Reading impacts writing. The reading-writing connection is more important than many of us realize. The Mien and Chinese primarily use a logographic written language, based upon the Chinese characters. Some of my students can write some of the symbols; some can’t. Most can read some of the more common characters because their parents still use them. The Hmong developed an alphabetic system only in the last last fifty-five years. Many of my Hmong parents would be considered illiterate in English. Russians and Ukrainians use the Cyrillic alphabet. The symbols are significantly different than those of our alphabetic code. Students are particularly adept at code-switching between languages; however not everything regularly “translates.”

Oral language proficiency most significantly impacts expository writing ability. The language of the playground is conducive to the narrative form. Students are more likely to ask “What did you do at lunch, which requires a narrative response, rather than “Tell me two reasons why you like this school and explain,” which requires an expository (informational, here) response. Additionally, even though our school does mix friendships across ethnic lines more than some, the predominant groupings are by languages. A mix of English and primary languages constitutes “out of classroom” talk. Primary language is even more emphasized when “newcomers” or L1-L2 students are part of the groups. This fact is often ignored in language acquisition research, because even if students have demonstrated L5 or full English proficiency, they still “hang-out” with friends with less English proficiency.

Compounding the challenges or teaching students of mixed primary languages is the issue of dialect. My Spanish-speakers have significantly different dialects and idioms. Mexican, Colombian, and Cuban speakers share the mother tongue of Spanish, but their pronunciations and expressions are different. Add to this mix my African-American students with mixed dialects.

All of my developing writers bring different degrees of oral language proficiencies and dialectical influences that will impact their ability to appropriate English vocabulary, diction, grammar, syntax, and usage. For example, Asian students struggle with singulars and plurals and articles. African-Americans struggle with double negation and the misplaced “to-be” verbs. Spanish-speaking students struggle with adjective placement. Even punctuation differences affect writing abilities.

In the mixed salad bowls of our classrooms, each culture and language contribute a distinctive flavor to our learning environment. Teachers reading articles such as this one are taking important steps to meet the instructional challenges of this diversity. Being aware of how oral language proficiency impacts writing is the first step. Differentiating instruction, accordingly, is the next step.

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In fact, the analogy is quite appropriate for an ELA teacher who treats the writing challenges of English Learners (EL). For those of you who don’t watch the plethora of medical dramas on television, the ER doc is responsible for triage.

Triage (pronounced /ˈtriɑʒ/) is a process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate, sort, sift or select.^[1] There are two types of triage: simple and advanced.^[2] The outcome may result in determining the order and priority of emergency treatment, the order and priority of emergency transport, or the transport destination for the patient, based upon the special needs of the patient or the balancing of patient distribution in a mass-casualty setting (Wikipedia).

Now this is not to say that EL students are all incurably sick; many are gifted thinkers who already are successful students. However, glossing over the specific needs of developing EL writers and hoping that they will “catch up” in their writing when their oral language and reading abilities in English “catch up” is simply akin to medical malpractice.

Having diagnosed and treated a wide spectrum of EL writing over the years, my most useful two triage tips are 1) effective diagnosis and 2) prioritization of patient needs into two types of treatments: emergency and long-term care.

1) Diagnosis—In spite of my twenty-nine years in the classroom, I am a surprisingly inaccurate “gut-level” diagnostician. I make assumptions based upon prior experience and stereotypes, despite the fact that I know better. I’m human. However, I’ve learned to rely more and more on effective diagnostic assessments to take the “me” out of my diagnoses. A few, easy-to-use whole-class reading, spelling, and grammar diagnostic assessments inform me how to differentiate instruction for my EL students.

2) Treatment—In writing instruction, teachers of EL students face two key decisions:

• What must be treated now and what can wait.
• What is immediately and easily treatable and what will take time to treat.

In grading written work, in sharing during student-teacher writing conferences, and in planning differentiated direct instruction, an effective teacher has to have a workable “treatment plan” for teaching EL students to improve their writing. Following is my plan based upon the key two decisions shared above. To stay consistent with our analogy, I will classify the two treatment options as emergency treatment and long-term care. I list specific symptoms, i.e. examples of student writing problems, but in no particular order.

Emergency Treatment—Symptoms

Pronoun Case—Him gave she her sandwich.

Relative Clauses—The girl which I know is pretty.

Demonstrative Pronouns—This desk over there is my favorite.

Pronoun References—They keep them pencil for himself.

Verb Tense Consistency—I go to school and will study very hard.

Simple Verb Forms—I done know that already.

Subject-Verb Agreement—The students speaks English.

Common Irregular Verb Forms—I buyed him a candy bar.

Articles—He has basketball to shoot to practice for a games.

Adjective Placement—She is a teacher very smart.

Negation—I don’t need no help.

Simple coordinating conjunctions (BOAS) but, or, and, so—If she won’t, but I’ll quit.

Common subordinating conjunctions—Because I don’t know English, I don’t write.

Plural and Singular Nouns—I did my writings in pens.

Predictable Sound-Spellings—Wen he understands me I kin hep him wit his hoamwurk.

Fragments—After I go to the movies.

Long Term Care—Symptoms

Idioms (especially in prepositions)—I look in the table for the book.

Figures of Speech—She gave her effort her best.

Word Order—I can hear what is the girl singing.

Denotative Vocabulary—I took the metro from here to my aunt’s house in Canada.

Connotative Vocabulary—She runs very slowly.

Inflections—To gain the confident, I try to speak loft of English.

Verb Phrases—I miss to study for my test.

Sophisticated Verb Forms—(Progressive) She will be presented her project tomorrow. (Perfect) I will have gave him two dollars at lunch.

Uncommon Irregular Verb Forms—I lended her my notebook.

Correlative Conjunctions—Either you study, so you don’t; both I don’t care.

Sentence Variety—Subject-Verb-Complement in every sentence.

Run-ons—She opened the door she helped him sit down after lunch.

Subjunctive—If I was richer, I would give you presents.

Irregular Spellings—That was wierd.

Why not make sense of EL writing instruction with a curriculum that will help you efficiently integrate grammar, usage, diction, and syntax into writing instruction? Throw away your ineffective D.O.L. openers and last-minute grammar test-prep practice, and teach all the grammar, mechanics, and spelling that most students need in 75 minutes per week. Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, provides a coherent scope and sequence of 64 no-prep Sentence Lifting lessons with Teacher Tips and Hints for the grammatically-challenged. The mechanics and grammar skills complement those found in the 72 TGM Worksheets and target the diagnostic needs indicated by the multiple-choice TGM Grammar and Mechanics Diagnostic Assessments.