The Write Aid for ELLs - The Strategies Bilingual Student Teachers Use to Help Their ELL Students Write Effectively

Oct 15, 2026

Study examining writing strategies used by three Spanish-speaking bilingual student teachers to support elementary school ELLs in writing effective English compositions. The research identifies instructional methods through interviews, lesson plans, and reflective journals, including allowing students to write ideas in Spanish and English and using Spanish-English cognates to build word banks. Findings highlight how leveraging students’ primary language can improve ELL access to writing strategies and strengthen English writing outcomes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Background and Rationale

Writing challenges for ELLs in U.S. classrooms

Evidence from assessment data

Instructional Approaches Identified

Using students’ primary language

Scaffolding writing instruction

Visual organizers and thinking maps

Thinking Maps and Composition Support

Tree Map process and classroom prompting

The Write Aid for ELLs: The Strategies Bilingual Student Teachers Use to Help Their ELL Students Write Effectively Many students, especially English language learners (ELLs), struggle when they write. This study examined the various writing strategies 3 Spanish-speaking bilingual student teachers used to help their elementary school ELL students write. This was a case study that looked at how these student teachers used their primary language, among other writing methods, to help their ELLs access writing strategies so these students could write effective English compositions. The authors used the interviews of student teachers, their lesson plans, and reflective journals to identify the instructional methods these student teachers used with their students. These methods included strategies such as helping their ELL students write their ideas in Spanish and English and using Spanish and English cognates to build students’ word banks. The knowledge from this study is important because it showed how ELLs may benefit when their teachers use the students’ primary language to help them write English compositions. Ithink we make a big mistake, I think teachers easily make the mis take of thinking that because our English learners maybe aren’t as proficient in English that maybe they don’t know as much, and I think that is such a mistake to not take the time and to really, if you’re able, because not everybody is bilingual, but if you’re able, just really what is it these students do understand, what do they have conceptually, and if they are understanding, then why not give them the opportunity to write in their primary language and then eventually build on that as English comes with time and more explicit instruction in English.(Interview with Nadia) According to Sparks (2016),“Nearly 3 in 4 American classrooms now The CATESOL Journal 31.1 • 2019 • 117 [include] at least one English language learner, and these students make up roughly 1 in 10 public school students”(para. 1) . As a result, ELL (English language learner) students have been considered a separate demographic group in many American public schools for purposes of analyzing performance on standardized tests. The prominence ofELLs in American schools has led to several instructional challenges, a primary one being how to teach these students to write effectively in English. This concern resonates in the observation of the student teacher quoted above. The idea that Spanish-speaking ELL students may have difficulty communicating in English is supported by test data regarding writing achievement. The National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessed writing among fourth-grade students. For this assessment, the writing scores of Spanish-speaking ELLs were not reported separately. Thus, the ELL scores for these students were included with those of Hispanics with the assumption that many Hispanics are designated ELLs because their home language is Spanish. In 2003, there was a significant difference in fourth-grade writing scores between White and Hispanic students. While 10% of White students scored “Below Basic,” 23% of Hispanic students received that score. Also, 31% of White students scored “Proficient” while 16% of Hispanic students received that score (Grigg, Daane, Jin, & Campbell, 2003) . The most recent publication of NAEP test results was in 2011. In that year, fourth-grade writing was not assessed but eighth-grade writing was. While 13% of eighthgrade White students were in the “Below Basic” category, Hispanic students scored 31% . In the “Proficient” category, 30% of White students scored in that area, and Hispanic students scored 13%, according to The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2011 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012) . These scores appear to indicate a gap in writing achievement between White and Hispanic groups, including ELLs. As the quote above mentions, this gap may be attributed to the disadvantage ELLs experience b

FAQs

What was the focus of the study?

The study examined the writing strategies three Spanish-speaking bilingual student teachers used to help elementary ELL students write effectively in English.

How did the student teachers use students’ primary language?

They supported writing by helping ELL students write ideas in both Spanish and English and by using Spanish-English cognates to develop students’ word banks.

What instructional strategies were highlighted besides primary-language support?

The text describes scaffolding writing instruction and using visual organizers such as graphic organizers and Hyerle’s thinking maps to help students organize information for writing.

Oct 15, 2026

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