What is "Lines of Communication?"
For this strategy, students are asked to either sit or stand facing one another in a line, such that every student has a partner they are facing. The objective is to respond to a language prompt using a language response sentence frame- hence practicing the grammatical form and/or topical vocabulary being targeted. Once both students get a chance to practice/ respond, one side of the line shifts over one student, such that every student on one side of the line now faces a new student. The cycle then repeats with Student A responding while Student B listens, switch, then Student A moves on to the next student.
Variations and Uses
Once students become more adept at using this strategy, one student can ask the language prompt while the other responds using a language frame. This is particularly powerful if used during the Supervised Independent Practice time of an ELD lesson, as it allows English Learners to practice both language prompts and responses, and allow them to increase their confidence in both skills. After more practice as a class you can generate more examples of the target grammatical form that they can use to expand the type of responses they can provide.
I hope these different structured language practices are starting to illustrate an important aspect of good ELD instruction: No matter how amazing ELD teachers we may be, we don't need to practice producing grammatical forms and target vocabulary, it is our students who need it! So why then do so many teachers talk the entire time?!! In ELD, at least 50% of the block should be devoted to these type of structured language practices that will, over time and with consistent use, help us develop English Speakers who are competent, flexible and have a wide breadth of vocabulary and grammatical forms they can employ in a variety of situations.
Have fun!
- W
About Me
- Weezy
- I am an extrovert by nature and an introspect when necessary. I enjoy life and do not take it for granted. My passion is to help educators become more effective at what they do, not only through changing practices, but changing assumptions about the students they teach- particularly, students of color, Standard English Leaners, English Language learners and all others who have been systematically denied access to core curriculum and subjugated to low expectations.
29 September 2009
28 September 2009
Structured Language Routine III: Whip Around
My apologies
Please forgive the many days since the last entry. As you can well imagine, and am sure, experiencing yourself, there is so much to do at school now that the school year is well under way. Now, multiply that by half a dozen schools and you'll get a sense of what I am faced with every day.
But hey, I'm back. And with yet another Structured Language Practice to share, the "Whip Around."
What is the "Whip Around?"
This is a strategy in which the teacher elicits responses to a prompt in a quick but structured manner. By quick, this means about no more than 10-15 seconds for one response to the teacher's prompt. By structured, it means that there is a predictable established pattern to the order of the responses, so that students know when they will expected to produce language. For example, up and down a row of desks, clockwise around a table, etc.
When is it appropriate to use?
This is a type of structured language practice that does require the teacher to supervise both the process and the resulting product. Generally speaking, this is a good strategy to help students produce all they know about a particular topic, or have learned about a particular topic. As part of the Evaluation/ Reflection portion of an ELD Lesson (which we have not yet discussed) , it lends itself as a quick and efficient way for the teacher to check in on whether or not her English Learners internalized the topical vocabulary introduced in the ELD lesson for the day.
However, it is also possible to use during the Guided Practice portion of the ELD lesson if students are asked to produce a grammatical feature that they know well, or have had practice with. This can be a great way to review/ practice a language response using the topical vocabulary learned (of course with the language prompt written out on sentence strip and pictures to accompany the vocabulary as a reference).
It all depends on the purpose.
There are plenty more to explore, but I'll probably just share a couple more, as there is much more to discuss in the world of English Learners. I mean, we haven't even started discussing the world beyond instruction, like ELACs and DELACs and waivers, etc.
We'll get there soon enough.
- W
Please forgive the many days since the last entry. As you can well imagine, and am sure, experiencing yourself, there is so much to do at school now that the school year is well under way. Now, multiply that by half a dozen schools and you'll get a sense of what I am faced with every day.
But hey, I'm back. And with yet another Structured Language Practice to share, the "Whip Around."
What is the "Whip Around?"
This is a strategy in which the teacher elicits responses to a prompt in a quick but structured manner. By quick, this means about no more than 10-15 seconds for one response to the teacher's prompt. By structured, it means that there is a predictable established pattern to the order of the responses, so that students know when they will expected to produce language. For example, up and down a row of desks, clockwise around a table, etc.
When is it appropriate to use?
This is a type of structured language practice that does require the teacher to supervise both the process and the resulting product. Generally speaking, this is a good strategy to help students produce all they know about a particular topic, or have learned about a particular topic. As part of the Evaluation/ Reflection portion of an ELD Lesson (which we have not yet discussed) , it lends itself as a quick and efficient way for the teacher to check in on whether or not her English Learners internalized the topical vocabulary introduced in the ELD lesson for the day.
However, it is also possible to use during the Guided Practice portion of the ELD lesson if students are asked to produce a grammatical feature that they know well, or have had practice with. This can be a great way to review/ practice a language response using the topical vocabulary learned (of course with the language prompt written out on sentence strip and pictures to accompany the vocabulary as a reference).
It all depends on the purpose.
There are plenty more to explore, but I'll probably just share a couple more, as there is much more to discuss in the world of English Learners. I mean, we haven't even started discussing the world beyond instruction, like ELACs and DELACs and waivers, etc.
We'll get there soon enough.
- W
22 September 2009
Structured Language Routine II: Talking Stick
What is the "Talking Stick?"
This refers to either the strategy or the actual "prop" that is used as part of this language strategy. Essentially, it can be as simple as a popsicle stick, as commercial as a plastic microphone or as creative as a personally created crafty decorated stick.
What does the Structured Language Practice look like?
Essentially, students respond to a prompt by taking turns in a structured way. Only one student at a time is allowed to speak/respond to a prompt/ produce a grammatical form-language response; the holder of the "talking stick." Other students should be active listeners, either ensuring the student who talks is producing a particular grammatical form, using a particular language response frame or simply attending to the content of the response.
When is it appropriate to use?
As this is best for use with a small group, it lends itself to be used during Supervised Independent Time, when English Learners are practicing the language response frames with the appropriate grammatical forms and/or topical vocabulary under study. However, it is a very versatile strategy and can also be used as a process activity, e.g. reflecting upon learning, sharing out, building community, etc.
I hope these strategies feel easy enough and applicable enough to be able to use in your own classrooms.
More to come!
- W
This refers to either the strategy or the actual "prop" that is used as part of this language strategy. Essentially, it can be as simple as a popsicle stick, as commercial as a plastic microphone or as creative as a personally created crafty decorated stick.
What does the Structured Language Practice look like?
Essentially, students respond to a prompt by taking turns in a structured way. Only one student at a time is allowed to speak/respond to a prompt/ produce a grammatical form-language response; the holder of the "talking stick." Other students should be active listeners, either ensuring the student who talks is producing a particular grammatical form, using a particular language response frame or simply attending to the content of the response.
When is it appropriate to use?
As this is best for use with a small group, it lends itself to be used during Supervised Independent Time, when English Learners are practicing the language response frames with the appropriate grammatical forms and/or topical vocabulary under study. However, it is a very versatile strategy and can also be used as a process activity, e.g. reflecting upon learning, sharing out, building community, etc.
I hope these strategies feel easy enough and applicable enough to be able to use in your own classrooms.
More to come!
- W
21 September 2009
Structured Language Routine I: Choral Response
What is choral response?
Choral response (after the think-pair-share) is one of the most commonly used response practices used by teachers. It simply involves students responding to a teacher's prompt in unison/ as a group. In most cases, the teacher and students agree upon a signal that will inform students that this is the appropriate response to a prompt. This is especially useful when a savvy ELD instructor has developed/implemented a wide repertoire of practices!
How do I implement?
In general, the best thing you can do to implement a new routine is to do so in the context of practicing something students already know. (Remember what I've been saying all along about either introducing new grammatical forms or topical vocabulary or a new routine, practice, etc.) In this case, we want our English Learners to focus their attention on learning the structured language practice routine.
What's the goal?
Well, the short term-goal with these practices is for students to internalize the routine to the point that through the use of a signal or the term itself (e.g., "let's use a choral response") they will be able to, in this case, chorally respond using the target grammatical form.
Of course, our long-term ultimate goal is for our students to gain fluency, automaticity and confidence in using a variety of grammatical forms during at least 50% of ELD instructional time. These routines will facilitate this goal.
However...not all are appropriate at all times of ELD instruction. Remember, we have an "I Do It" time (Teacher models), a "We Do it" time or Guided Structured Practice and a "You all Do it" time or Independent Supervised time. It should not be too hard to figure out that the Choral Response strategy is probably best suited for the "I Do It" time.
We will continue exploring more practices over the next few days!
- W
Choral response (after the think-pair-share) is one of the most commonly used response practices used by teachers. It simply involves students responding to a teacher's prompt in unison/ as a group. In most cases, the teacher and students agree upon a signal that will inform students that this is the appropriate response to a prompt. This is especially useful when a savvy ELD instructor has developed/implemented a wide repertoire of practices!
How do I implement?
In general, the best thing you can do to implement a new routine is to do so in the context of practicing something students already know. (Remember what I've been saying all along about either introducing new grammatical forms or topical vocabulary or a new routine, practice, etc.) In this case, we want our English Learners to focus their attention on learning the structured language practice routine.
What's the goal?
Well, the short term-goal with these practices is for students to internalize the routine to the point that through the use of a signal or the term itself (e.g., "let's use a choral response") they will be able to, in this case, chorally respond using the target grammatical form.
Of course, our long-term ultimate goal is for our students to gain fluency, automaticity and confidence in using a variety of grammatical forms during at least 50% of ELD instructional time. These routines will facilitate this goal.
However...not all are appropriate at all times of ELD instruction. Remember, we have an "I Do It" time (Teacher models), a "We Do it" time or Guided Structured Practice and a "You all Do it" time or Independent Supervised time. It should not be too hard to figure out that the Choral Response strategy is probably best suited for the "I Do It" time.
We will continue exploring more practices over the next few days!
- W
16 September 2009
Practicing Language- Daily Routines
Why bother?
So let's back up a bit. Remember the main purpose to ELD, at least the focus in term of language domains? The emphasis for ELD instruction is development of the listening and speaking domains. We know from research that students can not write what they can't speak, so ELD prepares students for their ELA time. (Much like the ELD standards provide the scaffold towards the ELA standards).
This means that ELLs should be speaking during the ELD block. Not just 5 minutes. Not just for one activity. They should be practicing (internalizing) newly acquired grammatical forms during 50% of this block! Yes, 50%. Practice makes automatic, and that after all is what we want our English Learners to be with the English Language and its great variety of grammatical forms and syntax.
So how does this happen?
Routines that are structured, predictable and create situations to engage in the language prompts you produce as part of the lesson in order to produce (speak) the grammatical form that will be part of the language response.
Structured means that they are used for a specific purpose (elicit the utterance of a specific grammatical form) and are selected to fit a particular context. For example, you are probably quite familiar with the Pair-Share protocol. In ELD, one student can ask the language prompt: Which animal is ___________ -er than the ________________? (We are assuming that at the start of this week of lessons, the students learned the topical vocabulary to also fill in the language prompt.) The grammatical form of course is the comparative adjectival. The other student can then respond with The giraffe is taller than the chimpanzee. This is an appropriate routineto use during Guided Structured Practice.
Predictable means that students have practiced these protocols to the point that they can use these in any other content area. They have internalized this routine. In fact, savvy ELD teachers will spend the first days of schools having their students simply practicing these language routines, and thus save valuable time when actual ELD instruction begins.
Great! What other routines are there?
Stay tuned...
- W
So let's back up a bit. Remember the main purpose to ELD, at least the focus in term of language domains? The emphasis for ELD instruction is development of the listening and speaking domains. We know from research that students can not write what they can't speak, so ELD prepares students for their ELA time. (Much like the ELD standards provide the scaffold towards the ELA standards).
This means that ELLs should be speaking during the ELD block. Not just 5 minutes. Not just for one activity. They should be practicing (internalizing) newly acquired grammatical forms during 50% of this block! Yes, 50%. Practice makes automatic, and that after all is what we want our English Learners to be with the English Language and its great variety of grammatical forms and syntax.
So how does this happen?
Routines that are structured, predictable and create situations to engage in the language prompts you produce as part of the lesson in order to produce (speak) the grammatical form that will be part of the language response.
Structured means that they are used for a specific purpose (elicit the utterance of a specific grammatical form) and are selected to fit a particular context. For example, you are probably quite familiar with the Pair-Share protocol. In ELD, one student can ask the language prompt: Which animal is ___________ -er than the ________________? (We are assuming that at the start of this week of lessons, the students learned the topical vocabulary to also fill in the language prompt.) The grammatical form of course is the comparative adjectival. The other student can then respond with The giraffe is taller than the chimpanzee. This is an appropriate routineto use during Guided Structured Practice.
Predictable means that students have practiced these protocols to the point that they can use these in any other content area. They have internalized this routine. In fact, savvy ELD teachers will spend the first days of schools having their students simply practicing these language routines, and thus save valuable time when actual ELD instruction begins.
Great! What other routines are there?
Stay tuned...
- W
15 September 2009
ELD Lessons: Grammatical Forms cont. and a Summary Thus Far
Yes Effective ELD lessons are a big topic. (Which is why there are coaches, specialists and curriculum developers just for this!)
Often times, the classroom teacher feels that they have to be English grammar gurus to be effective ELD teachers. While we don't have to have every nuance of English grammar down pat, but with the tools I've shared, it is even more important to determine the context for your effective ELD lesson. It is also just one component (albeit a very important one) of your ELD lesson plan.
So How Do We Know What Grammatical Form is Right?
Ultimately ensuring a particular grammatical form is what your students need comes down to this:
- Consulting the ELD Standards (Remember that they are written such that they follow a progression towards the ELA standards)
- Getting to know the profile of each Language Proficiency Level (especially in light of the above information)
- Using a tool such as the ELD Matrix of Grammatical Forms in order to make informed decisions about specific forms to teach at each level of proficiency
- Creating appropriate language prompts to allow students to produce, practice and eventually master the grammatical form in appropriate language response frames
- Assuring this occurs within topics that are interesting, meaningful, relevant and age-appropriate (and starting off a week's lesson with the topical vocabulary that will help students "glue on" to the grammatical forms which will be the focus of the bulk of the ELD lessons over the week
- Attempt to increase the level of rigor of the grammatical form if the students seem to be mastering. For example, adding a negative language response frame (e.g. adding "not" to a response)
All this should sound familiar as these are all of the elements of an effective ELD lesson plan that I've been focusing on for most of this month.
The Last Piece
So far I've focused on the what of ELD teaching and a bit of the "how to know the what."
What does remain is to talk about those practices that will allow English Learners to practice newly acquired language forms for a large part of the ELD block. Tomorrow will be a good day to start that conversation. That will also be the last component of an Effective ELD lesson I plan to discuss.
Often times, the classroom teacher feels that they have to be English grammar gurus to be effective ELD teachers. While we don't have to have every nuance of English grammar down pat, but with the tools I've shared, it is even more important to determine the context for your effective ELD lesson. It is also just one component (albeit a very important one) of your ELD lesson plan.
So How Do We Know What Grammatical Form is Right?
Ultimately ensuring a particular grammatical form is what your students need comes down to this:
- Consulting the ELD Standards (Remember that they are written such that they follow a progression towards the ELA standards)
- Getting to know the profile of each Language Proficiency Level (especially in light of the above information)
- Using a tool such as the ELD Matrix of Grammatical Forms in order to make informed decisions about specific forms to teach at each level of proficiency
- Creating appropriate language prompts to allow students to produce, practice and eventually master the grammatical form in appropriate language response frames
- Assuring this occurs within topics that are interesting, meaningful, relevant and age-appropriate (and starting off a week's lesson with the topical vocabulary that will help students "glue on" to the grammatical forms which will be the focus of the bulk of the ELD lessons over the week
- Attempt to increase the level of rigor of the grammatical form if the students seem to be mastering. For example, adding a negative language response frame (e.g. adding "not" to a response)
All this should sound familiar as these are all of the elements of an effective ELD lesson plan that I've been focusing on for most of this month.
The Last Piece
So far I've focused on the what of ELD teaching and a bit of the "how to know the what."
What does remain is to talk about those practices that will allow English Learners to practice newly acquired language forms for a large part of the ELD block. Tomorrow will be a good day to start that conversation. That will also be the last component of an Effective ELD lesson I plan to discuss.
14 September 2009
EEEEK!! Grammatical Forms??? English??!!
That's right. This is where we get technical. On the other hand, this is what makes us as teachers shine. We learn so that others may learn from us!
What is a grammatical form?
So let's remember what this is all about to begin with. Grammatical forms are simply put, the syntax of a language. And what is syntax- it is how words come together in any language in order to create well formed sentences. These words come in different flavors: verbs, adverbs, prepositions, etc. and are what we "fill in the blanks" to convey a message about a noun. For example, The ELD teacher __________ students very ___________.
How do I know what grammatical forms to teach?
This is the toughie. Remember the discussion around proficiency levels? Well, this is very important to consider when deciding upon what grammatical forms to teach. In the past, teachers had to "feel in the dark" or rely upon an extremely solid knowledge of the grammatical forms of the English language, and intuit how they build upon in more and more complex ways.
Well, since 1999, the California Department of Education has adopted ELD standards which are organized by grade span: K - 2, 3 - 5, 6 - 8, 9 - 12 (I have discussed the rationale for this in the past) but also by proficiency level. These are essentially the ELA Standards "scaffolded" up from the "Beginning" proficiency level towards the "Advanced," where the ELD and ELA standards are indistinguishable. Unfortunately, they did not call out grammatical forms very explicitly and so it left many ELD teachers to continue down that dark path, although with a little more light to see...
Nowadays, I know of at least one curriculum- The Carousel of Ideas from Ballard & Tighe that offers teachers a progression of sorts of increasingly more complex grammatical forms according to proficiency level. Unfortunately, many teachers have also (rightly) complained about the lack of rigor they notice in the grammatical forms it exposes ELLs to and the topics they choose for context are not always age appropriate- e.g. teaching about zoo animals to Intermediate ELL students in 5th grade.
The one excellent source that I've seen is the ELD Matrix of Grammatical Forms from EL Achieve. This is part of a tool kit you receive after going through a training on the Systematic ELD Framework. While even they claim it is not an exhaustive limit, nor meant to limit the forms to teach to students at any particular level (you know your students' needs best after all) it is an extremely wonderful guide to what to teach.
Fortunately for you, the Santa Unified School District has done the legwork of creating a correlation between The Carousel of Ideas curriculum and the ELD Matrix. For those of you out there who have never heard of The Carousel of Ideas until today, no worries. Ignore the numbers in parentheses and just focus on the grammatical forms in boldface. On the left you will see the various large categories of grammatical forms: verbs, nouns & articles, etc. By column, you will see the increasing levels of English proficiency. Thus, tracking the verbs for example, you can see a progression. From a focus on (simple) present tense at the Beginning level, to present tense with past perfect by Early Advanced, you should get a sense of how language demands become more complex as ELLs become closer to the goal of achieving fluency and automaticity similar to that of a native speaker of English.
Digest that for a while. And do give credit where credit is due if you plan to share this resource/ tool with colleagues.
And I hope you do!
- W
What is a grammatical form?
So let's remember what this is all about to begin with. Grammatical forms are simply put, the syntax of a language. And what is syntax- it is how words come together in any language in order to create well formed sentences. These words come in different flavors: verbs, adverbs, prepositions, etc. and are what we "fill in the blanks" to convey a message about a noun. For example, The ELD teacher __________ students very ___________.
How do I know what grammatical forms to teach?
This is the toughie. Remember the discussion around proficiency levels? Well, this is very important to consider when deciding upon what grammatical forms to teach. In the past, teachers had to "feel in the dark" or rely upon an extremely solid knowledge of the grammatical forms of the English language, and intuit how they build upon in more and more complex ways.
Well, since 1999, the California Department of Education has adopted ELD standards which are organized by grade span: K - 2, 3 - 5, 6 - 8, 9 - 12 (I have discussed the rationale for this in the past) but also by proficiency level. These are essentially the ELA Standards "scaffolded" up from the "Beginning" proficiency level towards the "Advanced," where the ELD and ELA standards are indistinguishable. Unfortunately, they did not call out grammatical forms very explicitly and so it left many ELD teachers to continue down that dark path, although with a little more light to see...
Nowadays, I know of at least one curriculum- The Carousel of Ideas from Ballard & Tighe that offers teachers a progression of sorts of increasingly more complex grammatical forms according to proficiency level. Unfortunately, many teachers have also (rightly) complained about the lack of rigor they notice in the grammatical forms it exposes ELLs to and the topics they choose for context are not always age appropriate- e.g. teaching about zoo animals to Intermediate ELL students in 5th grade.
The one excellent source that I've seen is the ELD Matrix of Grammatical Forms from EL Achieve. This is part of a tool kit you receive after going through a training on the Systematic ELD Framework. While even they claim it is not an exhaustive limit, nor meant to limit the forms to teach to students at any particular level (you know your students' needs best after all) it is an extremely wonderful guide to what to teach.
Fortunately for you, the Santa Unified School District has done the legwork of creating a correlation between The Carousel of Ideas curriculum and the ELD Matrix. For those of you out there who have never heard of The Carousel of Ideas until today, no worries. Ignore the numbers in parentheses and just focus on the grammatical forms in boldface. On the left you will see the various large categories of grammatical forms: verbs, nouns & articles, etc. By column, you will see the increasing levels of English proficiency. Thus, tracking the verbs for example, you can see a progression. From a focus on (simple) present tense at the Beginning level, to present tense with past perfect by Early Advanced, you should get a sense of how language demands become more complex as ELLs become closer to the goal of achieving fluency and automaticity similar to that of a native speaker of English.
Digest that for a while. And do give credit where credit is due if you plan to share this resource/ tool with colleagues.
And I hope you do!
- W
09 September 2009
A Word on Proficiency Levels of English
So as has become evident by now, ELD is also different from other content areas in that students should be placed in instruction appropriate to their level of English proficiency.
But how do we know what that is?
Assessments
CELDT
- Here in California, the most common source of that information is the CELDT. California English Language Development Test. It is a summative test and non-diagnostic, given at the beginning of every school year. The testing window closes on October 31st.
- It tests students in each of the four domains: reading, writing, listening and speaking. As of this school year, this also includes K and 1st grade students who take the reading and writing as well!
- Each subtest is given a rating from 1 to 5, a 1 being a "Beginner" and a 5, an "Advanced" English Language Learner (in essence, in CA, being a "4" or a "5" on all subtests is part of the criteria for no longer being an English Language Learner- being "reclassified." I've written a little more in depth about each of the proficiency levels, so feel free to dig in the archives and pull up that topic.
- The problem with CELDT is that the scores are pretty stale by the time they are used to place English Learners in appropriate ELD instruction. Remember, they take the test in August (new students to California schools), while everyone else does so in September or October of the previous calendar year. Scores are not received by school districts until late January/ early February. These same scores are used to place students at the beginning of the following school year! Crazy huh
Enter the ADEPT test
- The "A Developmental English Proficiency Test" is being used by some districts now to supplement the CELDT. It is a diagnostic test that is more rigorous than the CELDT. It tests specific grammatical forms and functions of English and expects specific constructions to be used. Having tested students on ADEPT, I can attest to the level of difficulty they encounter. On the other hand, this gives the ELD teacher a wealth of information allowing him/her to see not only the child's overall English proficiency level (that is more immediate and accurate than CELDT) but also the specific grammatical forms and functions the student has yet to master.
We'll have to take on grammatical forms next!
- W
But how do we know what that is?
Assessments
CELDT
- Here in California, the most common source of that information is the CELDT. California English Language Development Test. It is a summative test and non-diagnostic, given at the beginning of every school year. The testing window closes on October 31st.
- It tests students in each of the four domains: reading, writing, listening and speaking. As of this school year, this also includes K and 1st grade students who take the reading and writing as well!
- Each subtest is given a rating from 1 to 5, a 1 being a "Beginner" and a 5, an "Advanced" English Language Learner (in essence, in CA, being a "4" or a "5" on all subtests is part of the criteria for no longer being an English Language Learner- being "reclassified." I've written a little more in depth about each of the proficiency levels, so feel free to dig in the archives and pull up that topic.
- The problem with CELDT is that the scores are pretty stale by the time they are used to place English Learners in appropriate ELD instruction. Remember, they take the test in August (new students to California schools), while everyone else does so in September or October of the previous calendar year. Scores are not received by school districts until late January/ early February. These same scores are used to place students at the beginning of the following school year! Crazy huh
Enter the ADEPT test
- The "A Developmental English Proficiency Test" is being used by some districts now to supplement the CELDT. It is a diagnostic test that is more rigorous than the CELDT. It tests specific grammatical forms and functions of English and expects specific constructions to be used. Having tested students on ADEPT, I can attest to the level of difficulty they encounter. On the other hand, this gives the ELD teacher a wealth of information allowing him/her to see not only the child's overall English proficiency level (that is more immediate and accurate than CELDT) but also the specific grammatical forms and functions the student has yet to master.
We'll have to take on grammatical forms next!
- W
08 September 2009
ELD Lessons: Topic Vocabulary
Nothing like a 3 day weekend to break the rut. But, it's back to work for all. I think by now, practically ALL teachers have started their school years, greeted by Mr. Obama's message to our students, one and all.
In that spirit of positive thinking, let's continue our conversation on the ELD lesson. But um, let's do a light topic today. I need to slowly get back into things here (because I had to dive head on back at work!)
The Purpose to Vocabulary
Why even bother to focus on topic vocabulary? Well, for starters, ELD instruction, like any other content instruction, does not occur in a vacuum. Much like in language arts for example, introducing topic vocabulary in the context of an instructional read aloud, with visuals and many examples our students begin to internalize the vocabulary and improve upon the target skill- e.g. reading comprehension.
However, here's the all important difference: In ELD instruction, content is not the emphasis, language is the driver. In other content areas, content is the target while language is a vehicle towards acquiring the content. The "content" of ELD is language (forms, functions and topical vocabulary)! Crystal clear right??!!
In any case, topics should be engaging, relevant, meaningful and age-appropriate. Certainly teaching the forms, functions and vocabulary without a context would not make kids want to learn at all! So topics make learning the grammatical forms and language functions more interesting!
Just remember, what drives an effective ELD lesson is the language function you are looking to teach, but the variety of topics you use allow students to employ one language function in a variety of settings and contexts!
Hope this makes some sense...it has been a few days since last posting. Get some sleep everyone!
- W
In that spirit of positive thinking, let's continue our conversation on the ELD lesson. But um, let's do a light topic today. I need to slowly get back into things here (because I had to dive head on back at work!)
The Purpose to Vocabulary
Why even bother to focus on topic vocabulary? Well, for starters, ELD instruction, like any other content instruction, does not occur in a vacuum. Much like in language arts for example, introducing topic vocabulary in the context of an instructional read aloud, with visuals and many examples our students begin to internalize the vocabulary and improve upon the target skill- e.g. reading comprehension.
However, here's the all important difference: In ELD instruction, content is not the emphasis, language is the driver. In other content areas, content is the target while language is a vehicle towards acquiring the content. The "content" of ELD is language (forms, functions and topical vocabulary)! Crystal clear right??!!
In any case, topics should be engaging, relevant, meaningful and age-appropriate. Certainly teaching the forms, functions and vocabulary without a context would not make kids want to learn at all! So topics make learning the grammatical forms and language functions more interesting!
Just remember, what drives an effective ELD lesson is the language function you are looking to teach, but the variety of topics you use allow students to employ one language function in a variety of settings and contexts!
Hope this makes some sense...it has been a few days since last posting. Get some sleep everyone!
- W
02 September 2009
ELD Lessons: Watch the Language!
Everything should follow from the language objective, especially the language patterns you will be using in order for students to engage in a particular language function (purpose for using the language). They come in two varieties:
1. The language prompt
2. The language response
The language prompt
The language prompt is basically a question. Why a question? Because that is the best way to elicit a response from students! Of course, it has to be a prompt such that when students "fill in the blanks," they will also be using the topic vocabulary being introduced in the first part of the week- which is why it is just as important to introduce/practice topic vocabulary at the beginning, before teaching a new grammatical form, or language pattern.
So, returning to the language objective of "students will compare two objects using the grammatical form ______-er, " a reasonable prompt for a week's lesson on the topic of animals, could be "Which ________ is _________-er?"
The language response
It is easy to predict an appropriate language response here. Basically, a language response is what students will be producing. When they "fill in the blank(s)," the emphasis should be on the grammatical form, although they must use topical vocabulary to convey their idea. This is why the language response is the last in the sequence to be introduced after: topic vocabulary, grammatical form and language prompt.
An appropriate response frame here could be: The _________ is __________-er than the __________.
As the days progress, you can increase the level of rigor by doing any of the following variations:
- adding another animal: The ________ and _________ are __________-er than the ___________.
- inserting a negative: The ___________ is not __________-er than the ____________.
- etc.
This is useful as students internalize more basic forms. Just remember, it all goes back to the language students are producing. Make sure it is in line with your objective!
- W
1. The language prompt
2. The language response
The language prompt
The language prompt is basically a question. Why a question? Because that is the best way to elicit a response from students! Of course, it has to be a prompt such that when students "fill in the blanks," they will also be using the topic vocabulary being introduced in the first part of the week- which is why it is just as important to introduce/practice topic vocabulary at the beginning, before teaching a new grammatical form, or language pattern.
So, returning to the language objective of "students will compare two objects using the grammatical form ______-er, " a reasonable prompt for a week's lesson on the topic of animals, could be "Which ________ is _________-er?"
The language response
It is easy to predict an appropriate language response here. Basically, a language response is what students will be producing. When they "fill in the blank(s)," the emphasis should be on the grammatical form, although they must use topical vocabulary to convey their idea. This is why the language response is the last in the sequence to be introduced after: topic vocabulary, grammatical form and language prompt.
An appropriate response frame here could be: The _________ is __________-er than the __________.
As the days progress, you can increase the level of rigor by doing any of the following variations:
- adding another animal: The ________ and _________ are __________-er than the ___________.
- inserting a negative: The ___________ is not __________-er than the ____________.
- etc.
This is useful as students internalize more basic forms. Just remember, it all goes back to the language students are producing. Make sure it is in line with your objective!
- W
01 September 2009
ELD Lessons: The Language Objective- Pt 2
Your target: Mastery of specific language functions
Remember what a language function is? Basically, it is a purpose for using language, such as greeting people, simple describing, comparing and contrasting and describing events that occurred in the not too distant past are all examples of language functions.
So what does the language objective have to do with this? Well, for starters, the daily language objective should be a language function, expressing a grammatical form that students will need to employ (and master) in order to (also) master the language objective, or language function.
The tricky part is that sometimes there are language functions that are quite all encompassing, like when we say "describing events." Well, we could be simply describing events that are currently happening. That would require the use of the present tense grammatical form. A typical language pattern in which this would fit would be My ______ likes to _____. (For example, "My dog likes to roll in the mud." However, you may also need to describe events that happened a few days ago, in which case you would need to employ the past tense: My dog already ______ his _______. My dog already ate his dinner," for example.
As you can see, we have to help our English Learners build not only their repertoire of grammatical forms, but also be able to employ appropriate ones in increasingly more complex aspects of language functions (in this case, it could be the same function!).
Backwards planning
Which is why sometimes its good to start with your nice target for the end of the week, and work your way back. So, for example, if your students did have to employ the simple past tense by week's end, then perhaps we'd work backwards by introducing appropriate vocabulary on the first day (say we're describing our classroom pet's behavior, we'd learn some useful vocabulary that we would be describing eventually). We would practice rabbit, eats, sleeps, frolics, etc. We could then build up to the past tense on a different day by introducing the past tense grammatical form for the verbs we came up with. Then, we could introduce the language pattern that we will be using: Our ____ already ______ his/her/its _______. Our students would eventually fulfill the language objective- as long as they can do this independently.
It is easy to see why it is important to know our students' level of English proficiency, why it is even more important to ensure our students are grouped by English proficiency level during the ELD block: we need to ensure the language functions/ objectives are appropriately challenging. OF course, we also need to accommodate for students' age as well- 5th graders are not fond of describing their classroom pet bunny for 45 minutes!
Finally, it is also important to mention the most important fact of all: you know your students' needs best. If they need more practice with the language pattern, give it to them. If they've already mastered it, ratchet the cognitive challenge by adding an element: perhaps making a compound sentence Our ____ already ______ his/her/its _______ and ________ his/her/its ___________.
Remember, practice makes proficient!
Hope its been useful to focus slowly on the first building block of the ELD lesson.
- W
Remember what a language function is? Basically, it is a purpose for using language, such as greeting people, simple describing, comparing and contrasting and describing events that occurred in the not too distant past are all examples of language functions.
So what does the language objective have to do with this? Well, for starters, the daily language objective should be a language function, expressing a grammatical form that students will need to employ (and master) in order to (also) master the language objective, or language function.
The tricky part is that sometimes there are language functions that are quite all encompassing, like when we say "describing events." Well, we could be simply describing events that are currently happening. That would require the use of the present tense grammatical form. A typical language pattern in which this would fit would be My ______ likes to _____. (For example, "My dog likes to roll in the mud." However, you may also need to describe events that happened a few days ago, in which case you would need to employ the past tense: My dog already ______ his _______. My dog already ate his dinner," for example.
As you can see, we have to help our English Learners build not only their repertoire of grammatical forms, but also be able to employ appropriate ones in increasingly more complex aspects of language functions (in this case, it could be the same function!).
Backwards planning
Which is why sometimes its good to start with your nice target for the end of the week, and work your way back. So, for example, if your students did have to employ the simple past tense by week's end, then perhaps we'd work backwards by introducing appropriate vocabulary on the first day (say we're describing our classroom pet's behavior, we'd learn some useful vocabulary that we would be describing eventually). We would practice rabbit, eats, sleeps, frolics, etc. We could then build up to the past tense on a different day by introducing the past tense grammatical form for the verbs we came up with. Then, we could introduce the language pattern that we will be using: Our ____ already ______ his/her/its _______. Our students would eventually fulfill the language objective- as long as they can do this independently.
It is easy to see why it is important to know our students' level of English proficiency, why it is even more important to ensure our students are grouped by English proficiency level during the ELD block: we need to ensure the language functions/ objectives are appropriately challenging. OF course, we also need to accommodate for students' age as well- 5th graders are not fond of describing their classroom pet bunny for 45 minutes!
Finally, it is also important to mention the most important fact of all: you know your students' needs best. If they need more practice with the language pattern, give it to them. If they've already mastered it, ratchet the cognitive challenge by adding an element: perhaps making a compound sentence Our ____ already ______ his/her/its _______ and ________ his/her/its ___________.
Remember, practice makes proficient!
Hope its been useful to focus slowly on the first building block of the ELD lesson.
- W
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