John

In recent years, teaching of ELL and L2 students has shied away from an instructor-centric experience, focusing instead on student-first education. Learning strategies have been expanded to ease students into the process of learning a language with as many resources available as possible. Even such simple strategies as prompting the student for clarification, encouraging work with groups of peers, and educating students about foreign cultures. The role of technology in the ELL classroom is even now just burgeoning into a reliable staple of instruction, and the tools and resources that computer programs and websites that benefit students who are learning a new language are innumerable. Though there are a few factors that keep the use of computer-mediated language learning at its beginning stages in schools, including a lack of teacher and student familiarity, financial obstacles, and hardware availability, schools that are most praised for successful ELL programs have maintained a helpful outreach and a proactive attitude towards supplying students with the resources they need.

Providing ELL students with a strong learning base extends beyond technology in the classroom, however, as is evidenced in this article from //Educational Leadership,// which praises successful ELL instructors for their experience and strong support of language students, and the extent to which successful schools provided resources for their ELL and L2 programs:

a bunch of numbers: 1979-2008 students age 5-17 who speak a language other than English at home rises from 9 to 21 percent. 1 in 10 of all students enrolled in public school in the US are English Language Learners

a cool interactive map, courtesy of the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/13/us/ELL-students.html