Toward a Functional ESL Curriculum in the Elementary School

A functional ESL curriculum in the elementary school should provide children with the language functions and notions needed to study school subjects in English. For language minority children in the United States, a functional ESL curriculum must go beyond the threshold level of social communicative skills and provide instruction and development in the cognitive and academic language skills needed in the classroom. A language learning model based on cognitive developmental stages is discussed, and types of ESL learning activities corresponding to the different levels of the model are identified. Guidelines for developing an ESL curriculum that is congruent with the regular elementary school curriculum are proposed, and a process for setting up a scope and sequence of English language functions and skills in content areas is described. Finally, needs for further research in ESL curriculum development are suggested.