As a rule of thumb, individuals feel comfortable in situations where they feel welcomed and valued, comfortable about taking risks, successful, respected, and free to express their opinions and desires — an environment they feel they belong to. The conditions are not different for language learners. Teachers need to first attempt to lower students' affective filters and create a learning community in the classroom before they can attempt to teach content. How can they do that? Below are some ideas.

• Learn how to pronounce students' names correctly.
• Express a warm, friendly, and caring attitude towards students.
• Value their participation in the learning process, even if it is through nonverbal responses.
• Make instructional accommodations to facilitate SOESOL students' learning.
• Invite parents to become partners in the teaching of their children.
• Incorporate aspects of the each child's culture into the curriculum.
• Learn about each student's native culture and a few utterances in his/her native language.
• Create an inclusive learning community in the classroom.
• Use a variety of instructional strategies to meet the diverse needs and learning styles of the students.
• Establish equal eye contact with all students.
• Provide opportunities for equal classroom participation for all students.
• Vary group composition so that students can work with all students in the learning community.
• Periodically change the physical arrangement of the classroom to emphasize different student-student interactive patterns.
• Maintain open channels of communication with students.
• Attempt to make home visits to have a more holistic view of the learner.
• Make the school community aware of some unique characteristics of the students' cultures through bulletin boards or other resources.
• Make suggestions for bilingual materials that can be added to the school library.
• Share the success and progress of second language learners with the school community.
• Adopt a multicultural teaching approach.
• View diversity as an asset for learning and not an obstacle.

The video "Starting Points: I Don't Know Where To Start" is a good reference for teachers attempting to help second language learners assimilate into the target culture.