ESL study set one from REA

The best rationale for integrating culturally relevant literature into ELL curricula is that A. students are better able to connect meaningfully with stories and characters that reflect their culture and/or native country environment. B. books categorized as "multicultural or culturally relevant" literature are easier than canonical literature. C. culturally relevant literature is written in the students' home language. D. the only type of literature that ELL students can understand is literature written in language or dialogue that reflects their L1.

(A). A foundational argument for the importance of literature in public school curricula is that literature enables us to understand ourselves better. Thus, a core argument for culturally relevant literature is that self-understanding will be facilitated by literature in which students see reflections of themselves. The same argument is used in defending the integration of young adult literature into ELA curriculum.

Ms. Pierce discovers that some of her students are frustrated because they can't figure out the "right answers." Which of the following modifications should she make to support students' efforts to complete this activity effectively? A. She provides a list of possible choices for each blank, including some alternatives that are inappropriate for the context of the blank. B. She asks for volunteers to read the passage aloud in front of the class, saying "blank" every time they come to a blank. C. She tells students who are frustrated to look up words they don't know in the passage. D. She provides picture books and elementary-level storybooks on the general topic of the passage and tells students to read several of these books if they don't understand how to fill in the blanks.

(A). An unfortunate side effect of some Cloze exams is frustration. Providing a list of possibilities for each blank (with appropriate distractors) is a common strategy for making the activity more accessible to students. Having the students choose from the list will make the activity less challenging, but the instructional goal of developing syntactic and semantic proficiency will still be met.

A high school teacher presents a unit on the 1960s civil rights movement in a sheltered social studies class. The lesson includes film clips, news stories, magazine pictures published in the 1960s, excerpts from speeches from key civil rights leaders, as well as textbook chapters. Additionally, the teacher creates a Civil Rights Around the World bulletin board and adds a first entry on Nelson Mandela. She tells students that each group needs to contribute a picture and small explanation of civil rights activists from other countries or cultures to add to the bulletin board. She integrates computer-assisted instruction and tells students they may do their computer work in their L1 if they choose. Which of the following explanations best addresses the connection between this instructional strategy and ESL student learning? A. The integration of technology with the option to use Internet resources in their L1 will promote students' content-area knowledge and language acquisition. B. By integrating materials other than the traditional textbook, the teacher demonstrates how history books present limited views of historical events. C. The students will be able to create multimedia products to connect knowledge of this important period in American history to historical events in their home countries. D. By integrating electronic resources, the teacher creates a class environment that reduces the effort that learners need to expend and reduces anxiety over required class work.

(A). Because this is a sheltered class, the teacher has an opportunity to use L1 scaffolding to promote students' linguistic as well as academic proficiency.

A middle school teacher wants to promote his ESL students' understanding of social studies content-area vocabulary. His students frequently tell him that they think looking up every word they don't know is boring. In order to meet this instructional goal, the teacher A. identifies a focal concept in the next reading assignment and models how to create a semantic map. B. reads part of the next chapter aloud while students read along silently. Every time he comes to a word he thinks that students don't know, he writes it on the board and defines it. C. has a student volunteer read aloud the chapter title and all the subheadings. Then he asks for another volunteer to predict what topics the chapter might cover. D. shows a short video on the key concepts covered in the chapter prior to reading the next chapter.

(A). By modeling how to create a semantic map, the teacher is providing students with an important content-area learning strategy.

Ms. Pierce teaches a sheltered class of fifth-grade intermediate ESL students. During their language enrichment period, she hands out the following exercise. Her students are clustered into base groups, but she instructs them to work independently for five minutes and then network with their group members to complete the exercise. What is the label generally given to this type of exercise? A. Cloze exam B. Daily oral language C. Sustained silent reading D. Read-aloud

(A). Cloze exams are created from passages in which words are omitted. Usually, the omission formula deletes every fifth or seventh word. However, in this Cloze-type passage, the omitted words have been deliberately picked to make the exercise more accessible to ESL students whose syntactic proficiency in English is still developing. Cloze exams are intended for practice in syntactic and semantic competence. They are not used exclusively in ESL pedagogy, but they adapt very effectively to ESL teaching situations.

Research findings suggest that a key challenge in two-way dual-immersion programs is ensuring that both native speakers and nonnative speakers are receiving comprehensible input during the dual-language lessons. In a two-way dual-immersion setting, the strategy that would best enable a teacher to create comprehensible input for all the learners is A. paraphrasing and repetition to provide redundancy in listening and speaking situations and integrating objects, visuals, dramatizations, and modeling to introduce new concepts. B. setting up class rules that require learners to listen quietly so that they miss no information presented by the teacher. C. providing all instructions and lessons in both L1 and L2. D. separating learners into L1 and L2 groups, providing instruction in the learners' native language, and reconvening to have members of each group share their new knowledge.

(A). Creating comprehensible input is particularly important in two-way dual-immersion programs where two sets of students are learning two different L2's. These strategies are widely suggested as effective means of making sure all learners understand classroom transactions and new content.

Ms. Sahid teaches at a high school that includes The Great Gatsby as mandatory reading for all students in eleventh-grade curriculum. Her classes include many intermediate-level ESL students. To help her students appreciate the literary language in The Great Gatsby, Ms. Sahid arranges her class into groups and assigns each group an especially vivid passage from the novel. To promote students' understanding of literary language, she asks each group to dramatize the passage they've been given. The instructional strategy that would be most effective in helping students complete this activity meaningfully and effectively is for the teacher to A. model the activity by acting out a passage and explain how her actions, movements, and gestures reflect the language of the text. B. ask students to underline and label the literary devices they recognize in their passages. C. join each group and ask group members to read the passage aloud and then correct all mispronunciations and incorrect intonations. D. ask each group to explain why the passage is important to the reader's understanding of the scene.

(A). Even native speakers find making sense of a literary text a challenging academic activity. By focusing on selected passages from the novel, the teacher would create an opportunity for students to explore the nuances of literary language. Modeling the activity would enable the teacher to connect the author's language to reader perception. The teacher would be focusing on metacognitive strategies necessary for reading a literary text.

An elementary school with a large number of students identified as ELL is aiming for 100 percent parental approval for placing students in the district's ESL program. Which of the following strategies would best address the school's goal to facilitate family involvement in ELL students' educational experiences? A. Inviting families to a meeting where several teachers do a class demonstration showing how ESL methods are integrated into daily instruction B. Meeting with each family individually to explain the benefits of ESL education C. Sending a letter to the impacted families explaining the ESL program guidelines stipulated by the Texas Education Code and the No Child Left Behind Act D. Inviting parents to a special parent-teacher organization meeting where a question-and-answer session on ESL is the only item on the agenda

(A). If parents are unsure about how ESL instruction will benefit their children, a demonstration should ease their concerns much more effectively than the required consent letter. The Texas Education Agency does not explain why some parents do not provide written approval. This scenario speculates that the reluctance might stem from not knowing how ESL education operates on a day-to-day basis.

Janie is a middle school student whose family recently emigrated from Mexico. On the first day of class, she told her teacher that she had to drop out of school in her native country a year ago. In the interval, she has had no tutoring or formal schooling. She has the following conversation with her English teacher regarding a missed homework assignment. Janie: Is because I lose...uhmmmm...USB [pronounced "uəsbi"]. Is no finish. Uhmmmmm...the homework. Teacher: You were unable to complete your assignment, Janie? [speaking slowly and clearly enunciating] Janie: Yes. No do it. Teacher: Do you think you could complete your homework during your study period? [speaking slowly and clearly enunciating] Janie: Uhmmmmm...Estudy time. Yes. Finish. Teacher: That's great, Janie. I hope to get your completed assignment later today. Janie: Is good. The L2 acquisition strategy that Janie's pronunciation of USB as "uəsbi" is indicative of A. transfer. B. incorrect translation. C. risk-taking. D. inactive filter.

(A). Janie's pronunciation of USB demonstrates negative transfer from Spanish phonology. She approximates the initial u sound using her phonological knowledge from L1, pronouncing it /u/ (ŭ), in contrast to the English /ju/ (ū).

Ms. Cisneros, an elementary teacher, has a class of beginning and intermediate ELL students. When she assigns an essay, the students tell her that they don't know how to write an essay. Which of the following strategies would be most effective in developing students' understanding of grade-appropriate writing requirements? A. Using the topic that she has assigned to the students, the teacher models the entire writing process, from prewriting through editing. B. The teacher hands out sample essays and asks for student volunteers to read them aloud. C. The teacher creates new, easier topics and tells students that the essays need to be only one paragraph long. D. The teacher arranges students into groups and assigns a different essay topic to each group. The students in each group collaborate to create a group essay. The groups post their essays and vote on which is the best one.

(A). Modeling is considered one of the best methods for teaching writing.

A high school advanced ESL student included the following in her essay: This passage suggests that the student writer has difficulty with A. completing main clause subject-verb combinations in complex sentences. B. using the apostrophe correctly. C. writing effective subordinate clauses. D. maintaining a consistent point of view.

(A). None of the sentences has an independent subject-verb clause.

A high school teacher wants her intermediate and advanced students to write sentences of increasing syntactic complexity. Which of the following instructional strategies would most effectively promote students' ability to construct sentences using subordinate and coordinate clauses in a variety of patterns? A. Sentence-combining exercises B. Grammar drills in which students correctly identify written compound and compound-complex sentences C. Daily oral language sentences that include errors in subordination and coordination D. Memorizing lists of subordinate and coordinate conjunctions

(A). Sentence-combining exercises are among the best strategies for promoting learners' syntactic maturity. Teachers can create their own sentence-combining exercises tailored to individual learner needs in their classes, or they can use commercially produced exercises from sentence-combining workbooks.

A high school teacher is preparing her sheltered class for the mandated state assessment in writing. She displays the following paragraph on the overhead: The teacher tells the students that each sentence has one error in grammar or language use. They have five minutes to find and correct the errors in the sentences. This activity allows the teacher to assess students' proficiency informally in A. editing. B. revision. C. writing on demand. D. comprehension.

(A). The errors in this passage are all surface-level errors that should be identified and corrected during careful editing. They are also obvious enough to allow learners to feel successful about finding the errors.

As a culminating activity for this unit, Ms. Newbery asks students to interview one family member about a favorite or special plant. The students are to create a construction-paper poster with a drawing of the plant and a short written account of the interview. Ms. Newbery displays the posters on the wall outside the classroom. How does this instructional activity promote the ELL students' content-area learning? A. Students will use cultural and language background to support new content-area learning. B. Students will integrate new science vocabulary into their written accounts of the interview with a family member. C. Including a drawing of the family member's favorite plant will allow the teacher to test the students' understanding of basic unit information. D. After reading all the interviews, the teacher will be able to determine if reteaching is necessary in this unit.

(A). The interviews and the short oral reports are designed to integrate the students' home life and cultural background into this content area unit.

A high school with a 75 percent ELL student enrollment has an ESL program in place that meets the following criteria: • It promotes language proficiency by addressing the needs learners with a of a diverse range of language competencies. • It enhances students' competence in content areas through classroom experiences that reflect the learner's development while fostering readiness for higher levels of learning. • It provides instruction through certified ESL instructors who promote learners' L2 competence and uses L2 as a medium for learning in academic subjects. Which of the following ESL program models do these criteria describe? A. Content-based program B. Immersion program C. Pull-out program D. Grammar-based ESL and content-area enrichment

(A). The program described in the item stem meets the core features of a content-based ESL program as described in the Texas Administrative Code.

A third-grade ESL teacher creates a Home Words Homework Page. The teacher tells the students to ask their parents or siblings to help them write down 10 words describing their home or objects in their home. The teacher tells the students to put the words in two columns: one column for the English word and one column for the Spanish translation. This assignment best addresses which of the following ESL instructional strategies? A. The teacher is creating an opportunity for family involvement in the ESL students' education B. By having the students ask for help, the teacher is integrating a homework completion check into the assignment C. The teacher knows that students don't like to do homework, so the assignment is designed to be easy and student-friendly D. By having students write the words in English and in Spanish, the teacher is embedding vocabulary and spelling into this assignment

(A). The teacher has created an assignment designed to elicit family participation. The targeted students are young and likely to need help completing the assignment. Even if parents cannot help for various reasons, the children could ask an older sibling for help.

Ms. Oliver has an elementary class of beginning ESL students. During reading time, she integrates nonfiction picture books that focus on science, history, and social studies topics. She reads a book to her students orally and then rereads it several times. After several rereadings, she stops at key points in the book and asks students to fill in what comes next. Which of the following statements best explains how this teaching strategy reinforces students' content-area learning? A. The repeated readings and student participation reinforces' students familiarity with discipline-specific terms and concepts. B. The oral reading reinforces students' phonological awareness. C. Reading picture books instead of the actual textbooks simplifies the content area material for learners who are not yet ready for challenging content. D. Working with picture books allows students to learn to spell high-frequency words in a meaningful communicative context.

(A). The teacher is reinforcing content- area knowledge during oral-reading time. Rereading the books familiarizes the young learners with content-area concepts and vocabulary, but it also causes the listeners to "memorize" the text, which is a good language-learning strategy for beginning ESL students. Filling in words and sentences in a familiar text is also an effective language-learning strategy for this ESL level.

A ninth-grade speech communication class is evenly divided among ELL students and native speakers. The teacher has assigned an informal speech. As part of the preparation for this assignment, she shows several movie clips with the sound turned off. The rational that best explains how this activity will promote student achievement in this informal speech assignment is that A. watching film segments with the sound off will provide an opportunity to analyze how nonverbal cues, body language, and gestures contribute to communication. B. watching a film prior to a challenging assignment reduces anxiety and helps students perform at a higher level. C. watching film clips with the sound off and then rewatching with the sound on will enable students to recognize how important good elocution is in being understood by an audience. D. watching film clips will show students how important staging is in delivering a good speech performance

(A). This "silent-viewing" activity is a common strategy for helping students understand how nonverbal cues contribute to communication. In an ELL context, this is an excellent strategy for helping students recognize the meaning provided by nonverbals in L2.

A high school biology teacher is starting a unit that addresses state assessment standards on knowledge of interactions among biological systems in plants. Which of the following instructional activities would most effectively promote his ELL students' achievement in this area? A. The teacher assigns a group project. Each group identifies a specific plant and uses visuals and props to demonstrate interaction of its biological systems. B. The teacher has students fill out a questionnaire about their prior knowledge on plants' biological systems. C. The teacher takes his students on a walk around the campus to point out different types of plants growing on the school grounds. D. The teacher shows students the state assessment standards in biology and explains the concepts and defines all the content-specific terms in each standard.

(A). This response calls for a great deal of learner participation in a collaborative project that will take individual interests and abilities into account as well as provide hands-on learning.

A semantic map is considered a good strategy for promoting ESL students' content-area learning because it A. allows students to skim through a new text to identify keywords that will be important in understanding the content. B. provides a graphic structure for anticipating and organizing a core concept and associated subpoints. C. presents all the new vocabulary students will encounter in a content-area lesson. D. provides a graphic organizer for representing text structures.

(B). A semantic map is considered a robust strategy for preparing learners for new content. By focusing on a core content term and considering related concepts, learners are primed for processing new knowledge.

ELL students in a middle school English class do quite well on weekly vocabulary tests where they correctly match words and meanings. Which of the following instructional strategies should the teacher use to encourage students to actually use new vocabulary words in oral and written language? A. Students write paragraphs integrating the vocabulary words for that week. B. Working in groups, students pick one word from the week's vocabulary list and create a semantic web poster defining the word in their own words (instead of a dictionary definition) and providing synonyms for their word. C. Working in groups, students pick one word from the week's list and do a scavenger hunt to find examples of the word being used in books and the media. D. Students cut pictures out of magazines and create a collage featuring the meanings of words on the weekly vocabulary list.

(B). Before ELL students can make new words part of their lexicon, they need to understand the meaning and appropriate semantic range of the word.

To promote her fifth-grade ESL students' academic language proficiency, a science teacher takes her students to the school library once a week and has the students check out books on topics related to the unit they are currently studying. The teacher notices that students talk constantly in the library, showing each other their books, and reading each other's books. She recognizes this as an opportunity to promote her students' communicative language development. Which of the following instructional activities best addresses the teacher's intent? A. Assigning students book reports on the books they pick and posting the reports on the class writing wall B. Having each student do a book talk on his or her book C. Having each student post the title of her or his book on the class notes wall. D. Having a question-and-answer session where the teacher asks each student one question about the book he or she checked out

(B). Book talks are a recommended strategy for promoting ELL students' oral-language proficiency. This scenario additionally demonstrates the use of a book talk in a content-area lesson.

A middle school teacher shows her ESL class film clips of people from different countries and cultures greeting each other. This instructional strategy primarily focuses on A. showing students that shaking hands is not a universal greeting. B. developing students' awareness of cultural diversity. C. emphasizing the need to watch videos set in other countries. D. reinforcing students' understanding of body language in communicating.

(B). Cultural insularity leads students to assume that body language and gestures have universal meaning. This film-viewing activity is designed to extend students' understanding of the importance of nonverbals in conveying meaning in all cultures.

A writing teacher has shown intermediate-level ESL students how to brainstorm, how to do webs, and how to pose questions about the topic. An additional strategy that would help students during the planning stage of writing would be to A. create an outline. B. draw a simple illustration. C. write the essay in Spanish and then translate it into English. D. write a thesis statement.

(B). Illustration is an invention strategy commonly used with very young writers. In suggesting that ELL students draw an illustration as an idea-generation strategy, the teacher would be taking into account the learner's prior literacy experiences.

Ms. Sahid teaches at a high school that includes The Great Gatsby as mandatory reading for all students in eleventh-grade curriculum. Her classes include many intermediate-level ESL students. Which of the following accommodations might best help Ms. Sahid's ESL students understand the novel? A. Showing a film version of the novel before reading it B. Integrating historical photographs, period music, art, and brief historical overviews to contextualize the themes and events in the novel C. Handing out a chapter-by-chapter summary of the novel D. Listening to a professional recording of the novel as students follow along in their books

(B). Intermediate ESL students would need extensive instructional scaffolding to read a challenging literary text. Reading a literary text calls for specialized knowledge, so the teacher would have to focus on accommodations designed to develop students' appreciation of literature. The reinforcement provided by art, music, history, and photographs would contextualize the literary text and create an environment for receiving comprehensible input.

Which of the following best describes the individual teacher's role in the responsibilities of the LPAC as described in the Texas Education Code and the Texas Administrative Code? A. To inform parents of each students' progress in language acquisition and core course performance at the end of each semester B. To provide a subjective teacher evaluation when the committee considers whether a student is English proficient for exit from the ESL program C. To work closely with the LPAC to determine ELL students placement options at the end of each academic year D. To complete and submit yearly reports on ELL students' academic progress as measured by the TEA Class Performance Matrix

(B). One of the criteria for exiting an ESL program is the teacher's subjective evaluation.

A middle-school teacher shows her ESL class the "line game" clip from the film Freedom Writers. In the film, teacher Erin Gruwell lays down a strip of masking tape on the classroom floor, tells her students (who come from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds) to step up to it, and then asks them a series of questions based on their cultural and family backgrounds. She starts with questions about films they've watched, progressing to questions about friends and family killed through neighborhood violence. They are to step away from the line if they can respond positively to the questions. At the end of the game, only a few students are still standing at the line, and students are looking at each other with apparent new understanding about shared experiences. How does this class activity address the primary components of effective ESL instruction? A. It demonstrates that film offers a highly effective means of presenting meaningful classroom lessons for ESL students. B. It creates a venue for discussion of how sociocultural factors and home environment impact ESL students' classroom experiences. C. It enables the teacher to enrich ESL students' learning experiences by integrating kinesthetic learning into traditional delivery methods. D. It allows ESL students to contrast real-world events with cinematic representations of those events.

(B). Showing this film clip offers a platform for discussing the importance of recognizing and respecting sociocultural differences.

A teacher new to the ESL program in her district wants to learn the state-mandated responsibilities for teachers in required bilingual and ESL programs. Which of the following offers the most thorough resources for ELL teaching in Texas? A. The Language Proficiency Assessment Committee Framework Manual B. The Texas Education Agency's English Language Learner Web Portal C. The Texas Education Code D. The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

(B). TEA's ELL Web portal, accessible through the TEA home page, assembles a wide variety of state documents, professional resources, and teaching materials.

Which of the following programs provides federally mandated accountability data on the progress of ELL students in Texas in meeting language proficiency goals? A. The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) B. Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) C. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) D. English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS)

(B). TELPAS includes criteria for rating students' yearly language proficiency as beginning, intermediate, advanced, or advanced high.

Ms. Pierce teaches a sheltered class of fifth-grade intermediate ESL students. During their language enrichment period, she hands out the following exercise. Her students are clustered into base groups, but she instructs them to work independently for five minutes and then network with their group members to complete the exercise. This type of class activity is primarily intended to promote proficiency in A. metacognition. B. syntax and semantics. C. comprehension. D. vocabulary.

(B). The blanks in Cloze exams give students an opportunity to determine what word is an appropriate syntactic and semantic fit within the context of the passage.

A high school history teacher wants his ESL class to develop a deeper understand of historical events. He develops the following list of essential questions: • Who are the pivotal participants? • How does each participant impact the outcome? • Why is this event important? • Could the participants have taken any other course of action? Following each unit, students discuss the questions in groups and make brief oral reports on their findings. This instructional strategy promotes students' content-area proficiency by A. integrating several levels of Bloom's taxonomy. B. engaging students in critical thinking through activities that foster communicative competence. C. impressing upon students the need to memorize the names of key historical figures. D. encouraging students to create a historical timeline that helps them remember when pivotal events happened.

(B). The essential questions and oral presentations promote critical thinking in the context of communicative competence.

A high school teacher presents a unit on the 1960s civil rights movement in a sheltered social studies class. The lesson includes film clips, news stories, magazine pictures published in the 1960s, excerpts from speeches from key civil rights leaders, as well as textbook chapters. As a culminating activity, the teacher organizes the class into a large circle for a round-robin discussion. Each student completes the sentence: "I admire _____ (the person the student chose) because _______." Then, the teacher has each student write a letter to the historical figure they mentioned. Which of the following ESL instructional strategies does this activity best reflect? A. The teacher creates an assignment that ESL students can complete effortlessly. B. The teacher creates a learning environment in which students find meaningful connections to content-area knowledge presented in a multicultural setting. C. The teacher creates an assignment that allows for authentic assessment in contrast to the traditional end-of-unit test. D. The teacher makes an assignment that will encourage students to do additional research in order to complete the letter satisfactorily.

(B). The letter-writing assignment is designed to elicit introspection, analysis, and synthesis, which will enable students to discover meaningful connections to content-area knowledge. The scenario suggests that the teacher wants students to understand the multicultural dimensions of civil rights.

Ms. Contreras is reading a set of student drafts. The following sentence is in Remi's draft: "I knew that if I just had too more minutes, I could of finished." Remi's sentence demonstrates difficulty in A. using past tense correctly. B. distinguishing between the oral and written forms of homonyms. C. using modals correctly. D. spelling.

(B). The student writer confused the forms of two sets of homonyms: to/two/too and have/of. "Could of" is not a verb form error. It indicates interference between oral and written forms.

An elementary teacher has a class of beginning ESL students. During oral reading times, the teacher notices that the students are using many L1 phonemes in pronouncing L2 words. The most effective strategy in helping students use their L1 phonological knowledge in producing L2 strings would be for the teacher to A. correct the students each time they mispronounce a word during oral reading. B. have students read along silently as she plays an audio recording of a short book they are familiar with. She plays the recording once more, with the students reading along chorally. C. make a list of all the words the students mispronounced during reading time and give them a spelling test on this list. D. write simple sentences using words with the L2 phonemes that the students are having trouble with and have the students copy the sentences into their notebooks.

(B). The teacher needs to promote students' ability to hear the phonemes in L2 contexts. Thus, the audio exercise followed by choral reading of a familiar text would help students boost awareness of target language phonology.

This sentence below appears in an essay written by a high advanced ELL student in high school: "Some of the valuable lessons that teachers teach us include self-determination, the necessity of education, and the belief that anything is possible if you have the desire to accomplish goals." Which of the following descriptions accurately explains the syntactic structure of this sentence? A. The writer has written a run-on sentence, suggesting a lack of understanding of sentence boundaries. B. The sentence is a compound-complex sentence that includes several embedded clauses and items in a series. C. The sentence demonstrates some redundancy that should have been corrected during revision. D. The sentence includes several subordinate clauses that are incorrectly punctuated.

(B). This is an error-free sentence the complexity of which is explained by response

Research on ESL instruction shows that use of multiple scaffolds promotes young learners' social adjustment and academic learning. Which of the following descriptions provides the best examples of learning scaffolds? A. The teacher reinforces daily instruction with a quiz at the end of the school day. Students score each other's quizzes and ask questions about the right and wrong responses. B. The teacher uses props and pictures to support new learning in all subjects, makes extensive use of print throughout the room, and structures lessons to integrate cooperative learning. C. The teacher uses short, animated videos to introduce every lesson in content areas and asks students to summarize their understanding of each video. D. The teacher uses instructional materials that offer L1 and L2 versions of every lesson to create a learning environment that addresses the affective needs of all the students.

(B). This response offers a concise summary of classroom accommodations designed to promote students' learning in ESL programs. Scaffolding generally refers to instructional activities that offer guidance while learners acquire new knowledge and which are intended to lead the learner toward independence.

Each Monday, a third-grade teacher introduces new content vocabulary to her beginning ESL students. To reinforce their initial understanding of the new words, she posts labeled pictures of the words. She wants to promote their listening and speaking proficiency in the context of content instruction. Which of the following instructional activities most effectively addresses the teacher's goal? A. The teacher puts up the lists of new content words, pronounces each one, and then calls on student volunteers to pronounce them, too. B. Working in groups, students pick one of the new words to explore by looking in their books, using the dictionary, and using other class resources. Each group does a short presentation to introduce the class to the new word. C. The teacher gives students two days to learn the words. They spend a few minutes each day pronouncing the words out loud in unison. On the third day, they have a spelling test on all the new words. D. The teacher shows an animated video in which animal characters introduce the new words on the list. After the video, the teacher gives students a short test to determine which words they seemed to understand best.

(B). This response shows attention to the teacher's goal to reinforce content-area learning through oral-language proficiency. Working in groups will promote listening and speaking proficiency. The presentations create a learner-centered context for further promoting listening and speaking skills.

A middle school teacher is finishing up a unit on a young adult novel in her ELL class. She plans a culminating activity focused on developing oral-language proficiency in the context of discussing the complexities of the novel. Which of the following assignments would best address her goal? A. Working in groups, students create a poster with illustrations of key events in the novel. B. Each student picks his or her favorite passage from the book and reads it aloud, explaining why the passage is important to the story. C. Working in groups, students create and present a five-minute play focusing on key passages from the book, showing how the central conflict develops. D. Working independently, each student writes and then presents a three-minute speech that explains the ending of the novel.

(C). A five-minute play allows for complex integration of the four language domains within the context of content-area knowledge. Additionally, this collaborative assignment calls for critical thinking skills (analysis and argument).

A teacher in a newcomer program has a "Parents Are Stars" segment every Friday. The teacher invites parents to offer demonstrations and instruction in L1 culture-specific topics, which the teacher translates into L2. Which of the following ESL teaching recommendations does this strategy primarily address? A. The teacher is demonstrating that learning takes place at home as well as at school. B. The teacher is providing downtime to keep students from being overwhelmed by the linguistic and academic content of the ESL program. C. The teacher is fostering meaningful parent participation in their children's school activities. D. The teacher is partnering with parents in order to fulfill requirements of the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS).

(C). By integrating parents into classroom scenarios, the teacher is facilitating the ESL students' family involvement in their children's education.

The Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968, was significant in the history of ESL education in America because it A. implemented federal guidelines for integrating children of undocumented immigrants into American schools. B. established the National Center for Bilingual Education as a resource center for teachers and administrators. C. initiated federal involvement in mandates, funding, rationales, and goals for bilingual/ESL education programs. D. established the "separate but equal" precedent for implementing bilingual education programs in American schools.

(C). By recognizing the inherent inequity in educational opportunities for language minority students, this act created the foundation for bilingual and ESL programs in schools throughout America.

Which of the following statements correctly expresses current understandings about ESL students' acquisition of L2 listening and speaking competencies? A. In order to read and write in L2, students must first acquire L2 oral language. B. If they are motivated to learn, ESL students acquire oral language naturally with little or no need for formal instruction. Proficiency in the other language domains follows. C. In learning L2, proficiency in the reading, writing, speaking, and listening domains develops simultaneously rather than sequentially. D. To help students succeed academically, teachers should focus on reading and writing proficiency.

(C). ESL theorists and practitioners promote the position that L2 competencies in the speaking, listening, reading, and writing domains develop holistically and simultaneously. Theorists refer to this as the whole-to-part approach which holds that learners construct meaning by processing information contextually. However, this does not mean that learners acquire competency in each area equally. The "opposite" approach—part-to-whole—would have learners acquiring listening skills first, then speaking, then reading, and finally writing. ESL specialists promote learning approaches that focus on the whole communicative context.

An elementary school teacher has introduced word problems in his ESL class. The teacher knows that word problems pose conceptual difficulties even for native speakers, so he wants to provide appropriate instructional support for his ESL students' understanding of this math concept. Which of the following strategies would best reinforce his ESL students' understanding of math word problems? A. The teacher suggests that students translate the word problems into their L1 before trying to solve them. B. The teacher puts the students in a large circle and has each student read a word problem orally. C. The teacher organizes students into groups and gives each group 12 pencil cap erasers. Each group writes a short word problem focusing on math operations about the erasers. D. The teacher divides the class into two teams. He puts a word problem on the board and gives the teams five minutes to solve the problem. The winning team gets five extra points on their daily math grade.

(C). Having students create their own word problems will give them insider knowledge on the structure and rationale of word problems.

The ESL teachers in a South Texas school district want students and their families to become more familiar with community resources that can promote their students' literacy goals. Which of the following strategies most effectively targets the teachers' goal? A. Teachers send home a flyer from the public library explaining how to apply for a library card. If they get a public library card, students are rewarded with bonus points. B. The teachers set up a book contribution bin in the main school hallway for teachers and staff members to donate books. Teachers display the donated books under a "Free Books" sign during lunch. C. The teachers work with the public library to identify grade-appropriate children's and young adult fiction and nonfiction books. The teachers set up an after-school reading hour for parents and children. D. Teachers create a class-specific supplementary reading program. In order to encourage students to patronize the public library, they select books they want students to read but which aren't available at the school library.

(C). Inviting parents to the library with their children is proactive method of encouraging parents to take advantage of community resources for promoting their children's literacy development.

Ms. Sahid teaches at a high school that includes The Great Gatsby as mandatory reading for all students in eleventh-grade curriculum. Her classes include many intermediate-level ESL students. The accommodations Ms. Sahid makes in teaching The Great Gatsby to intermediate ESL students are likely to be most effective if her teaching activities reflect A. sheltered instruction. B. English-language development (ELD). C. specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE). D. content-area reading strategies.

(C). Reading a literary text calls for specialized instruction that enables students to access and appreciate the text. Accommodations should promote the learners' language development while making the content (in this case, a literary text) meaningful and accessible. The SDAIE approach is best suited for the pedagogical task described in this scenario.

According to the Texas Administrative Code (TAC) Chapter 89, the basic requirement for implementing an ESL or bilingual program in a school district is A. a district-wide enrollment of 50 percent or more students whose families are classified as Hispanic, Asian, African American, or other in the U.S. Census Data. B. campus demographics that include 80 percent speakers of languages other than English. C. an enrollment of 20 or more ELL students in any language classification in the same grade level district-wide. D. an audit from the Texas Education Agency that finds disparities in educational approaches used for native and nonnative speakers of English.

(C). The 20 or more stipulation comes from the Texas Education Code and is reiterated in the LPAC Framework Manual.

Remi's draft ends with this sentence: "You should never feel bad just cuz u didn't finish." Which of the following strategies should Ms. Contreras use to help Remi understand the difference between social and academic registers? A. She should mark an X through "cuz" and "u" and write "misspelled" in the margin B. She should use Remi's sentence in the next day's daily oral language exercise and have students try to correct the sentence C. She should have a minilesson on texting language versus academic language, explaining expectations for each register D. Since the sentence occurs in a draft, she should expect that Remi will correct the forms during editing and revision

(C). The student's use of texting forms in academic discourse suggests he sees no distinction between expectations in academic and social registers. Ms. Contreras's explanation should make it clear that correctness is not the issue, but that language choices should reflect the parameters of the discourse environment.

An elementary school teacher with a class of beginning ESL students distributes a card with a consonant blend to each student. The teacher orally reads a list of words. Whenever the teacher reads a word that starts with the consonant blend a student is holding, the student is supposed to hold up the card. This activity promotes language proficiency in A. morphological knowledge. B. vocabulary development. C. phonological knowledge. D. oral language.

(C). This is a class of beginning ESL students. The activity reinforces students' ability to hear how distinct phonemes are combined in blends.

A third-grade teacher is conducting a phonics lesson in her class of beginning ELL students. She writes the following words on the board, pronouncing each word and having her students respond chorally. She has volunteers come to the board to draw a line under the part that is the same in all the words. She asks for other volunteers to draw a vertical line between the underlined part and the beginning sound(s). Which language-learning strategy does this activity reflect? A. Developing vocabulary B. Applying morphological knowledge in creating new words C. Recognizing patterns in language D. Reinforcing orthographic knowledge

(C). This is a classic onset-rime activity designed to reinforce the learners' recognition of patterns in L2 words (a descriptor in the cross-curricular knowledge English Language Proficiency Standards). Onset-rime reinforces students' phonological as well orthographic knowledge.

Myra is an advanced seventh-grade ESL student. The passage on the next page is an excerpt from an essay she wrote: Which of the following strategies should the teacher use to promote Myra's syntactic performance in writing? A. The teacher should mark all the errors in the passage and have Myra rewrite the passage making all the marked corrections. B. The teacher should give Myra grammar worksheets in identifying complete sentences and fragments. C. The teacher should have Myra read the passage aloud, calling Myra's attention to her intonation and inflection as she reads the sentences. D. The teacher should give Myra a new topic and ask her to write a new draft without making all the errors evident in this passage.

(C). This passage reflects a competence versus performance situation. Clearly, the writer knows how to generate complex structures. However, she is having difficulty demonstrating her knowledge in written language. A typical error-analysis approach is to have writers read their writing orally because they very likely will self-correct through pronunciation, intonation, or inflection. In Myra's case, the teacher can use the oral reading to reinforce Myra's understanding of dependent and independent clause relationships.

Which of the following descriptions represents the initial procedure for designating students as Limited English Proficient (LEP) in Texas school districts? A. The LEP designation is made by individual teachers any time they notice that students demonstrate deficiencies in social and academic language proficiency. B. When parents request in writing that their child be placed in bilingual or ESL classes, the student is automatically designated LEP. C. Upon entering a school district, any student whose home language is not exclusively English (as determined by a home language survey) is tested to assess language proficiency. Results are evaluated by the Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) to determine LEP or non-LEP status. D. Initial LEP designations are based on students' performance in the previous academic year. In the case of kindergarten students, the designation is based on teachers' observations of the learner's performance in the first six weeks of school.

(C). This response correctly summarizes the procedure explained in the LPAC Framework Manual. The manual also states that the terms LEP and ELL are used interchangeably in state documents.

A fifth-grade teacher wants to promote her intermediate ELL students' understanding of content-area lessons. She has a word wall divided into content areas and each week updates new content vocabulary. She also has content cubicles decorated with posters and realia. Which of the following grouping strategies might further promote her students' content-area learning? A. The teacher uses a random grouping approach, creating new groups each Monday morning. B. The teacher creates two types of groups: one set includes only ELL students, and the other, only native speakers. C. The teacher creates base groups for cooperative learning activities. Each group includes native speakers and ELL students. D. The teacher allows students to self-select the groups they want to be in.

(C). This scenario focuses on cooperative learning as a boost to ELL student achievement. Integrating native speakers and ELL in base groups (groups that are maintained for a substantive period rather than just for a specific activity) allows students to bond socially. Those social connections, particularly in an ELL setting, promote learning.

A high school English teacher plans a unit focused on a frequently taught short story from American literature. Because half of his students are intermediate to advanced ESL students, he needs to provide appropriate accommodations to create comprehensible input. Which of the following instructional activities should the teacher select to meet this goal? A. Before starting the unit, the teacher writes 20 vocabulary words on the board and gives students a class period to look them up. B. Students watch a film on the author's novels and stories, focusing on the shared thematic elements. C. The teacher begins the unit with a "book talk" in which he introduces the characters, the initiating event, and touches on the conflict. He then reads a few pivotal passages from the story. D. For homework prior to the first unit day, students are required to read the story and answer a set of questions.

(C). This teacher faces the challenge of ensuring that both his native speakers and the ESL students learn literature content and that the ESL learners have appropriate instructional scaffolding to promote language learning. The book talk would provide scaffolding for all learners, including the native speakers.

In a mainstream middle school science class that also includes beginning to intermediate ELL students, which of the following instructional strategies might best promote the teacher's goal to develop the ELL students' academic English proficiency? A. Focusing instruction on the native speakers and having the ELL students participate as best they can B. Assigning supplemental homework to the ELL students to ensure that they catch up with material they did not understand in the day's lesson C. Pairing each ELL student with students of similar language backgrounds so they can help each other understand the science content of each lesson D. Providing a class library of illustrated books at various reading levels to present science concepts at language and cognitive levels accessible to the ELL students

(D). Because the students in this class are beginning to intermediate level, the teacher needs strategies to make class content comprehensible while also developing the students' language proficiency. Providing the library books in a range of reading levels would give the ELL students a resource to make the course content accessible in language and formats (illustrations and simpler language) appropriate to their current level of L2 proficiency

A high school ESL teacher has students ranging from intermediate to high advanced in his class. He assigns them the following project: This assignment will take two class periods followed by two presentation periods. The teaching goal that this assignment best addresses is to A. create an opportunity for students to practice process writing. B. emphasize the importance of correct pronunciation in a formal speech situation. C. teach students critical viewing skills in the context of international films. D. provide students an opportunity to integrate listening, speaking, and writing skills in an authentic context.

(D). Because this teacher has a wide range of ESL learner levels in his class, he needs an assignment that can be self-adjusted to individual learner levels. This favorite film assignment would create a strong communicative context (authenticity) while providing opportunities for learners to develop writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills.

To promote students' understanding of social studies content, a third-grade ESL teacher writes keywords and focal points on the board as he lectures. Which of the following additional strategies would best promote students' understanding of content knowledge during each class lecture? A. The teacher starts each class with a pretest and ends with a quiz on the material covered that day. B. Students read aloud from the textbook, and the teacher corrects any mispronunciations. C. At the end of the class, the teacher asks students to submit questions about anything they didn't understand from the lesson. D. The teacher stops every 10-15 minutes to conduct a "state of the class" session, during which he asks questions about key points and encourages students to explain what they understand and identify what they don't understand.

(D). By stopping at 10-15-minute intervals and interacting with his students in the manner described in this response, the teacher is developing his learners' metacognitive strategies for monitoring and boosting students' comprehension of content.

The Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) is used to provide which of the following types of data about ELL students? A. Information about the effectiveness of classroom ELL instruction in addressing state standards in writing and reading B. Average yearly progress ratings for ELL students as mandated by the Language Proficiency Assessment Committee C. Correlations between state-mandated exam scores and ELL students' end-of-year grades in math, science, social studies, and English D. Individual proficiency level ratings of ELL students (beginning, intermediate, advanced, advanced high) in listening, speaking, writing, and reading

(D). TELPAS includes Proficiency Level Descriptors identifying ELL students according to their current levels of competence and performance in writing, reading, speaking, and listening. The ratings enable teachers to offer differentiated, formative instruction aimed at moving all learners toward the high advanced level.

According to the LPAC Framework Manual, a student is identified as an English Language Learner if he or she A. demonstrates significant deficiencies in writing a short passage in English. B. is unable to respond readily to instructions in English. C. has had no academic experiences in L1. D. is in the process of acquiring English and has a language other than English as a native language.

(D). The LPAC Framework Manual stipulates that the defining characteristic of the ELL student is whether a language other than English is spoken at home either exclusively or in addition to English.

A school district in a border area of Texas establishes an ESL program for young students who have recently arrived in the United States and who have limited or no academic background in their native language. The program addresses acculturation, language, affective, and academic aspects of the children's educational experience. The program is a temporary "stop over." The goal is to transition these students into a traditional ESL program. This type of program is typically labeled as a A. transitional ESL program. B. language-intervention program. C. SIFE program (students with interrupted formal education). D. newcomer program.

(D). The item stem sums up the operational definition of newcomer programs

In their August orientation, teachers at a Central Texas school discuss the following statement from the school's Handbook of Daily Operating Procedures: "The teacher creates an environment that values the beliefs, backgrounds, home learning, home language, and sense of belonging to a group that every learner brings to the classroom and fosters a sense of community that brings diverse learners together." In the context of ESL teaching, this statement refers to A. linguistic diversity. B. pedagogical tolerance. C. identity preservation. D. multiculturalism.

(D). The statement encompasses key aspects of multiculturalism: cultural awareness, respect, and inclusion

ELL students in a third-grade class are having trouble learning the names of math figures (for example, hexagon, quadrilateral, pentagon, and so on). Which of the following instructional strategies would most effectively promote students' learning in this area of math? A. The teacher devises a quiz in which students have to correctly match the figure to its name. The quiz is administered every day until all the students get 100 percent correct. B. The teacher draws each figure on the board and has students copy the figures into their notebooks. The teacher asks for volunteers to come to the board to label each figure. C. The teacher creates a poster for each figure. In addition to an illustration of the figure, the name is written in large letters, with the root underlined and the corresponding number of sides written in large print on the poster. The poster includes pictures of words with the same root. D. The teacher puts students into groups and assigns a different figure to each group. Their task is to make several models of their figure using a variety of resources such as craft sticks, twigs, pencils, construction paper strips, chenille sticks, and any other materials they can think of.

(D). This is the most learner-centered response and most appropriate for the targeted age and ELL level. Working with manipulatives in a math class is considered a learning-inducing strategy: hands-on strategies create engagement and promote understanding.

Homework assignments are sometimes created with the expectation that parents will be able to help students complete the assignment. At a school where the majority of ESL student parents have limited L1 education and no L2 education, which of the following strategies would best promote family involvement in ESL students' homework assignments? A. The teacher sends parents a list of all the homework assignments for the week and asks parents to initial the assignment when the student completes it. B. The teacher sends parents a video explaining how homework reinforces students' progress in content-area classes. C. The teacher sends a package of textbooks to each family so that family members can familiarize themselves with the content-area materials their children are covering in class. D. The teacher invites parents to attend content-area classes and models how they can facilitate their children homework completion even if they don't understand the subject.

(D). This response involves parents fully in their children's homework responsibilities. With the awareness that the parents do not have the necessary academic or language background to help their children with homework in traditional ways, the modeling would show parents other ways to participate in their children's homework completion.

The Texas Administrative Code stipulates that required bilingual and ESL programs in Texas follow one of four program models. Which of the following programs is NOT listed as one of those four models? A. Two-way dual immersion B. One-way dual immersion C. Transitional/bilingual early exit D. Transitional/bilingual stable

(D). This term is not used in reference to bilingual and ESL education programs. It implies a permanence that is counter to the intention of bilingual and ESL programs, which strive to promote student language proficiency so that they can exit the program.

A high school English teacher is about to start a unit on Jack London's "To Build a Fire" in her sheltered class. She starts a whole-class discussion by asking: "When the temperature is very high and you feel very hot, what are some things you are supposed to do to stay safe?" She writes their comments on the board and encourages students to follow up on some of the things they say. Then she tells students to work in groups to respond to this question: "When it's very, very cold, what are some things you should do to stay safe?" She gives students five minutes to prepare their group response. How does this oral language activity promote students' communicative language competence? A. The teacher activates prior knowledge to help students connect their real-world experiences to the context of the classroom lesson. B. Using the students' group responses, the teacher will be able to create a semantic map to introduce the story. C. The teacher knows this story will be challenging for ELL students, so she starts with this activity in order to boost their comprehension. D. The teacher wants to promote students' active listening skills by making them realize how little they know about extreme cold temperatures.

A). Moving from hot to cold temperature extremes in this prereading activity is an effective approach in this sheltered class. The teacher is providing abundant scaffolding for meaningful discussion and activation of prior knowledge.

Myra is an advanced seventh-grade ESL student. The passage on the next page is an excerpt from an essay she wrote: Which of the following statements offers the best analysis of the writer's syntactic performance in this excerpt? A. The writer treats subordinate structures as independent elements. B. The writer demonstrates spelling difficulties. C. The writer does not seem to have any strategies for varying sentence structure. D. The writer does not know what constitutes a complete sentence.

A). This passage includes eight "sentences," three of which are actually subordinate constructions that are logical continuations of the previous utterance but have been punctuated as complete sentences.

Janie is a middle school student whose family recently emigrated from Mexico. On the first day of class, she told her teacher that she had to drop out of school in her native country a year ago. In the interval, she has had no tutoring or formal schooling. She has the following conversation with her English teacher regarding a missed homework assignment. Janie: Is because I lose...uhmmmm...USB [pronounced "uəsbi"]. Is no finish. Uhmmmmm...the homework. Teacher: You were unable to complete your assignment, Janie? [speaking slowly and clearly enunciating] Janie: Yes. No do it. Teacher: Do you think you could complete your homework during your study period? [speaking slowly and clearly enunciating] Janie: Uhmmmmm...Estudy time. Yes. Finish. Teacher: That's great, Janie. I hope to get your completed assignment later today. Janie: Is good. Based on this brief exchange, which of the following statements offers the best description of Janie's L2 development at this point? A. Janie has virtually no understanding of English grammar. B. Janie's syntactic and phonological output point to interference from Spanish grammatical structures. C. Janie is not capable of completing a logical utterance in English. D. Janie is unable to use her L1 competence as scaffolding for her L2 development.

B). Janie's output is comprehensible, but it clearly suggests that she is relying on her L1 grammar to create her L2 output (using "is" without a subject, appending a vowel sound to the initial sibilant in study, and using "no" as a generic negative).

The teacher gives each student three resealable zipper storage bags and asks them to collect leaves from three different plants they see each day on the school grounds, in their yards, or in their neighborhoods. This introductory strategy helps to promote students' understanding of the science content in the unit on local plants because A. students can have fun while completing the assignment. B. new content will be reinforced through hands-on activities. C. students will not need to use language strategies in completing this assignment. D. students will demonstrate the extent to which they can follow basic instructions.

B). The teacher is starting the science unit with a hands-on activity designed to engage the learners right away and to create prior knowledge.

A high school English teacher is about to start a unit on Jack London's "To Build a Fire" in her sheltered class. As a follow-up, the teacher takes the class to the school library and assigns the following activity: • Work with your group members to find three facts about Alaskan geography, topography, and/or temperatures. • Be ready to do a three-minute summary of your findings tomorrow. • Your presentation must include at least one photograph. You can show a photograph from a library book, or you and your group members can draw an illustration. Which of the following descriptions best explains how this activity contributes to students' oral-language proficiency development? A. It allows students to connect research-based facts to the events of the story. B. It creates opportunities for students to negotiate about which facts are most relevant to the story. C. It promotes communicative competence by combining collaboration, research, writing, and oral presentation. D. It prepares students to understand the core conflict of the story.

C). This short research assignment integrates several language domains within the context of content-area knowledge.

When they bring in their three leaves, Ms. Newbery gives the students this assignment: How does this instructional activity address Ms. Newbery's concerns about her ELL students' content-area learning? A. The oral-language activity forces students to speak in L2 without relying on L1 vocabulary. B. The activity reinforces new science vocabulary for this unit. C. The activity creates a nonacademic environment, which should reduce students' anxieties over participating in class discussions. D. The activity integrates oral language and prior knowledge as a beginning point for new content-area learning.

D). The scenario states that the teacher wants to promote language proficiency in the context of new science content. This activity addresses that goal and encourages learners to rely on what they observe about their leaves (prior knowledge).

A high school teacher works in a newcomer program in her district. She wants to make sure she integrates all of the Texas Administrative Code (TAC) regulations about meeting learners' needs. She knows newcomer ELL students may be shy about asking questions in class, so she puts up a poster showing students raising their hands. The dialogue bubbles show some questions in English and some in Spanish. The teacher in the poster has a smile on her face, and her thought bubble says, "Great questions!" This classroom strategy is designed to address which of the following learner needs? A. Conversational B. Classroom decorum C. Linguistic D. Affective

D). The teacher's visuals are focused on easing students' concerns about asking questions, a problem that persists even in mainstream classes made up only of native speakers. The strategy addresses the learner's affective needs by promoting the learners' confidence and self-assurance about asking questions.

An ELL included the following sentences in her essay: "When one talks about improving the education quality, many ideas such as smaller class sizes, teacher's quality, and lack of resources." "Although increasing funds might be a solution, other ways to improve the educational qualities without more funds." The explanation that the teacher should offer to enable the student writer to understand the L2 problems shown in these sentences is that A. the student is overusing the definite article: "the." B. the student should keep the sentences short so as not to make so many errors in syntax. C. the student needs to proofread the writing more carefully. D. in English, abstract concepts such as education and educational quality generally do not take an article.

D). The writer needs help understanding when to use articles with abstract nouns. Providing a grammar-based explanation is a good strategy for helping the learner overcome this common L1 to L2 difficulty.