Teaching Young Emergent Bilinguals Got a Bit More Challenging

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that building bridges between home and school benefits students' development. With online teaching, this translates into informal conversations before class starts or at the end of class as a teacher waits for a virtual classroom to fill up or empty out. Much of teaching language learners relies on fostering relationships with students. The ability to build those relationships can be compromised by the challenges of remote learning. When schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers were struggling with questions about how to deliver lessons and engage second language learners online. This article highlights one teacher's experiences and offers some advice based on those experiences and the literature.