In the paper titled On Educating Culturally Sustaining Teachers, Paris (2016) suggests that “humanizing relationships of dignity and care are fundamental to student and teacher learning.” One important way teachers can humanize their students, and build relationships of dignity and care, is to implement culturally responsive practice in their classrooms that honor their students’ home languages and home cultures. “The goal…is to connect students’ lived experiences and backgrounds to the content, positively reflect students’ cultures within the curriculum, and expand their linguistic repertoire” (Hyung, 2020). This can help students feel more supported and validated, which can improve their academic outcomes. In the words of Gloria Ladson-Billings, “All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is: to which culture is it culturally oriented?” (as cited in Gibson, 2020). Effective language instructors will work to ensure their classroom is oriented at least in part to their students’ culture(s).

2. Uncover and seek to move past implicit bias

A teacher has a responsibility to educate each of their students in the best, most affirming way possible. A classroom full of language learners is, in all likelihood, a classroom in which multiple races, cultures, languages, and socioeconomic backgrounds are represented. Unfortunately, even taking steps to reflect their students’ cultures and backgrounds in the classroom and curriculum does not guarantee that a classroom will be an affirming space for all students; “You can have a multicultural curriculum and still not have an anti-racist classroom” (Michael, 2015, p. 2). Teachers must also do the work of examining and their own biases and unlearn or move beyond them.

3. Meet learners where they are in their language acquisition journey

A teacher may have students in any of the six stages of language acquisition, and should be prepared to support their growth and development no matter where they are in their language learning journey. Fortunately, there are instructional strategies a teacher can use to aid in receptive and expressive language development that are tailored to specific language levels. For example, a teacher might focus on developing receptive language with a student in the pre-production stage “by using read-alouds and music,” but in contrast, help a student in the early production stage begin to develop independence by “[modeling] a phrase and [having] the student repeat it and add modifications” (Robertson & Ford, n.d.)

4. Make standard content accessible with texts and resources tailored to language acquisition levels of students

This principle is borrowed from Li (2012). Although some mistakenly believe that individuals who are not yet fluent in a language have a reduced capacity to learn because of their perceived language deficits, with appropriate scaffolding and challenges, language learners are as capable of achieving academic success as any other students. Rather than altering the content standards for language learners, language instructors should instead make the existing standards more accessible while maintaining high expectations for their performance and growth.

5. Provide multiple ways for students to access new concepts

All students can benefit from instruction that incorporates multiple modalities, and none more so than language learners. This is especially true for students who may have background knowledge of a topic in their home language, and need access points to integrate the information into their target language. Regardless of whether a student has background knowledge in a topic, however, they will be well-served by having a number of ways to understand new topics, especially content topics, as they develop the language associated with the topic.

6. Integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in a balanced way

Li (2012) said it best: “Teachers should not focus only on one of the four language skills at the sacrifice of the others. Instead, they should integrate the four skills in their instruction and they should do so from the very start.” Successful language users have access to all four language skills, and so it behooves instructors to integrate each of these skills consistently and with equal weight. 

7. Provide many authentic contexts for practicing new language forms and vocabulary

If our goal is for individuals to be able to communicate effectively through speaking and writing, as well as understand communication they receive orally and in writing, we need our learners to be flexible in their language use. The best way to foster this flexibility and generalization of new language forms and vocabulary is for students to gain experience using them in multiple contexts that relate to real life. As Himmel (2012) says, “research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts.” This can improve student motivation as well as better prepare them to use their target language in authentic contexts, having practiced it in similar contexts.

8. Make metacognition visible and explicit

Having an understanding of metacognitive strategies, or strategies to help oneself learn, benefit all learners, and is absolutely essential for language learners. Teachers should model a variety of strategies, work with students to break them apart and name them, and provide opportunities for students to “select, evaluate, and adjust strategies” (Li, 2012). Teachers should not assume that students will pick these strategies up naturally, but teach them deliberately and explicitly.

9. Provide differentiated ways for students to demonstrate mastery of new concepts

This relates to Principle 3: “Meet learners where they are in their language acquisition journey.” It would not be fair to ask students at different levels of language development to produce the same work to demonstrate their growth and understanding. However, a skilled language instructor can focus on similar concepts while differentiating how students demonstrate their understanding. For example, a student in the Early Production stage could be asked yes/no questions, while a student in the Beginning Fluency stage can be asked questions that require a fuller response (Robertson & Ford, n.d.).

10. Clearly define content and language objectives, and offer time to reflect on growth and achievement

Finally, although this principle may be the first element visible in a lesson, is that of learning objectives. Ideally, teachers should provide distinct content and language objectives, and should “specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson” (Himmel, 2012) so that students know what is expected of them in each area and can measure their success.

TESOL Key Components

TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is a teacher preparation program that serves educators within the US as well as internationally. At its core, it is centered around a set of standards which serve to anchor the program. TESOL underwent a massive overhaul to its standards and program in response to two laws passed in 2001 and 2015; the No Child Left Behind Act and the Every Child Succeeds Act. As a result of this overhaul they have condensed their standards and increased their focus on teachers gaining a “deep understanding of their students’ background and personal characteristics, language learning processes, and academic skills and processes” (TESOL, 2019, p. 5). 

There are just five core standards to guide the TESOL framework. Standards 1 and 2 relate to understanding language and understanding one’s students. Standard 1, “Knowledge About Language,” specifies that candidates should have a deep understanding of the language structures and use of English, as well as an understanding of how individuals acquire new languages. They should be able to use this knowledge to track their students’ acquisition of English. On the other side of the coin, Standard 2, “ELLs in the Sociocultural Context,” explains that candidates should gain a deep understanding of their students, both as individuals, and within their familial cultural context. Candidates should then be able to use this information to improve their teaching methods for the individuals/groups they serve.

Standards 3 and 4 get into the meat of what we typically think of as the act of teaching. Standard 3, “Planning and Implementing Instruction,” describes the evidence-based practices candidates should use to formulate their instruction plan and make adjustments based on their students’ needs. Standard 4, “Assessment and Evaluation”, outlines the elements candidates should take into consideration when planning “formative, summative, and diagnostic assessments” (TESOL, 2019, p. 10). For example, candidates should be able to ensure their assessments are valid and reliable, and assess both language and content progress or achievement.

Standard 5, “Professionalism and Leadership,” discusses a variety of ways that candidates can demonstrate leadership within the field. This includes collaborating with other educators as well as serving as advocates for the families they serve. This standard also specifies that candidates should participate in ongoing professional development to continue to learn and grow.

How to Apply TESOL’s Framework in Lesson Planning and Instruction

In the overview of the standards, the organization describes some significant changes they have recently made to their standards, including in their method for teaching language and supporting language acquisition. The overview states that the updated standards “[reflect] the growing recognition in the field that language acquisition is not the result of adding together the structures and components of a given language, but instead a communicative and academic process arising from a multitude of interpersonal interactions.” 

This relates to what Krashen and Terrell repeatedly assert as they describe their version of the traditional method of acquiring language; “through communicative practice in real situations using the language for specific functions” (1998, p. 7). In my opinion, the most important piece of how to apply TESOL’s framework in lesson planning and instruction can be found not in Standard 3 (“Planning and Implementing Instruction”), but in Standard 5 (“Professionalism and Leadership”).

Within this standard, substandard 5.a describes that candidates will “demonstrate knowledge of effective collaboration strategies in order to plan ways to serve as a resource for ELL instruction, support educators and school staff, and advocate for ELLs” (TESOL, 2019, p. 11). This idea of language learning integrated with content development is peppered throughout the standards. In Standard 1, we can find, “Candidates apply knowledge of English academic language functions…and vocabulary to promote ELLs’ academic achievement across content areas” (TESOL, 2019, p. 6). Later, in Standard 3, we have, “Candidates…collaborate with other educators, school personnel, and families in order to support their ELLs’ learning of language and literacies across content areas” (TESOL, 2019, p. 9). Finally, in Standard 4 is the language, “Candidates demonstrate understanding of…assessments scaffolded for both English language and content assessment” (TESOL, 2019, p. 10). 

In other words, lesson planning and instruction for language acquisition, according to TESOL, must be done in an authentic way that works towards the goal of communication proficiency as well as supporting content learning across subjects. TESOL candidates must be prepared to bring language learning to life in order for it to have authentic meaning for their learners.

Where and How TESOL Addresses Socio-Cultural Competence

TESOL has clearly decided to prioritize socio-cultural competence, because they have an entire standard dedicated to it! The description for Standard 2 (“ELLs in the Sociocultural Context”) outlines a number of ways candidates should get to know their students and students’ families, cultural backgrounds, educational history, literacy practices, and so on. This piece of the standard suggests a similar position as the one Paris took when he described culturally sustaining pedagogy as “teaching and learning that seeks to perpetuate and foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism” (2016, p. 6).

Of equal importance, the standard also states that candidates will “identify and describe the impact of his/her identity, role, cultural understandings, and personal biases…on his/her interpretation of the educational strengths and needs of individual ELLs and ELLs in general” (TESOL, 2019, pg. 8). Recognizing one’s own bias is an integral step to dismantling systems of privilege and oppression, and also closely links with Arias and Medina’s assertion that socio-cultural competence requires seeing similarities and differences as “opportunities to connect rather than obstacles to overcome” (2020). Socio-cultural competence comes not from developing favorable feelings towards individuals whose backgrounds and cultures happen to be different than ours, but rather, deliberately seeking points of connection and celebrating areas of difference, all while honoring each person as an individual deserving of respect and care simply because they are a person in the world. TESOL makes this priority clear throughout the standards, and nowhere more so than in its second standard.