Teaching English as a Second Language, in far too many American schools, thrusts, especially new teachers to the craft, into a learning environment where there are many expected learning outcomes and few real classroom tools to achieve them. This ESL-Mainstream Linking Curriculum Guide addresses that situation and provides solutions. It incorporates a basic set of mainstream, subject topics, into a format for the teacher to expedite, and it provides for second language learners to develop English language skills while aligned with mainstream, text, scope, and sequence expectations. From day one, the teacher is provided with a set of lesson topics to guide the educator and the students through mainstream subject requirements. In conjunction with this, students are focused on acquiring their second language skills.
The Linking Curriculum Guide is a living entity. It has provision and protocols for review and adjustment. In this way, it can meet the specific needs of any given school district's academic requirements, scope and sequence of texts, language and subject content, and skills acquisition. This work can also be used as a professional development tool. It provides teachers and administrators with a program to develop district-specific Linking Curriculum Guides that build upon the baseline this work offers.
Teaching and acquiring second language skills can and should be as student- and teacher-friendly as they are challenging. This work is a concrete, ready-to-use approach toward that end.