Writing Development of ELL Students
By
Ana Rogers
ESL Teacher
9-12 Grade

Background Information
• I teach at the high school level. The
classes are divided up into 4 blocks of 90-
minute classes per day. The students
attend each class for one semester. At
mid-year, students begin new courses.
• ELL courses are taken during the entire
year.

Student Population
• I teach 3 classes of ELL students. One class
is a language acquisition class, and I had one
student. I had several more students
scheduled for this past year, but they either
moved or dropped out without notifying the
school. My other two classes are reading
classes. I have two levels. My first class is
my Level A. The two students in that class
know very little English.

Language Acquisition
Class
I had one student in this class. I had several
more students scheduled for this past year,
but they either moved or dropped out without
notifying the school.
This student spoke only Spanish. Her Spanish
was not very strong. She had difficulty writing
in Spanish, just as she had in English.

Level A Reading Class
• In this class, I had 2 Mexican
Spanish female students. One
student has only been in the United
States for 2 years. The other
student has been in the United
States for about 8 years, and she is
classified as Special Education and
attended weekly Speech sessions.

Level C Reading Class
• In this class, I had 8 students. I had 6
females and 2 males. All the students
were Mexicans. 2 of the students were
born in the United States and 5 have been
here for less than 4 years. 1 entered the
US when he was 2-years old. They have all
developed language skills in reading,
speaking, listening, and writing. Writing
was the area which required growth.