








































Article 
 

 

Dr. Alexandra J. Reyes, Assistant Professor, Department of Middle Grades and Secondary Education, 
Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA; email areyes@georgiasouthern.edu. 

Dr. Alisa Leckie, Associate Professor, Department of Middle Grades and Secondary Education, Georgia 
Southern University, Statesboro, GA; email aleckie@georgiasouthern.edu. 

Dr. Alma D. Stevenson, Professor, Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading, Georgia 
Southern University, Statesboro, GA; email almastevenson@georgiasouthern.edu. 
 

Building on What We Know: Best 
Practices for Engaging Emergent 
Bilinguals in Learning 

GATESOL Journal 
2022, Vol. 32(1), pp. 51–59 

doi:10.52242/gatesol.157 
ISSN: 2331-6845 

 

 

Alexandra J. Reyes 
Georgia Southern University 
 
Alisa Leckie 
Georgia Southern University 
 
Alma D. Stevenson 
Georgia Southern University 

 
Abstract 
The purpose of this article is to describe best practices for engaging emergent bilingual 
students in learning. As more educators across the state of Georgia are working with emergent 
bilingual students, we have identified several strategies and structures that are recognized as 
being effective for all students and highlight ways to modify those classroom practices to 
benefit students who are learning English as an additional language. We describe ways to 
make language visible (anchor charts, word walls, sentence frames, and sentence stems), as 
well as effective practices for readers’ workshop. We also recognize that family engagement 
is critical to student success and provide strategies to enhance school-family connections 
among culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. 
 
Keywords 
teaching strategies, emergent bilinguals, readers’ workshop, family engagement 

 
Introduction 
Throughout this article we use the terms English learner and emergent bilingual interchangeably. 
While we recognize the term English learner is more commonly in use across the state, we also 
use the term emergent bilingual to recognize the linguistic assets of students who are learning 
English as an additional language in schools (García, 2009). Both terms are imprecise as English 
learner positions students only as students who are learning English without recognizing the rich 
language knowledge students bring to the classroom, and emergent bilingual indicates students are 
in the process of learning a second language when English could in fact be a third or fourth 
language. For us, both terms indicate students of a variety of English proficiency levels who use a 
language other than English at home. The strategies and structures presented in this article will 
help students learn English and also build on the linguistic and conceptual knowledge they learned 
prior to beginning school in the United States. 

mailto:areyes@georgiasouthern.edu
mailto:aleckie@georgiasouthern.edu
mailto:almastevenson@georgiasouthern.edu


52 GATESOL Journal 32(1)  
 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2021), about 10% of all 
public school students are considered English learners. These approximately five million students 
reside primarily in urban areas, but numbers in rural areas are on the rise (NCES, 2021). Although 
more than 75% of English learners across the country speak Spanish, there are more than 40 
different languages spoken by students and their families. Georgia mirrors national statistics with 
about 8% of public school students receiving ESOL program services (Sugarman & Geary, 2018). 
Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Arabic are the most common languages spoken by students in 
Georgia with 78% speaking Spanish (Owens, 2020). 

The number of English learners has been rapidly increasing over the past decade with a 
61% increase between 2011 and 2019 alone (Owens, 2020; Sugarman & Geary, 2018). This creates 
a challenge for Georgia educators and administrators, as most educators working with English 
learners and their families have not had adequate education or professional development to be 
effective with this population (Greenberg et al., 2015). Many districts and teachers are scrambling 
to incorporate best practices to help their emergent bilingual learners to succeed. 

The purpose of this article is to highlight ways to expand on what are widely considered as 
best practices for all students (i.e., anchor charts, sentence starters, word walls, and Reader’s 
Workshop) to bolster the academic success of English learners. Additionally, we augment these 
classroom practices with best practices for engaging families and communities in the educational 
process, further promoting positive outcomes for these students. 
 
Background & Context: The Authors 
We are three Georgia teacher educators with vastly different experiences working with emergent 
bilingual students. Our backgrounds span teaching elementary, middle grades, and high school 
students both in and beyond the traditional classroom setting. We have each taught for over ten 
years and in multiple content areas. Our collective expertise is enriched by our individual 
experiences as educators in Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. In addition 
to the diverse geographic, demographic, and political contexts of our work, we have taught 
emergent bilinguals across language development models. For example, we have taught in ESOL, 
pull-out, push-in, sheltered instruction, bilingual education, dual language, and heritage language 
programs. 

Regardless of context or instructional model, our experiences have shown three strategies 
to be beneficial for emergent bilingual students: making language visual and visible, using reader’s 
workshop, and connecting with families and communities. When utilized in tandem, these 
practices facilitate student success and enhance school/family/community connections. While we 
do provide research and best practice citations throughout, we primarily draw on our experiences 
working with emergent bilingual students in varied and multiple contexts to discuss these 
practices. We agree that the guidance below will positively impact the academic achievement of 
English learners in the classroom, as well as the broader educational context. 
 
Making Language and Concepts Visual and Visible 
Emergent bilinguals benefit from learning in an environment that is both language and image rich. 
Anchor charts, interactive vocabulary walls with pictures, and sentence frames are three strategies 
that support all students and can be enhanced to further support emergent bilinguals (Gibson, 
2016). These are three commonly used techniques that can be leveraged to provide access to 
content concepts and facilitate academic language development. The sections below provide a 



Reyes, Leckie, & Stevenson 53 
 

brief overview of each strategy and then offer opportunities for enhancing those strategies for the 
success of emergent bilingual students. 
 
Anchor Charts 
Anchor charts are tools used to support instruction, or “anchor” learning. They are typically created 
as a class so that both the teacher’s and students’ thinking about a concept are made visible. While 
teachers will want to prepare the framework for the anchor chart ahead of time, when students help 
with the co-construction, that chart is more relevant and meaningful, particularly for emergent 
bilinguals (Bacchioni & Kurstedt, 2019). In addition to collaboratively constructing anchor charts, 
there are several ways that they can be more relevant for English learners. Consider using a 
different color for important vocabulary terms and adding illustrations to make some of the text 
more comprehensible. The use of color helps emergent bilinguals differentiate between key terms 
and descriptors, and helps students identify key terms easily. Adding visual support with images, 
sketches, and examples provides English learners access to content concepts. While the student 
may not know the word for the concept in English, they might know the concept based on prior 
experiences. Presenting a visual helps an emergent bilingual make connections between known 
concepts and the English word for that concept. 

We fully realize that many educators at the elementary level take full advantage of anchor 
charts, and we advocate for their use in middle and high schools as well. While the terms and 
illustrations may change, the support they offer will not only facilitate the academic success of 
immigrant students at the secondary level; they will also support those students who struggle with 
the academic language of school. 
 
Word Walls 
Word walls are commonplace in many classrooms. They are typically made up of several 
individual words written on sentence strips and posted in a given location in the classroom. While 
having vocabulary words posted and visible to students at all times is certainly better than not 
having them posted at all, without regularly engaging students with the Word Wall and/or 
providing other supports to help students access and apply the terms, the impact of a Word Wall 
is lessened. Here are two ways to augment the impact of Word Walls: 1) adding images and/or 
examples, and 2) designing classroom activities that require students to access the Word Wall or 
allow them to access the Word Wall for support (Jackson et al., 2017). 

When images or examples are added to Word Walls, they provide the context needed for 
emergent bilinguals to access content concepts. Often examples are provided orally during direct 
instruction and class discussions, and emergent bilinguals miss out on the benefit of the example 
because they do not know the English words for the illustration. Consider words used in describing 
the water cycle (e.g., evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and sublimation). Adding a visual 
to represent each process will facilitate comprehension and provide clues to support use of the 
word wall in class activities and discussions. 

Even if Word Walls feature images alongside key terms, if students are not guided in the 
use of Word Walls as learning tools, the existence of a Word Wall will have a limited, if any, 
impact on student learning and language development. It is important for teachers to design 
activities that require students to use words from the Word Wall. These activities do not need to 
be long or complex. For example, a prompt for an exit ticket could state, “Use four words from 
our Word Wall to describe two ideas from today’s lesson.” Or, after a Think-Pair-Share activity, 
partners could be required to include words from the Word Wall in their response or explanation. 



54 GATESOL Journal 32(1)  
 

Regularly integrating Word Wall activities, makes the Word Wall interactive, provides additional 
practice in the use of content terms, and reminds students that the Word Wall is there as a resource 
for them. 
 
Incorporating Sentence Stems and Sentence Frames 
Sentence frames and sentence starters help emergent bilingual students develop a deeper 
understanding of the syntax and discourse structure of academic English (Donnelly & Roe, 2010). 
It also supports their use of terms regularly used to express concepts and ideas such as similar to, 
different from, leads to, and results in. As students begin to incorporate these phrasal verbs into 
their writing, they will also begin to recognize them as they engage with classroom texts. These 
terms often signal text structure, and a student’s recognition of a text’s structure leads to improved 
comprehension. Further, using sentence frames to support English learners during writing or 
discussion activities helps support both their quality of writing and quality of thought (Lee, 2018). 

Sentence frames can also be used to support students’ understanding of content concepts. 
For example, building off of the terms for the water cycle above, a series of sentence frames could 
include: Precipitation is similar to condensation because they both __________. Precipitation is 
different from condensation because precipitation __________, whereas condensation 
__________. These sentence frames facilitate higher order thinking that will help move students 
beyond defining and identifying. They also enable emergent bilinguals to demonstrate their 
understanding of the concepts while lightening the linguistic load. Further, as students engage with 
increasingly complex texts, it is important to provide students scaffolded opportunities to 
comprehend and produce academic texts. 
 
Using Readers’ Workshops 
It is imperative to provide emergent bilingual students with opportunities to read, write, listen, and 
speak to develop both their language skills and content knowledge. Many strategies help emergent 
bilinguals to acquire English while advancing their reading comprehension and writing skills. 
Among these strategies, we believe the most effective are modified readers’ workshop approaches 
that incorporate interactive read alouds and guided reading. 
 
Interactive Read Alouds and Guided Reading 
Although the components of the reader’s workshop model are beneficial for all students (Atwell, 
2014), they are particularly helpful for emergent bilinguals. These instructional strategies include 
teachers modeling their thinking and developing purposeful questions, students verbalizing their 
thoughts through open discussions and looking for evidence to support their ideas and 
understanding, and small group instruction to individualize the students’ learning. These elements 
assist emergent bilinguals to advance their English language proficiency while developing their 
reading comprehension skills. 
 
Interactive Read Alouds 
Reader’s workshop emphasizes the importance of teaching a reading skill or a literary concept as 
part of the process. One of the best ways to do it is through interactive read alouds using mentor 
texts that model the skill or concept. When choosing a mentor text, we recommend looking for a 
book that fits the specific instructional purpose while being culturally relevant and engaging 
(Ladson-Billings, 1995). This is important because students are more motivated when they relate 
to a story based on their own experiences and home culture. We also recommend asking students 



Reyes, Leckie, & Stevenson 55 
 

about their preferences and interests to match these with the academic concepts to be taught. This 
way, learning can be more meaningful and relevant for emergent bilinguals, and thus, their 
language skills and concept knowledge can continue developing. 

Further, before you start to read, make sure you are prepared with an initial set of open-
ended questions regarding the targeted skill or literary concept; these questions will generate 
relevant interconnected questions from the students’ perspectives. The teacher’s modeling of open-
ended questions will enable students to learn how to formulate relevant questions, which in turn 
will assist them to become independent learners. While reading aloud, we recommend clearly 
enunciating statements, paraphrasing as necessary teachers’ questions and responses to the 
students’ questions, and using gestures and images to contextualize words. 

Once the interactive read-aloud mini-lesson of 7 to 15 minutes is finished, students will be 
provided with a space where they can practice the skill or analyze the concept, preferably in pairs. 
During this time, the teacher will provide a couple of guiding questions, and students will discuss 
their understanding of the skill or concept with their partners, look for evidence to support their 
ideas in their chosen books, and write in their reading journals. 
 
Guided Reading 
One of the strengths of this structure is that it allows for teachers to work with small groups of 
students while the rest of the class works in pairs or independently. During guided reading (Fountas 
& Pinnell, 2012, 2016) it is essential to implement a short (15 to 20 minute), well-structured lesson 
that targets a skill or concept. The small group format provides students with a safe and 
unthreatening way to practice vocabulary words, orally discuss the chosen leveled book, and 
develop their critical thinking skills. Intentional formation of small groups is essential for the 
success of guided reading. Teachers can organize students into groups based on their reading level, 
need to work on a specific skill, or their English proficiency level. Using leveled texts allows the 
teacher to work with small groups of students at a level that promotes learning and supports student 
success. 

After finishing the guided reading groups, move back to whole class instruction and open 
a discussion by asking students to share their findings regarding the guiding questions and target 
skill or concept. This final activity will offer students opportunities to learn from each other and 
to advance their oral language skills. Taken together, this process will provide emergent bilinguals 
with several opportunities to learn a skill or concept, practice their vocabulary, and advance their 
discursive and oral language skills. Thus, it is important to plan for well-structured lessons with 
purposeful strategies to help emergent bilinguals advance their English language skills and concept 
knowledge. 
 
Connecting with Families and Communities 
While specialized instruction is crucial for academic success for emergent bilingual students, it is 
not always enough. As educators, we know what research shows: students and schools benefit 
from parental/family involvement (Epstein & Sanders, 2000). Student from culturally and 
linguistically minoritized backgrounds (e.g., students of color, emergent bilinguals, and those from 
immigrant families), as well as students living in poverty, historically have lower rates of 
traditional parental involvement than students from middle-class, English-speaking, majority 
backgrounds (Andrews, 2013; Marschall et al., 2012; Palomin, 2020; Zarate, 2007). Knowing that, 
it can be difficult to determine how best to get parents and families involved in school activities 
and academics. First, it is important to determine what positive family engagement should look 



56 GATESOL Journal 32(1)  
 

like in your specific teaching context. Next, potential barriers to that ideal engagement need to be 
identified. Finally, we need to find appropriate ways to overcome these barriers to maximize 
accessibility for families to engage with school. Here, we present some real-life examples of ways 
we have successfully fostered family-school engagement. 
 
Positive Family Engagement 
Positive family engagement can vary widely, depending on numerous sociocultural factors. We 
use the term family engagement because it more accurately reflects the range of family 
participation in school-related activities than parental involvement, which ignores the diverse 
composition of families and connotes a limited view of participation (i.e., participation in in-school 
activities). Teachers need to make sure they are familiar with their students’ backgrounds so that 
they have appropriate expectations for family engagement. For example, many Latino families 
view the family’s role as a supportive one and leave the teaching to the school. This is not a sign 
of disengagement or disinterest, but a sign of respect; because the teacher knows what the student’s 
academic needs are, the family’s responsibility is to support the child through providing advice, 
encouragement, and care. Meaningful engagement may be in the form of regular contact with 
teachers, participation in extracurricular activities, or even sending the student to school with a 
good lunch. We must recognize that our students’ families may view engagement differently, and 
we should adjust our expectations accordingly. 
 
Identify Potential Barriers to Engagement 
It is important to identify potential barriers to engagement. For example, if your school has a large 
percentage of working families, it may not be feasible to expect parents to volunteer in the 
classroom during the day. Other common obstacles to engagement with schools and activities 
include language barriers, communication difficulties, childcare needs, transportation issues, 
scheduling conflicts, cultural unfamiliarity, and not feeling welcome. Understanding the individual 
family situations of your students will allow you to design school engagement opportunities with 
accessibility in mind. 
 
Maximize Accessibility 
Maximize accessibility for family-school engagement opportunities. On average, families with 
lower income and less formal education tend to have lower rates of school involvement than those 
with higher-incomes and more formal schooling. Research (and experience), however, has 
demonstrated that schools that successfully carry out family partnership programs increase 
involvement of families with lower incomes and less formal education (Epstein & Sanders, 2000; 
Goldsmith, & Kurpius, 2018). Additionally, teachers’ family engagement practices are equally or 
even more important than family background factors when determining family engagement with 
school (Epstein & Sanders, 2000). This means that with the right approach, teachers and schools 
can increase family engagement, thereby improving student outcomes. After determining what 
positive engagement could reasonably look like, and identifying potential barriers, we must create 
paths for families to participate in students’ schooling. 
 
Accessibility Increases Engagement 
Accessibility is an important way to increase parent engagement, and this can be achieved through 
careful planning and partnerships with students. I used to teach a study skills and college 
preparation elective course at a diverse Title I high school. In my classes, every combination of 



Reyes, Leckie, & Stevenson 57 
 

historically marginalized identity (e.g., low-income, single-parent home, immigrant, emergent 
bilingual, ethnic/racial minoritized, undocumented status, etc.) was represented. Despite false 
dominant discourses about parents from marginalized and/or under-resourced communities not 
caring about their students’ education, my teaching colleagues and I were able to get nearly 100% 
participation in our annual Family Night. We accomplished this through careful planning and 
partnership with the students. We considered possible obstacles to participation and eliminated as 
many as we could. We also involved the students in the planning and execution of the event, which 
provided another layer of incentive for the families to attend. 

There were many ways we increased accessibility for our parents. We began by creating 
an evening event, increasing the likelihood that those with 9–5 jobs could attend. Recognizing that 
the event would conflict with dinner time, we provided food at the event. Students made invitations 
by hand in their home languages for their parents/guardians. These were supplemented with phone 
calls and email reminders from our team teachers. To address language and childcare barriers, 
students acted as interpreters, and one teacher supervised a childcare room. As transportation is 
also a barrier, carpools were arranged, and contact information was exchanged. Finally, students 
developed presentations for the night which enhanced parent motivation to attend. On invitations, 
we clearly indicated that food, student presentations, interpreters, childcare, and transportation 
would be provided so families knew what to expect. These supports also let parents know that their 
participation was important, and they felt genuinely welcomed. 

Our program’s Family Nights were the highlight of each year and helped create 
relationships between the students, their families, and the school that went beyond talking about 
grades or behavior. The positive impact of these events endured throughout their schooling. By 
keeping students’ and families’ needs in mind, we were able to successfully design meaningful 
opportunities for students, families, and teachers to interact. This built trust and opened 
communication, as well as encouraged pride in the students. While it may not be feasible to 
incorporate all the above elements into every event, this example provides a glimpse into the vast 
possibilities for deepening family engagement throughout the year, regardless of school context, 
grade level, or family background. 
 
Conclusion 
The number of emergent bilingual students across the state of Georgia is increasing and more 
educators are working with students who are learning English as an additional language. The 
purpose of this article was to highlight best practices that many educators are currently using and 
describe the positive outcomes their use can have in developing language and literacy among 
emergent bilinguals. While teacher education programs and school systems are working to provide 
the training and professional development needed to support linguistically diverse students, we 
feel it is important to remind educators of the effective strategies and structures they may already 
have in their “teaching toolbox”. Sometimes, making small changes to instructional practice can 
make a big difference in providing English learners access to content concepts, developing 
language and literacy skills, and engaging families and communities. 
 
References 
 
Andrews, M. (2013). Capitalizing on Mexican parents’ cultural models of parental involvement 

from their children’s perspectives. Linguistics and Education, 24(4), 497–510. 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2013.06.004 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2013.06.004


58 GATESOL Journal 32(1)  
 

Atwell, N. (2014). In the middle: A lifetime of learning about writing, reading, and adolescents 
(3rd ed.). Heinemann. https://www.heinemann.com/products/e02813.aspx 

Bacchioni, S., & Kurstedt, R. L. (2019). Personalized anchor charts: Bridging small‐group work 
to independence. The Reading Teacher, 72(5), 652–658. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1772 

Donnelly, W. B., & Roe, C. J. (2010). Using sentence frames to develop academic vocabulary for 
English learners. The Reading Teacher, 64(2), 131–136. https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.64.2.5 

Epstein, J. L., & Sanders, M. G. (2000). Connecting home, school, and community: New directions 
for social research. In M. T. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 
285–306). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36424-2_13 

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2016). The Fountas & Pinnell literacy continuum, expanded 
edition: A tool for assessment, planning, and teaching, PreK–8. Heinemann. https://www. 
heinemann.com/products/e06078.aspx 

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2012). Guided reading: The romance and the reality. The Reading 
Teacher, 66(4), 268–284. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01123 

García, O. (2009). Emergent bilinguals and TESOL: What’s in a name? TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 
322–326. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00172.x 

Gibson, C. (2016). Bridging English language learner achievement gaps through effective 
vocabulary development strategies. English Language Teaching, 9(9), 134–138. 
https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n9p134 

Goldsmith, J. S., & Kurpius, S. E. R. (2018). Fostering the academic success of their children: 
Voices of Mexican immigrant parents. Journal of Educational Research, 111(5), 564–573. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2017.1323717 

Greenberg, J., Walsh, K., & McKee, A. (2015). 2014 teacher prep review: A review of the nation’s 
teacher preparation programs. National Council on Teacher Quality. https://www.nctq. 
org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2014_Report 

Jackson, J., Wise, E., Zurbuchen, K., & Gardner, N. (2017). Interactive word walls: Visual 
scaffolds that transform vocabulary instruction. Science Scope, 40(9), 72–79. http://www. 
jstor.org/stable/26389169 

Ladson‐Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant 
pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/0040584950954 
3675 

Lee, S. (2018). Scaffolding evidence‐based writing for English learners in three steps. The Reading 
Teacher, 72(1), 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1712 

Marschall, M. J., Shah, P. R., & Donato, K. (2012), Parent involvement policy in established and 
new immigrant destinations. Social Science Quarterly, 93(1), 130–151. https://doi.org/ 
10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00833.x 

National Center for Education Statistics. (NCES). (2021, May). English language learners in 
public schools. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgf 

Owens, S. (2020, November 16). English learners deserve more: An analysis of Georgia’s 
education for speakers of other languages. Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. https:// 
gbpi.org/english-learners-deserve-more-an-analysis-of-georgias-education-for-speakers-
of-other-languages/ 

Palomin, L. (2020). The missing piece in higher education: Latina/o/x parent involvement in the 
pre-college preparation process from the South Texas border region. International Journal 
of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(8), 887–897. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398. 
2020.1783468 

https://www.heinemann.com/products/e02813.aspx
https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1772
https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.64.2.5
https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36424-2_13
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e06078.aspx
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e06078.aspx
https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01123
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00172.x
https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n9p134
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2017.1323717
https://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2014_Report
https://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2014_Report
http://www.jstor.org/stable/26389169
http://www.jstor.org/stable/26389169
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543675
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543675
https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1712
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00833.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00833.x
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgf
https://gbpi.org/english-learners-deserve-more-an-analysis-of-georgias-education-for-speakers-of-other-languages/
https://gbpi.org/english-learners-deserve-more-an-analysis-of-georgias-education-for-speakers-of-other-languages/
https://gbpi.org/english-learners-deserve-more-an-analysis-of-georgias-education-for-speakers-of-other-languages/
https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1783468
https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1783468


Reyes, Leckie, & Stevenson 59 
 

 
Sugarman, J., & Geary, C. (2018, August). English learners in Georgia: Demographics, outcomes, 

and states accountability policies. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migration 
policy.org/research/english-learners-demographics-outcomes-state-accountability-
policies 

Zarate, M. E. (2007). Understanding Latino parental involvement in education: Perceptions, 
expectations, and recommendations. The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. https://files.eric. 
ed.gov/fulltext/ED502065.pdf 

 
____________________________________________________________________________ 
 

Received: November 25, 2021 | Accepted: February 14, 2022 | Published: April 18, 2022 

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/english-learners-demographics-outcomes-state-accountability-policies
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/english-learners-demographics-outcomes-state-accountability-policies
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/english-learners-demographics-outcomes-state-accountability-policies
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502065.pdf
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502065.pdf

	GATESOL Journal2022, Vol. 32(1), pp. 51–59
	Building on What We Know: Best Practices for Engaging Emergent Bilinguals in Learning
	doi:10.52242/gatesol.157
	ISSN: 2331-6845

