Writing Between Languages: How English Language Learners Make the Transition to Fluency, Grades 4-12

by Danling Fu

"Most literacy instruction for ELLs in the United States focuses on grammar, vocabulary, content reading, or speaking and listening. The focus on the surface structure of English may lead to enough English proficiency to compose proper English sentences in correctly formatted papers, but it does not support ELLs as competent writers and thinkers."
Danling Fu With Writing Between Languages, Danling Fu provides an effective alternative. She proves that by beginning with the literacy knowledge students bring from their native language and putting writing at the center of the curriculum, we can help them make a smoother transition to English while we support their academic literacy. With Writing Between Languages, you'll learn to "ELLs should develop their writing ability as well as language skills through writing practice from the beginning," writes Danling Fu. Read Writing Between Languages , use its study guide with your colleagues, and discover how "writing instruction for ELLs that goes beyond language practice, can help them achieve real expression and communication"-skills they'll use in the classroom and in life. "I believe that we are at the beginning stages of a radical shift in pedagogical assumptions regarding effective instruction for ELL students. Writing Between Languages makes a highly significant contribution to our understanding of what teaching for transfer entails and what it can achieve in the area of ELL students' writing development."
Jim Cummins
University of Toronto

Genres: Education

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2009

Reviews

[Maridel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Danling Fu’s book Writing Between Languages; How English Language Learners Make the Transition to Fluency provides an alternative way to teach ELL students more effectively so they can be competent in the English language. Throughout her book, she proves that students can make a smoother transition to English if they are given the opportunity to bring their literacy knowledge from their native language and allowed to write in both languages as well. Dr. Fu provides us with students’ work examples to illustrate the power of students’ writing when they are supported in using their first language while developing expertise in English.
Dr. Fu provides her readers with really great strategies for helping ELL students’ progress as writers of their second language. I particularly like the idea of allowing the students to write in their native language in the beginning. By having students express their feelings in their native language, you learn a lot more about your students and their abilities. Also, Dr. Fu introduces the idea of code-switching and explains to us the benefits of it. Students use code-switching to communicate through words and fully empress themselves. It is important to encourage code switching in the beginning because when ELLs are forced to use only the limited English proficiency they have, the writing can be pedestrian and flat, but if allowed to use their own language to express themselves, they can write vivid pieces.
While I was required to read this book for one of my undergraduate education class, I did not expect to learn this much from it or even enjoy it; however I was shock on how relatable some of the author’s points were. As someone who was an ELL student in grade school, I can truly relate to the students that were presented in the book. I think it would have been easier for me to learn the language if I was not forced to write strictly in English. It was sort of discouraging when I see my peers expressing their thoughts and I could not fully do it. The strategies that Dr. Fu mentioned seem to be very beneficial in the classroom. All of the strategies that are presented in this book can be applied equally in the ELL classroom and their general classroom regardless of the student’s native language. I would highly recommend this book to educators because we will all be dealing with students who do not have much English background. We may encounter a student who struggles with English overall because they have not been exposed to the language in their life. Therefore, we should be able to provide the support and resources that the student needs to be able to learn the language effectively. I will definitely keep this book on my shelf because I know that I could use all of the good strategies with ELL students as well as my other students.

[Meg Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book. For me, it synthesized things I had been noticing and thinking. Writing is a social justice issue and this book honors that fact as well as honoring multilingual learners.
Highly recommended.

[Eliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for teaching writing to our future multilingual students. Danling Fu breaks it down for you and helps you understand how to practically implement it into your classroom!

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

The secondary text for my RDG 3320 class...it's a small text, and it can be a tad repetitive, but Dr. Fu has some great strategies for helping ELL students progress as writers of their adoptive second language. I particularly like that the strategies are geared to work across a variety of first languages. Teaching in , I find that a lot of non-educators, and even a fair number in the profession, tend to assume that ESL is synonymous with Spanish speaking students, and while that is certainly true in a great many Texas schools, there are other communities represented, particularly from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in the urban centers like Dallas and Houston. Dr. Fu's strategies can be applied equally well in the ELL classroom regardless of the student's native language, so I find it a much more useful text to teach Education majors who are just as likely to have Korean students in North Dallas as Latinos in the valley.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the ideas the author proposes, but I felt that the same ideas were repeated. An article might have been more effective. The book has lots of student examples, which is effective, but still, I kept finding myself finding a key sentence and then going back and finding it again and again. Still, looking at ELL development from this perspective is an innovative idea.

[Erica Jennings]

This book gives a lot of helpful advice for teaching ELL students, from an ELL perspective. It's definitely helpful to get a different point of view to see that there are so many methods to teaching, and not one will work for every ELL student, so she provides tons of options to help students improve as writers both in English and their native languages.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will keep this book on my shelf because I can't possibly remember all of the good strategies to use with ELL's AND my other students, too.