Understanding the process of SLA is foundational to supporting emergent bilingual (EB) students, and there are four primary building blocks to developing this understanding:

• Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: Understand the differences between language acquisition and language learning as two separate methods that each play a role in second language development.
• Factors that Affect SLA: Recognize factors that affect SLA, such as motivation, access to language, quality of instruction, language distance, language status, first language development, and family, peer, and community values.
• Affective Filter: Identify the role of emotions in second language acquisition, including the importance of safe and stress-free environments that lower the affective filter and provide positive, meaningful interactions that increase language development (including L1 and L2 in bilingual programs) as well as content attainment.
• Comprehensible and Compelling Input: Learn the value of comprehensible and compelling input to increase EB students’ access to content area instruction.

One of Krashen’s (1981) five hypotheses for second language acquisition (SLA) is that there is a distinction between language acquisition and language learning. Spada and Lightbown (2019) outline the distinction like this:

In other words, acquisition can be described as the relatively organic processes of internalizing a language by using it to communicate, while learning refers to the more direct and intentional efforts to understand and produce the language.

It’s not surprising that acquisition, as opposed to learning, is the primary way we develop our first language. And, according to Collier (1995), "We use some of the same innate processes that are used to acquire our first language, going through developmental stages and relying on native speakers to provide modifier speech that we can at least partially comprehend. However, second language acquisition is more subject to influence from other factors than was oral development in our first language" (p. 4). That is to say, both acquisition and learning are required for SLA, and both play different roles in instructed and natural settings. Further, he says, "This process of acquiring a second language through the school curriculum is very different from foreign language" (p. 2). Thus, content-based language instruction is an approach to integrated SLA that differs from languages other than English (LOTE) teaching practices, which have a singular goal of learning a new language.

The difference between the two methods—as well as the importance of both—is often intuitive, with Spada and Lightbown (2019) noting that many teachers and students can recall experiences of struggling to use their new language spontaneously despite having studied it. “This may be especially true,” say Spada and Lightbown, “in classrooms where the emphasis is on meta-linguistic knowledge (the ability to talk about the language) rather than on practice in using it communicatively" (p. 113). Offering plentiful opportunities, then, for both learning and acquisition is key to supporting effective SLA for emergent bilingual students.

There are countless factors—both intrinsic and extrinsic—that affect students’ successful acquisition of a new language. Echevarria and Graves (2007) highlight several, noting that their list is not exhaustive:.

• Age
• Access to language
• Personality
• First language development
• Quality of instruction
• Cognitive ability
• Motivation

However, many of these factors are not within educators' control, and trying to manage all of them will be a losing battle. According to Seidlitz (2019), despite the significance of all of these factors, teachers of EB students only have control over three: motivation, access to language, and quality of instruction and therefore should focus efforts in these areas.

Motivation

Motivation, which includes willingness to communicate, is squarely within a teacher’s control, and Robinson (2001) identified this component as one of the two most robust predictors of instructed language learning success. Where do motivation and willingness to communicate begin? “Classroom environment was found as a direct predictor of [willingness to communicate], implying that a positive classroom environment, including a supportive teacher, collaborative classmates, and interesting topics, foster communication among the students" (Khajavy, MacIntyre, & Barabadi, 2018, p. 6).

Access

The second factor within educators’ control is sufficient access to language, which refers to employing strategies that support learners’ ability to comprehend and produce content in the target language. As Echevarria, Vogt, and Short (2013) note, EB students acquire language through exposure to challenging material, such as complex texts to develop literacy skills, in combination with specialized classroom strategies designed to make sure comprehensible input occurs. In other words, opportunities to interact with a new language are only a piece of the access "puzzle". The other critical piece is the strategies teachers employ to support students’ interactions with the new language. One of these strategies, comprehensible input (which will be discussed in depth later) is particularly highly viewed as necessary to SLA (Lee, 2018).

Quality of Instruction

Finally, classroom teachers have full control over their own output—the quality of instruction. Research is clear that instruction provides a significant impact on the rate of and long-term success in SLA (Spada & Lightbown, 2019). This includes not only teaching methods but also a teacher’s overall approach to the classroom, which includes meeting the affective, linguistic, and cognitive needs of EB students. According to Cook (2008), “An important element of L2 success appears to be how learners are treated: the teaching method they encounter, the language they hear, and the environment in which they are learning. [...] Everything the teacher does provides the learners with opportunities for encountering the language” (p. 162).

Comprehensible and compelling input are valuable tools to increase emergent bilingual (EB) students’ access to content area instruction. Mason (2019) notes that more reading is associated with better reading, writing, spelling, more vocabulary, and grammar. And according to Krashen and Mason (2020), “Reading can be made comprehensible for low-intermediate level readers when teachers help in book selection (in terms of interest and difficulty)” (p. 2).

How can teachers ensure content is comprehensible? Researchers provide multiple ways to provide effective comprehensible input (Yzquierdo, 2017; Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, 2013):

• Providing opportunities to activate prior knowledge and build necessary background knowledge
• Using language within context to increase understanding
• Using speech that is appropriate for students’ language proficiency levels
• Providing clear explanations of academic tasks
• Employing a variety of techniques (such as the use of varied modes of delivery) to make content concepts clear

But comprehensibility isn’t the only factor in whether material is optimal for EB students. Reading materials must be both comprehensible in their complexity and interesting to the reader. Krashen and Mason (2020) expand the criteria, suggesting that optimal content is comprehensible, compelling, rich in language that contributes to the message, and abundant in opportunities to make connections. Encouraging self-selection of reading is a great way to promote incorporation of compelling content. In short, content that will effectively support second language acquisition (SLA) must be not only comprehensible but compelling—or interesting—to readers.

Instructional Methods

There are five critical areas in which effective instructional design will support emergent bilingual (EB) students’ second language acquisition:

• Language Conventions and Structures: Understand how increasingly complex language conventions and structures are acquired through frequent language practice opportunities.
• Expressive and Receptive Language: Engage EB students in routine and structured opportunities to speak, write, read, and listen with peers and independently.
• Social and Academic Language: Identify the differences between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) and how both are developed and used inside and outside of the school environment.
• Vocabulary Development: Understand the impact of both direct and context-embedded approaches to vocabulary development for EB students (including vocabulary development in L1 and L2 within bilingual programs).
• Interaction: Recognize the role that peer-to-peer interaction plays inside and outside the classroom in SLA.

All students benefit from frequent practice opportunities to acquire complex language conventions and structures in any language, such as grammar, syntax, pragmatics, phonology, morphology, and semantics. For emergent bilingual (EB) students, these frequent opportunities are necessary as they also work to develop their second language (L2). As these constructions (conventions and structures) become increasingly complex, acquisition moves through several phases: pre-production, early production, speech emergence (or production), intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency (Krashen & Terrell, 1983).

However, as Ferlazzo and Sypnieski (2022) remind us, individual students’ experiences may resist orderly categorization; rather,

How can teachers help students move toward proficiency, or advanced fluency? Goldenberg (2013) explains that effective second language instruction provides a combination of explicit teaching that helps students directly and ample opportunities to use the second language in meaningful and motivating situations. So, while the concentrated learning experiences are important, the opportunities for more organic acquisition, as discussed previously, are also critical. Echevarria and Vogt (2013) emphasize that structured opportunities for practicing the target language are essential across all subject areas for development of fluency.

That is to say, complex language skills are ultimately acquired through frequent language opportunities. "Research in psycholinguistics demonstrates that generally, the more frequently a construction (or combination of construction) is experienced, the earlier it is acquired and the more frequently it is processed” (Wuff & Ellis, 2018, p. 40).

The next building block of instructional design that supports second language acquisition (SLA) is engaging emergent bilingual (EB) students in structured opportunities to engage in receptive language (reading and listening) and expressive language (speaking and writing) both with peers and independently.

Routines and structured opportunities to read and listen play a key role in language acquisition. Krashen (2004) notes that wide reading provides a quality source of comprehensible input that research shows has a significant effect on SLA, and Wright (2010), speaking to the value of listening opportunities, explains that the majority of students’ comprehensible input comes from listening within meaningful interaction.

As educators are planning listening and reading opportunities, it’s important to keep in mind that literacy and oral language development are highly intertwined, particularly for EB students. Research clearly reveals the following about this relationship:

• General approaches to literacy instruction used for all students are insufficient in supporting EB students in SLA.
• To advance beyond word level skills, L2 oral language development is essential for literacy development in L2.
• Literacy instruction must be combined with well-implemented content-based methods of instruction.
• First language (L1) oracy and literacy is an advantage for English (L2) literacy development (Wright, 2010).

The connection Wright notes between first-language proficiency and literacy development in English will be discussed later on. For now, though, the salient point is one that Cummins (2008) also expresses, which is that opportunities for collaborative learning and talk about text are also extremely important in helping students internalize and more fully comprehend the academic language they find in their extensive reading of text.

As implied, then, routines and structured opportunities to speak and write also play a key role in language acquisition. Cummins (2008) notes that writing for authentic purposes is crucial. For instance, when EB students write about issues that matter to them, they consolidate aspects of the academic language they have been reading and express their identities through language, ideally receiving feedback from teachers and others that will affirm and further develop their expression of self. This is a support of their lived experiences, which activates their schema to build new knowledge. Furthermore, Wright (2010) highlights that the writing development process is similar in L1 and L2 in that students’ ability to express themselves in written form, particularly extended writing, is highly dependent upon their oral language proficiency. He goes on to suggest that the use of open ended and higher-order questions that require students to elaborate is an effective approach to this connection between expressive and receptive language skills. Additionally, August and Shanahan (2010) point to findings that oral language skills are correlated with both improved reading comprehension and better writing skills in that language.

Instructional Methods

Emergent bilingual (EB) students are acquiring two different registers of their target language: Basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP).

BICS refers to conversational fluency in a language while CALP refers to students’ ability to understand and express, in both oral and written modes, concepts and ideas that are relevant to success in school (Cummins, 2008).

CALP includes three overlapping dimensions of academic language—linguistic, cognitive, and social—that work together to determine the effectiveness of a person’s communication. The distinction between BICS and CALP can be related to a distinction between

• Primary discourses, which are acquired through face-to-face interactions in the home and represent the language of initial socialization, and
• Secondary discourses, which are acquired in social institutions beyond the family (e.g., school, business, religious, and social contexts) and involve acquisition of specialized vocabulary and functions of language appropriate to those settings (Cummins, 2008).

BICS and CALP are both integral to a student’s success inside and outside the school environment, but it’s important for educators to keep in mind that they develop at different rates. Conversational, casual BICS often solidifies for students more quickly than CALP, with newcomer emergent bilingual students usually reaching peer-appropriate levels of conversational aspects of English (L2) proficiency within about two years of exposure to the language while requiring five to seven years to approach grade norms in academic aspects of English (Cummins, 2008). If teachers are unaware of this distinction in the time required for both types of language acquisition, warns Robinson (2001), they may assume emergent bilingual students learning English should become proficient within two years; then, when they don’t, the teachers may draw erroneous conclusions about why this has not occurred.

Teachers who are familiar with this distinction, however, are more equipped to understand and meet their emergent bilingual students’ needs around developing academic language in their L2. A strong resource for understanding how the development of social and academic language will look for EB students through the stages of language acquisition is the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs), which are used to determine progress through the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS). When teachers use these PLDs throughout the school year to monitor student progress, they are able to recognize appropriate linguistic accommodations and to indicate more appropriately when a student may be ready for reclassification as English proficient [TAC 89.1226 (i)].

One of the foundational ways to lower the affective filter and ensure students feel not only comfortable in the learning environment but involved in the classroom activities to ensure that the language inputs received by students are understandable to all proficiency levels represented within a given class or group. This is referred to as providing comprehensible input. Examples of instructional methods for ensuring comprehensible input include the following:

• Consistently explaining tasks clearly helps to establish routines that minimize anxiety and allow for EB students to focus on the acquisition of new content and the language load it requires.
• Using contextual visuals assists in making connections to prior knowledge and increases academic vocabulary development.
• Focusing on meaning more than form through a communicative language teaching approach honors the academic and experiential knowledge of students, allowing them to make grammatical or syntactic mistakes while expressing their ideas in the target language.

Instructional Methods

There are two primary approaches to vocabulary development that are critical to supporting SLA in emergent bilingual (EB) students: the direct approach and the context-embedded approach. The first is the direct approach, which involves specific instruction in vocabulary. According to Beck et al. (2013), a robust approach to vocabulary involves directly explaining the meaning of words along with thought provoking, playful and interactive follow-up. These opportunities for direct connections can occur at all points within the lesson: before, during, and after. The findings of studies that examined robust instruction have shown it to be effective not only for learning the meaning of words but also for effective vocabulary instruction. Marzano (2004) also notes that research demonstrates the effectiveness of direct, structured teaching of vocabulary development for learners of a variety of languages, backgrounds, and experiences.

The second approach to vocabulary development is the context-embedded approach, which refers to incorporating new vocabulary into everyday classroom interactions by providing low-stress opportunities to practice the language in meaningful ways. Loewen and Sato (2018) cite findings that, because learners are likely to encounter new words, regular communication tasks can be fruitful sources of incidental vocabulary development. This includes conversations among students and between teacher and students, as well as reading tasks. “Not surprising, the differences in students’ exposure to reading has a documented impact on the development of their background knowledge,” says Marzano (2004), using the phrase “background knowledge” to refer to vocabulary development (p. 48). In addition, for EB students in particular, videos can be a powerful tool for context-embedded vocabulary development with research demonstrating the effectiveness of “multimedia-enhanced instruction (videos used as part of lessons)” in enhancing vocabulary instruction (Goldenberg, 2013, p. 6).

Overall, both approaches, direct and context-embedded, used together, can have a profound effect on EB students’ vocabulary development.

EB students are a heterogeneous group with varied community and linguistic backgrounds. As such, sequenced instructional methods are necessary to differentiate for each student’s levels of language proficiency (in their home/primary language and English). Benefits of these methods include the following:

• Incorporating explicit academic language instruction supports access to content for students at each level of language proficiency, increasing language development and academic progress simultaneously.
• Making connections to prior knowledge reinforces key concepts for content attainment and increases engagement with content material by connecting to students’ experiences and building on what they know.
• Emphasizing cross-linguistic connections and leveraging primary language resources helps to tie content learning to background knowledge (both experiential and academic) and increases investment.

Instructional Methods

Finally, it’s important to recognize that peer-to-peer interaction, both in and out of the classroom, plays an important role in second language acquisition

Inside the classroom, strategic partnering of students ensures that emergent bilingual (EB) students, in particular, are provided with language models with whom to observe and interact in a way that accelerates SLA as well as supports cross-community connections (Lyttle, 2001).

Outside of the classroom, Spada & Lightbown (2019) mention that the majority of language learning takes place through social interaction since those in conversation adjust their speech to others to ensure accessibility in communication. Motivation is high when students desire to communicate ideas for social purposes.

As mentioned before, social language (BICS) often develops more quickly than academic language, so, as Roy-Campbell (2013) reminds us, a teacher may overhear pupils conversing effectively with their friends outside of class and be shocked when they do not appear to comprehend classroom content. But in reality, those low-stress, casual conversations are giving emergent bilingual students powerful opportunities to develop their language skills. Peer interactions like these also build confidence, say Loewen and Sato (2018):

"In addition, peer interaction offers a psychological benefit. That is, an increased comfort level may positively affect learners’ L2 processing by helping them notice errors in their partners’ speech, correct those errors, and modify their own errors when given feedback. Moreover, a greater comfort level seems to increase the amount of overall language production, which leads to more opportunities for language practice" (p. 295).

It’s important to mention that embedded feedback from teachers and peers should involve using methods that honor intended meaning and communication over grammatical correctness, such as recasting in the moment and following up with targeted instruction on linguistic structures at another time. Interactions that involve feedback that diminish the intended communication of students, particularly in the beginning stages of language proficiency, can impede motivation and limit progress.

By fostering these peer-to-peer interactions, both inside and outside of the classroom, teachers can help students build their language skills, lower their affective filters, and develop the confidence they need to keep taking advantage of opportunities to speak, write, read, and listen in their target language. In order to do so, intentional grouping of students is necessary, ensuring that EB students are partnered with other EB students and non-EB students that provide heterogeneous linguistic abilities while scaffolding to the next level.

When EB students are provided with linguistic structures, they are able to focus on the academic task with confidence. Scaffolds are intended to be temporary supports that gradually increase linguistic complexity, demonstrating the language needed for not only basic but complex aspects of the target language. Benefits of scaffolding include the following:

• Providing linguistic structures for speaking and writing, such as sentence stems and paragraph frames, promote participation in the academic learning tasks, easing the linguistic demand.
• Setting up routines for cooperative learning ensures that each student is able to participate in a low-risk environment, building confidence through structured conversations.
• Modeling academic tasks helps to reinforce new learning by providing visual support and appropriate pacing.

Instructional Methods