What’s Your News? Portraits of a Rich Language and Literacy Activity for English-Language Learners

In this article the author draws on two years of research in English immersion classes to present a detailed portrait of a rich language and literacy activity for young English-language learners (ELLs). The activity, daily news, fostered ELL students’ enthusiastic participation and created an excellent context for the teachers to scaffold the students’ oral language development, bring the students’ primary language and cultural experiences into the classroom, and offer explicit instruction and meaningful practice in spelling patterns and writing skills. Through excerpts of transcripts and field notes that capture a number of actual classroom interactions, the author provides concrete examples of powerful teaching principles for ELL students.