Effective Teaching in a multilangual program

I thought it was interesting that most of the teachers in the program spoke Spanish and they translate the message in Spanish.  Mostly though, it seemed as though she grouped the children with kids that spoke the same language as them.  After that, many visual aids to get her point across seemed to be effective.  By showing the children as she speaks, and then going through the motions of the project helps the children to better understand what she is talking about.  All of her classes are placed in groups so that they will talk more to one another.  The longer they are in the groups the better they get at speaking English.  When new students come in that do not speak any English she pairs them up with some of her more advanced students to help them to get accustomed to the class. This helps the advanced students to get a sense of accomplishment as they are now becoming a teacher themselves while helping the teacher out.
Pairing students up having them to write out the math problems and then talk to each other helps the students to learn the spoken forms of math.  This can be a difficult task as well, as they have to learn how to pronounce the numbers and the symbols.
Talking about other heritages in class helps the students to better understand that everyone is related in some way.  Again, the teacher uses visual aids.  The problem is the fact that the students do not have any background knowledge of America, so it makes teaching these students a little more difficult. American Indians is not thought of from children from other countries. Having the students act out things without words helps to make sure that the students understand what was recently read.
Bringing in the students cultures to help bring about the students knowledge as well.  This helps the students realize that the knowledge they came to America with is not useless. Also, it seems to shine a light on that student to where they are teaching the other students about their place of birth, while learning about many other cultures at the same time.  This helps to teach about many different cultures while discussing one culture.
Vocabulary is very important for ELL students.  While reading the teacher can stop and discuss even a simple work such as creek.  It is like a short mini lesson that happens while the main lesson is going on at the same time.  This also helps the students to build their vocabulary and learn new words.  I like the fact that the teacher stops and explains the word, as well as, she brings up other words that are similar that may have been discussed in other lessons. This seems to make sure their is a total understanding of the new word that has been introduced to the class.