly impactful has been actively involving students in this process of

learning. We strive to empower our students to know where they currently are in their

reading/ writing and equip them to set their own individual goals and identify the actions they

can take to work towards those goals.

Process and In-practice:

a) SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based. The

snapshot below is an example of SMART goals that students in a grade 5 classroom

set for themselves. What stands out is the specificity with which students are able

to identify the actions they will take daily and over time to work towards these

goals. These students made almost 4 levels of growth over 2 years, significantly

higher than of those from other classrooms.

Snapshot of goals set by students for themselves in a grade 5 classroom

10

The TFI Fellow in the classroom under consideration worked closely with each

student to identify their current reading level through continuous evaluation. They

supported each student to set a goal for the upcoming unit of study and helped

identify the books/ materials and actions needed to work effectively towards their

goal. The teacher and students jointly reviewed the goals on a regular basis with the

teacher providing empowering feedback to students on the progress made by them.

The Fellow leveraged the Community Learning Centre to enable students to have

enough practice time to work independently towards these goals.

b) Ongoing peer learning and feedback allows students to continuously reflect on their

skills and habits and indicates areas in which they can grow. In this clip we see grade

4 students, leveraging online audio books to support less fluent readers to develop

their reading skills. In small groups, the students listen carefully to a reader reading

the text recorded into a system. Playback enables all the students to re-listen to the

way the text was read and students articulate how appropriate expression and

intonation plays a major role in supporting students who are beginning to learn

English. This tool was in fact, subsequently used by these students to teach children in

other classrooms.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGidudDDOk

c) Student portfolios are documents in which students can independently record and

track their work and progress. In this example, we see a student explain how she takes

responsibility of her progress by ensuring that she knows her focus areas – last year

she focussed on sentence formation because she was using incomplete sentences in

her speech and writing, particularly when she was in a hurry. Each time she gets a

paper back, she reads her teacher’s comments, reflects on mistakes and makes

corrections and tracks improvement. All this information is preserved and monitored

for learning across subjects in a single portfolio.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfi7PujawWY

11

4.3: Explicitly Teaching Reading Strategies: Using Guiding Questions, Graphic

Organizers and ‘Think-Aloud’

Purpose:

Reading strategies are cognitive processes that readers employ towards making sense of text

and building deep engagement with it. Some reading strategies commonly and intuitively

used by readers are- asking questions, making connections, drawing inferences, making

predictions, visualizing, self-monitoring and summarizing. This practice makes visible the

thinking behind an otherwise intuitive cognitive process and gets students to see the diverse

thinking that goes in the teacher’s and their peers’ minds while drawing out meaning and the

depth with which they think about the text.

Process:

To foster critical thought while reading and in general, our Teaching Fellows explicitly

introduce reading strategies and pick a specific one as a focus strategy that is deliberately and

consciously utilized over an extended period. The text is chosen such that its content

authentically encourages the chosen strategy to be employed. For example, if the reading

objective is for students to describe details of an event, the strategy employed could be

visualization and the text chosen would be rich in descriptive pieces and imagery. In order to

equip students to consciously incorporate a reading strategy into their engagement with text,

teachers break the strategy down into guiding questions, provide students with graphic

organizers (G.O) to record their thoughts stage-wise and think aloud as they themselves

employ a reading strategy to engage with text in a certain manner. Through the think-aloud,

students learn from the way the teacher pauses at appropriate points in the text and

incorporates a reading strategy- the explicit thinking steps that enable the teacher to read

between lines, answer questions that don’t have a single answer and overall, get immersed

joyfully in the reading and thinking process.

12

Character in

question

Event in question What is happening? What if this happened to

me?

Malala

Yousafzai

Malala attacked by

the Taliban

Malala is shot in the

head for standing up

for girls’ right to go

to school

I would be afraid

Sample Graphic Organizer for the objective: ‘Infer Character Feelings’

Reading Strategy: Text-Self Connections

For a Reading Comprehension question of the format- ‘How do you think _____ felt when

_____’, students can use the G.O to first locate the character in consideration, identify the

events surrounding the character, think of how those events might make them feel and

conclude therefore, how the character might have felt. At the start of the lesson, the teacher

would use the G.O and think each step aloud and show students how he/she infers character

feelings from the text to answer a question of the format stated above.

In-practice:

Watch this teacher use a graphic organizer while reading a part of her students’ favorite

book- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The teacher demonstrates how she uses

guiding questions to engage deeply with a character’s problem in the story. Overall, the video

highlights passionate and joyful learning that has been fostered in the classroom through

enthralling and interactive story telling.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZE5Oi7EyME&t=75s

13

4.4: Writing Progression- Ideate Draft Edit Enhance Present (IDEEP)

Purpose:

The IDEEP progression is designed to scaffold the writing process for students. It allows

students to gradually practice aspects of writing and receive feedback from each other and the

teacher at each stage of the process. The teacher, in turn, gets to make thinking visible,

monitor student work and provide specific feedback stage-wise to progressively improve

students’ writing samples. The teacher ensures that the topic chosen is interesting and

relevant to current events or the students’ interests and experiences. A writing rubric is used

as a guiding tool that helps the teacher decide the scope of inputs and outcomes with respect

to a writing objective. The objective is picked up from a writing progression. The teacher

may get students into groups based on which level of the rubric they are proficient at. This

enables the teacher to provide targeted, specific and relevant support to students thereby

incrementally improving the writing skills of students from based on where they currently

are. A student friendly check-list or rubric may be used by students to self-evaluate their

work and reflect on their progress.

Snapshot of the Writing Rubric

14

Process:

The first stage- Ideate, is when the teacher elicits ideas from students on the topic at hand.

Since this stage focuses only on ideas, students are not limited by their sentence structuring,

organization or choice of words. Students initially work in groups with the teacher’s

guidance to express ideas that align with the topic and think of apt details that bring clarity

and add depth. Before the students start drafting their writing piece, they receive feedback on

alignment of ideas with the topic and explore their creativity, imagination, knowledge and

experiences pertaining to the topic without being curtailed by their fluency in writing.

Students are free to express ideas in a format that their currently comfortable with- words,

phrases, pictures or sentences.

After students have expressed their ideas on a common board or their individual workbooks,

the teacher guides them to put ideas and thoughts together into sentences. This is the Draft

stage. Students are introduced to essential vocabulary and one focus grammar rule that

equip them to draft sentences. The teacher also reinforces previously encountered vocabulary

and grammatical patterns while providing feedback on students’ drafts. At this stage, students

receive inputs on the most apt way to organize the flow of their ideas. The teacher may ask

students to draft ideas on different strips of paper and then, students arrange the strips in a

way that seems logical and seamless.

The next stage is called Enhance. Enhancement of a writing sample involves incorporation

of words (adjectives, adverbs, etc.) that add detail to the narrative or description, using

alternate sentence starters, adding imagery through choice of words, use of similes,

metaphors, etc. The essence of this stage is to encourage students to make modifications to

their writing in order to make it more appealing to the reader. Again, one particular mode of

enhancement is picked, practiced and given feedback on.

Once the draft has been enhanced, the class moves on to the Edit phase of the process. Here,

the students consciously incorporate new vocabulary and the in-focus grammar rule(s) to

make corrections to their drafts. Corrections to spellings, capitalization and punctuations are

also made at this stage, focusing on a specific type of correction in any given period of

15

writing. The writing and re-writing of sentences or paragraphs reinforces writing skills in the

context of a gradually improving piece of writing and a relevant and interesting topic.

In the final stage- Publish, the students practice use of punctuations, spaces and indents to

ensure that their idea and thoughts are encapsulated, organized and presented in a neat and

effective manner. The teacher could provide authentic platforms for students to post or

publish their work like a student wall in the classroom, a class or school-wide magazine, the

local newspaper, etc.

It is important to notice how specific inputs and pieces of feedback are provided at each

stage, towards a clear outcome expected at that stage. At the enhance stage, for instance,

students might only be focusing on incorporating similes and metaphors where applicable.

The teacher would also only introduce the use of similes and metaphors and provide feedback

exclusively on the same without getting into tenses, spellings, punctuations and the myriad

elements that constitute a good piece of writing. Students improve their work stage by stage,

picking up and practicing specific elements of writing, thereby incrementally and evidently

increasing the quality of their writing samples. Incremental developments put together result

in significant and enduring progress at the end of a unit of writing. An entire lesson may be

devoted to each stage of the IDEEP progression or stages may be clubbed together depending

on the pace at which students can incorporate feedback and move forward effectively and

confidently.

In-practice:

Watch the Ideate Phase come alive in this grade 3 classroom. The Teaching Fellow uses a

graphic organizer to guide his students’ thinking and make his own thinking visible.

Link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4a1IoGFiIA&list=PL2ABxEhI5uzz6A6MKxA0y4fH

YJBOaf9gM&index=5

To see multiple stages of IDEEP implemented in a single lesson, watch students in this grade

9 class begin to build their own poetry.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA9dAsAoOSc

16

4.5: Routines to Build Student Expression and Voice

Purpose:

Every classroom is unique in its own way. However, the challenge for every teacher/

educator is to make the classroom inclusive and create a safe space for every child to

express their thoughts and opinions. When a classroom becomes a safe space for students

to voice their thoughts and opinions, student motivation towards learning increases. Fostering

a culture of peer interaction and feedback and providing regular opportunities for students to

share their experiences and learning and reflect on them go a long way in students building

confidence, internalizing the virtues of team-work, appreciating and learning from diverse

perspectives and approaches, and honing their communication skills.

Process and In-practice:

a) In many of our classrooms our students start their day with a morning meeting. This

daily routine provides students with an opportunity to explore and reflect on a topic.

These discussions happen in both small groups and whole-class. Essentially, morning

meetings create a space for all students to freely express their thoughts, feelings and

opinions. The topic(s) for the morning meeting is carefully chosen, based on the

context, grade and readiness of the students to engage with the same. The topic could

range from current challenges they're facing in studies or at home, to topics that are of

national debate or discussion (like the no detention policy).

In this clip we hear students sharing how they begin their mornings with a debate

where ‘we share our opinions….we learn about patience and empathy’.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giqsJ2p_0yA

b) Across TFI classrooms, students engage with a routine of ‘Think-Pair-Share’.

This routine encourages students to think about something they have seen or heard.

The thinking is prompted by a problem, question, image, opinion etc. In pairs,

students discuss their reactions or responses to the prompt. Since they are listening to

and sharing ideas in pairs or small groups, the routine enables students to practice

or test their response, approach or rationale with each other before sharing it

17

with a larger group or their teacher. This safe space that enables rehearsal of

response and instant peer feedback is particularly important for new language

learners. Students then share across a wider audience, enabling them to hear both-

diverse perspectives and different choices of language and expression. We have

observed students being encouraged to make their thinking visible by teachers asking

them to write or draw their ideas before and/or after sharing. With many TFI

classrooms having overwhelming student strength, the T-P-S routine provides an

opportunity for all students to speak and be heard.

In this clip we see students moving into groups to talk about possible solutions to

problems facing Harry, Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s

Stone by J.K Rowling. Note the TFI Fellow in the video explicitly telling her

students, “Why I’m giving you one question as a team is so you can all think together

and we can have more brains thinking of better solutions”, reiterating, “Everybody is

participating, everybody has ideas.”

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylcrljN1T0&t=138s

Lastly, in the clip above, listen to the student sharing the importance of being given

multiple chances to try and make mistakes in order to learn. He says, “If we don’t

get other chances how will we be able to learn. One chance is not important, other

chances are also important. Not one time, second time, third time, we will get”.

18

5. Conclusion

English Language Learning is becoming increasingly crucial in the context of globalization.

For our students to maximize their access to learning opportunities- institutional or self-

exploratory, the ability to communicate with people across geographies and engage with

diverse literature and media is imperative. A myriad of opportunities linked to higher studies

and employment become open to exploration to students who develop proficiency in

speaking, reading and writing skills, particularly in the English language.

There are many factors that influence language learning and acquisition and a host of

opportunities presented to teachers to facilitate the same in the face of diverse challenges. In

our work with Fellows and students, love for reading, ownership of learning, structured

practice and enabling feedback have led to accelerated development of students with respect

to building language proficiency and other elements of an excellent education. The best

practices presented in this research paper are those that have been implemented and

continuously improved upon by those Fellows of Teach for India who have led their students

to meet ambitious learning goals. The students in these classrooms have on average shown

dramatic improvements in reading fluency, comprehension, writing and spoken expression.

The research paper aims at providing teachers with a combination of over-arching principles

and ideas and specific practices that we believe will lead to joyful, rigorous and purposeful

learning, particularly in ESL classrooms. We hope that the learning and discussions

generated through the exploration of best practices and empowering mind-sets of teachers

and students catalyzes the effort towards all children receiving an excellent education.

19

6. References

The practices we have outlined have been informed by the following literature:

1. National Council of Educational Research and Training, Position Paper National

Focus Group on Teaching of English, 2006

2. Debbie Miller, Reading with Meaning Stenhouse Publishers, 2012

3. Lucy Calkins, Writers Workshop.

4. National Institute for Literacy, US, Put Reading First, 3rd

Edition

5. Reading A-Z https://www.readinga-z.com (levelled reading)

20

8. Appendix

Links to Resource Documents

Progression of Reading Comprehension Objectives:

https://sites.google.com/a/teachforindia.org/ecosystem/student/literacy/reading-

comprehension

Progression of Writing Objectives:

https://sites.google.com/a/teachforindia.org/ecosystem/student/literacy/writing

Writing Rubric (last tab in the sheet):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzVNl0VAGeEaSGtFMDVPVlpHa2c/view?expo

rt=download

Sample Student Portfolios:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_ccNVk5wXkFN0Z5OTZ4U3YyU1E