Critical knowledge and skills is needed for teachers to best help ESOL students in the mainstream classroom. Prior knowledge or background is important for teachers to help these students. Every teacher need to be able to learn skills such as first and second language acquisition. The understanding of normal and natural development is important to help students transition while learning a new language. Supporting first language while the second is being developed is something teachers need to learn to do. This video stresses the fact that you only need to learn to read once therefore when there is an understanding between the spoken language and print, a major skill has been mastered. Teachers need to know how to access student’s prior knowledge
