Pixel International Conferences

A variety of innovative and challenging strategies are being employed to assist English Language Learners (ELLs) from non-English speaking nations as they endeavor to develop language skills and meet the competing demands of contemporary language education. This presentation and paper focuses on four strategies and accompanying activities to strengthen outreach and language skills through experiential, collaborative language learning.

The following four strategies for English language learning are addressed:

1)     Home visits
2)     Hand in Hand and peer buddy programs
3)     School community partnerships
4)     Field experiences

The focus on outreach has created the need for non-English speakers to learn through communication in a variety of settings external to the classroom. Outreach dominates informal as well as traditional language learning. Moreover, these opportunities have developed communication mechanisms that conform to informal, casual and unconstrained conversational patterns of spoken and written English. The difference between the formal classroom setting for language education and the external opportunities that tend to be more informal further complicate the process of learning to communicate effectively to other than a select audience or specific groups of people. The outreach opportunities listed above are growing in use in education and in language teaching in particular, in order to facilitate conversational vocabulary and language development among English Language Learners (ELLs) at all levels who have an ongoing need to acquire knowledge and skills. Engagement in these outreach activities has also significantly enhanced writing and reading accomplishments. The pedagogy and methodology employed to encourage students to confront diverging pathways in language learning and professionally contextual academic accomplishments is transformational and allows students to strengthen their skills and focus on the types of language acquisition strategies that work best for their learning style. This presentation will consider and explore each of the four strategies listed above and analyze the approach, process, facilitation and assessment as English language learners are simultaneously confronted with the challenges associated with communication and language acquisition. Resources and interviews will be included from specialists in each of these strategies. Implications of these emerging opportunities as well as supportive materials and recommendations will be presented.

Keywords: Outreach, English Language Learning, Collaboration, Innovation;