Supporting Executive Functions in English Language Learners
Tags
Skills
Supporting Executive Functions in English Language Learners
All ELL students, particularly those who also have weaker executive functions
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Translating between languages relies heavily on executive functions in addition to the regular cognitive burdens on the task, so teachers will want to ease the load, particularly for students with weaker executive functions. -
Working Memory. Translating between two languages requires students to mentally juggle what they are hearing or reading and then translate it into their native language before they even begin the actual task.
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Attention. ELL students might have more difficulty catching up if they miss a detail or momentarily lose focus. They might have more difficulty inferring and making connections as they need to balance so much incoming information in their non-native language.
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Flexible Thinking. Tasks that might not depend much on flexible thinking for students familiar with the language and culture, might require a significant amount of flexible thinking for an ELL student if the literal translation does not make sense. Students with weaker flexible thinking might be reluctant to ask for clarification and get confused or frustrated.
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To support ELL students, provide them with traditional supports for executive functions, even if they might not have an absolute executive function weakness. Consider providing visual instructions along with written ones, reviewing the instructions with them or providing a worked example to ensure their understanding, or chunking tasks so they only need to remember one task at a time. You also might consider giving them fewer problems, alternative shorter reading passages, or extra time to enable them to finish.