Rigor for beginning English language learners? Absolutely!
Recently I signed up for a professional development project focused on infusing rigor into ESL instruction. Knowing the 21st century challenges that my beginning adult English language learners (ELLs) face and their language proficiency level, I was quite skeptical about the idea. However, I was delighted to discover that adding rigor doesn’t have to be difficult for the student or for the teacher. It also doesn’t require a lot of extra work, and the payoffs are spectacular.