What the English teacher needs to know
In most international schools, ESL students are excluded from the mainstream English/Language Arts class until they have reached a certain level of proficiency in the language. The English teacher, therefore, does not have to concern himself so much with modulating his language to ensure it is comprehensible to the students - unlike the science or math teacher, for example, who must ensure that the language of classroom instructions, homework, worksheets and tests is also comprehensible to beginning learners.It is worth recalling at this point, however, that .. it can take learners of English as a second language as much as 5-7 years to catch up with their native-speaking peers as far as academic language proficiency is concerned. So the ESL students that have "made it" into the mainstream English class still need extra support.
Clearly, part of this extra support can be provided by the ESL teacher, who takes time in ESL class to allow students to ask questions about what they are finding difficult in the reading they have to do. The English teacher could also devote a little more time to ESL students in English class - for example, during the teacher-student discussions that form part of the frequently-used process writing/writing workshop approach. Another way to help ESL students is to use graphic organizers to enable them to understand plot or compare characters etc.
Read more: http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/eng.htm
