ELL Book Reviews
Title: The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox
Author(s): Larry Ferlazzo, Katie Hull Sypnieski
Published: 2018
Links: Amazon, Larry’s Twitter
The author’s Larry and Katie are both EL teachers in the US. They developed this book as a compendium of resources and strategies for the classroom. All strategies are based on recent research in the field of ELLs, and they have been actively practiced by both authors.
This book can be best utilized by:
– Classroom teachers – ELL teachers – ELL coaches – Curriculum developers
This book contains an incredible amount of applicable tools and strategies for the classroom. Each strategy is simple enough to be implemented in lessons, but flexible enough to differentiate between grade levels. What I love most about this book is how the authors also explain what are possible pitfalls for each strategy, which helped me when implementing them as an ELL Co-Teacher. It’s also organized in a way that allows the reader to easily flip through each strategy. I used the Kindle version, and the table of contents is hyperlinked for easy access.
Title: Co-Teaching for English Learners
Author(s): Maria Dove, Andrea Honigsfeld
Published: 2018
Links: Amazon, Andrea’s Twitter, Maria’s Twitter
Co-Teaching for English Learners is a beginners guide to Co-Teaching. It contains a step by step process for what teachers need to start collaborative structures in their setting. It contains experiences from other Co-Teachers as well as videos to enhance the readers’ learning.
This book can be best utilized by:
– Classroom teachers – ELL teachers – ELL coaches – Principals
This book was my gateway into Co-Teaching. It taught me not only what Co-Teaching is all about, how ways to implement it in my setting. Like with all books, one must interpret the provided strategies and consider how they may be applied in their own context. This helped me implement strategies in this book in my current international school. Overall, this book is a necessity for schools interested in the Co-Teaching model. Best of all, Andrea is active on Twitter, so you can reach out to her with questions!
