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Teaching English-Language Learners in Mainstream College Courses

Just because our students speak English clearly in basic interpersonal communication, we might assume they also have cognitive academic English necessary for ongoing success in listening, speaking, reading and writing academic activities. We often cannot make that necessary distinction between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), and therefore our students may have difficulty learning from us.

Some instructors of English-language learners (ELLs) simply must know the grammar structures of English and the teaching techniques in order to initiate and foster language acquisition. That's what an ESL teacher does. Yet, once those students have reached college preparatory or college courses, instructors must be equipped to take them through the steps of the academic writing process. We must be able to recognize the cognitive academic development in the English language for students who seemingly have already acquired a command of the language. We must recognize the differences in Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) to help students fill in the blanks for academic success. ELLs often take different paths to academic learning than their counterparts who've acquired English from childhood, and so we must be able to apply the teaching techniques that work best for ELLs.

In addition to the Global TESOL Program, Sarah provides information, resources, and teaching strategies for instructors of pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate-level English-language learners (ELLs). Such instructors are in the United States and throughout the world teaching ELLs at all levels and of all cultures and languages.

She has been developing and facilitating Global TESOL teacher training courses and programs at several Georgia colleges and universities for 17 years. Her areas of expertise includes applied linguistics, issues of culture and language, methodology for teaching English as a second language and/or as a foreign language, and teaching college preparatory and academic content courses. As a professional writer, she has considerable commercial, literary and academic publication credits, including Global TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language--An Orientation Guide.

Sarah currently directs the Global TESOL Certificate Program in online delivery at UGA. She also teaches English Composition and World Literature at DSC Gilmer Campus and Composition, Rhetoric and Research for the Criminal Justice Program at Reinhardt University.