As regular readers know, I’m developing a curriculum for a pilot class next year providing support to Long-Term English Language Learners (see Here’s My Tentative Plan For A Support Class For Long-Term English Language Learners – Tell Me How I Can Make It Better).

Pam Buric, my talented colleague, and I took a cursory look at language tests for a sampling of our school’s Long-Term ELLs this week.

We were surprised to find that the domain in which most were the weakest appeared to be “Listening.”  We would have thought it would be writing.

Admittedly, the sampling was small and not random – we look at the students in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes.  So we need to explore a broader representation to see if that finding is typical or a fluke.

But I would like to know if readers know of any specific research related to commonalities of LTELL weaknesses and/or your own anecdotal experiences.

I’m all ears!

You might also be interested in The Best Resources On Supporting Long-Term English Language Learners.