NBCT- ENL 1

As part of a writing assignment, an ENL student was asked by an ELA teacher to write a persuasive

paragraph on the use of school uniforms. The student instead turned in a paragraph describing the

school's uniforms. The ELA teacher is perplexed because the instructions to give an opinion were

very clear. The ENL teacher is going to ask the student to redo the assignment. The best advice the

ENL teacher can give the ELA teacher in this situation is to:

• teach the student the definition of persuasion through direct instruction.

• provide the student with sentence frames with persuasive language forms.

• ask the student to look at another student's work as an example.

• have the student complete a brainstorming web before writing.

An ENL teacher works with a tenth-grade newly arrived ENL student. The student comes from a

culture that defines boundaries related to personal space differently than those of the teacher and

classmates. Consequently, the teacher notices that peers are hesitant to engage in conversations

with the student. When lining up, peers are reluctant to stand next to the student. Which step would

be most important for the ENL teacher to take to respond to this situation with sensitivity?

• ensuring that the student maintains cultural traditions by explaining to peers in the class that

  personal space boundaries differ across cultures

• teaching the student self-awareness related to the concept of personal space in a U.S. school

  setting

• pairing the student with empathetic peers during group tasks so that the student may develop

  awareness of personal space issues over time

• notifying the student's parents/guardians of the situation so they can serve as role models for

  acceptable personal space

A beginning-level ENL student whose native language is Spanish produces the following response to

a prompt on soccer.

At my old school, I had a good team of soccer. It hurted me too much to leave them. One time the

ball hited me in the face. It was painful.

What is the probable cause of the grammatical errors in the student's response?

• no knowledge of the rule for past tense verbs in English

• native-language interference from Spanish past tense verbs

• overgeneralization of the regular form of past tense verbs

• faulty perception of how past tense verbs sound in English

Tags

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

CCSS.L.3.1D

In order to teach discourse structures associated with various disciplinary genres, a high school ENL

teacher identifies for students how each discipline tends to organize information in texts. Which set of

adverbs best characterizes how information in social studies texts is primarily organized?

• descriptively, sequentially, or logically

• chronologically, comparatively, or causally

• deductively, inductively, or spatially

• objectively, persuasively, or thematically

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.6.5

CCSS.RI.7.5

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

A twelfth-grade, intermediate-level ENL student is talking to the teacher about her grandmother. She

tells the teacher, "She go with me to the store on Saturdays." The best way to respond to this

statement would be to:

• ignore the error since this is a common grammatical error that will sort itself out over time.

• explicitly correct the error by telling the student that she should have said "goes" instead of "go."

• tell the student that she just made an error and that she would need to work on it in class the

  next day.

• model the correct language form by replying, "Oh, she goes with you to the store on Saturdays?"

Tags

CCSS.L.4.1B

CCSS.L.5.1.B-D

CCSS.L.3.1E

CCSS.L.5.1C

CCSS.L.5.1D

A high school ENL teacher teaches in a community with a new, but growing, ENL population. One of

her ENL colleagues, a first-year teacher, has approached her with concerns about some of his

students. On the English Language Development Assessment (ELDA), these students' scores show

beginning levels of English proficiency even though they have been in the United States for many

years. He states that they seem perfectly capable of conversing with their peers, but they are

struggling in their content-area classes. What is the most likely reason for this seeming

contradiction?

• The ELDA scores are not always reliable, so the students may actually have a higher level of

  English proficiency.

• The students must not be paying attention in class or doing their homework, which is reflected in

  the ELDA scores.

• The students have mastered social language, but they are still developing cognitive academic

  language.

• The first-year teacher lacks the experience of interpreting assessment scores and may be

  misreading the results.

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.7

CCSS.RI.9-10.7

CCSS.RL.11-12.7

CCSS.RL.8.7

CCSS.RL.9-10.7

An ENL teacher works with content-area teachers in a middle school to help them plan differentiated

assessments for ENL students that are based on students' levels of English language proficiency. To

best achieve this goal, the content-area teachers should be aware of each student's relative

strengths and needs in which areas?

• receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge

• nonverbal and verbal cognitive skills

• speaking, listening, reading, and writing domains

• oral and silent reading fluency

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.10

CCSS.RI.11-12.10

CCSS.RI.8.10

CCSS.RL.11-12.10

CCSS.RL.9-10.10

Initial English language proficiency testing on a new student shows that she is at the beginning level

of language development in all domains. However, after two weeks in class, the teacher observes

that the student has some more advanced language skills. What is the best action for the teacher to

take in order to gather further information on this student's language skills?

• collecting language samples or student work samples that demonstrate ability level in each

  domain

• giving the student the same language proficiency test again to confirm the original scores

• asking the student to describe what level of English she feels comfortable using within each

  domain

• asking the family for information on the educational history of the student, including prior

  exposure to English

An ELA teacher has a new ENL student from Ghana in his 9th grade English course. In class

discussions, the ENL student speaks in a voice so loud that the ELA teacher and other students

interpret the student’s expression as angry and argumentative. The ENL teacher could best

provide support by

• calling the student’s parents and asking them to model what an appropriate tone sounds

  like

• holding a meeting with the class to explain how self expression looks and sounds

  different in different cultures

• reminding the student to “tone it down” whenever their expression becomes too loud

• teaching the student what an acceptable classroom tone is in US culture, and help them

  to be aware of when their tone exceeds that level

A high school regularly has events to try to try to reach out to families, but the ENL population

is not participating in the events. The ENL teacher could help the school increase participation

among the ENL population by

• making sure that communication such as telephone calls, flyers and the school website

  are available in the home languages of the student population

• reminding their ENL students to attend the events

• Making sure that all events reflect the school’s cultural diversity

• promoting the events on social media platforms that are popular among the school

  population

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1