SOLO Taxonomy and English Language Learners

Many classroom teachers will tell you that immersing English language learners in a student-centred English medium classroom, with its everyday richness and opportunities for collaboration, develops their conversational fluency within a year. Although this outcome is gratifying, conversational fluency can mask the lack of academic language proficiency that is vital to future achievement and academic success. SOLO Taxonomy and English Language Learners centres directly on that all-important task of developing students’ academic language skills in both their first language and English.

Ages: 5-18 years

SOLO Taxonomy and English Language Learners

About the Authors

Picture of Pam Hook

Pam Hook

Pam Hook is an educational consultant who advises schools and institutions in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the Pacific Islands on developing curricula and pedagogies for learning to learn based on SOLO Taxonomy. She is a popular keynote speaker at conferences. Pam is author of more than 25 books on SOLO Taxonomy, including titles translated into Danish, and has developed a series of SOLO web-based apps, Apple iPad apps and YouTube videos. She hosts collaborative online communities for SOLO practitioners on Twitter @arti_choke @globalsolo and Pinterest www.pinterest.nz/solotaxonomy.
Picture of Sonya Van Schaijik

Sonya Van Schaijik

Sonya Van Schaijik is an experienced teacher from Auckland, New Zealand, whose teaching and thinking are underpinned by SOLO Taxonomy and recorded in her blog (www.sonyavanschaijik.com). She is tattooed with the Samoan woman’s malu, is a bilingual learner who speaks Samoan fluently, and has trained in effective pedagogies for bilingual education and ESOL. At Newmarket Primary School, she has responsibility for the integration of technology into teaching and learning programmes in ways that maximise student learning outcomes. Her considerable experience in building and leading e-learning communities for teachers and students includes introducing and coordinating TeachMeetNZ, which promotes conversations on effective pedagogies (including ESOL), being actively involved in the Flat Connections Global Project, leading groups of teachers on Connected Educator and as an across school leader for the Auckland Central Community of Schools, ACCoS Kahui Ako. She was a recipient of an e-fellowship with CORE Education Ltd in 2011 and TeachNZ fellowship in 2013. In 2016 she passed HSK level 1 and completed her TPDL certificate. In 2017 she was a recipient of the China Scholarship Programme to Beijing.