Learn more about reading theory and strategies (PDF, 197 KB); How does a mainstream elementary classroom teacher with little or no specialized ESL training meet the challenge of teaching linguistically diverse students? Pauline Gibbons suggests how: Integrate the teaching of English with the content areas of the regular curriculum. What's more, she shows how in this practical resource book. Gibbons begins with a strong theoretical underpinning for her practice, drawing on a functional model of language, sociocultural theories of learning, and current research on second-language development. After supporting her view that the regular curriculum offers the best language-learning environment for young ESL students, Gibbons demonstrates the ways in which content areas provide a context for the teaching of English, from speaking and listening to reading and writing. These in turn are treated not as discrete skills, but as ones that can also be integrated in the learning of diverse subjects.