Understanding communicative needs of ELLs

We are fortunate enough to have enough staff per student to have the one on one time needed to establish and act on the needs of our students. We plan lessons based on both real world needs and testing needs. I think we would serve our students even better by taking them out into the community and helping them with both their understanding and communication with the world they live in. In addition real world objects such as forms and menus would serve them well for activities in class. We have implemented guest speakers from a local bank and are looking forward to bringing in a local law enforcement officer to ease them into a comfortable standing with someone in our community that they will someday need to communicate with without fear.