[RELO] Effective Literacy Strategies for English Language Learners.Cullerton.dec10

Editor's Notes

• #2 In addition to our webinar, I have posted a poll, which should be visible throughout the webinar. I will stop and ask you a question once or twice during this webinar as well, so please be ready to respond to the question. Furthermore, if you have questions or comments at any point in the webinar, please write them and I should be able to see them and respond
• #3 Define and Discuss the themes of: Come up with different strategies you can use to support language learners in each area
• #4 When discussing the Literacy development; BIG pic literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening) it’s important to understand the factors that directly effect development. Once we understand these factors, we can then see what works (in terms of interventions and strategies) and why? These factors include: ‘Position on the path to literacy’, Do they read? Have they been in school a long time? What is the quality of their education? How is their writing? Motivation: Why are they here? What is the personal incentive to succeed? Work, school, travel? Bi-national center? Think about how the mission of your program shapes your lesson planning and student objectives. Vocabulary: prior ed. background-where are they starting? Do they know a lot of casual words, but struggle with pronunciation? Do they have academic vocabulary? Do they read well but refuse to speak? Context: Private School? Scholarship Program? What is the mission of this context and how is that then reflected in the teaching?
• #5  Values: Teacher Talk, Student Talk? Meaning Lies in the Text? Meaning lies in Experience? How do we speak? What do we have to say? What is the role of class discussion? As an educator, it’s important to be able to answer these questions, so take a second and try to think about it. For example, do you use class discussion to assess their pronunciation, or to get them talking, or to build their confidence in the language? Or do your reasons for discourse change often? If they do, which is pretty normal, do you think about how your daily objectives meet the changes in discourse?
• #6 One of the ways classroom teachers create access to content learning for their ELLs is by modifying their speech to provide a greater amount of “comprehensible input” (Krashen, 1985). Modifying speed, complexity, and syntax is done provides oral language that is comprehensible to the learners. Discourse adaptations supportive of student achievement include: 1. Frontally facing learners while giving directions, rather than doing so with their back towards the class; 2. Using the same words and phrases repeatedly rather than using a variety of expressions; 3. Employing gestures and intonation to convey key concepts or words; 4. Writing the words or using visual supports to oral speech; 5. Paraphrasing or restating student statements.
• #7 They are the supports we use to build, we remove them as needed.
• #8 Teachers of all children employ scaffolding techniques in the classroom as a routine matter of good practice, but particular techniques are essential to support ELLs. Scaffolding practices activate students’ background knowledge, engage them in the learning through pairing and grouping, and initiate independent work only after a model or guide has been provided. These practices have been linked to student learning, and may include: 1. Activating schema prior to engaging in a task; 2. Use of think-pair-share or turn-and- talk structures to build in oral language use and processing time on tasks; 3. Use of “I do-we do-you do” modeling or demonstrations prior to student work period; 4. Provision of key words, pictures, or sentence frames to support student work; 5. Summarizing or reviewing key learning points or principles.
• #10 CULTURE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING GO HAND IN HAND: In many language classes, teachers are asked to be ambassadors of culture and provide intercultural exchange in addition to teaching language. This is a great responsibility and it’s important to be mindful of how culture is portrayed in the classroom. Understanding group practices as well as individual student variations; Use of textbooks, bulletin boards, and classroom materials that avoid stereotypical representations; Being aware of linguistic and cultural bias in testing instruments; Providing opportunities to develop reading skills by selecting stories that will be culturally proximal to the learner; Recognition that bilingual students use both languages to learn.
• #11 I WOULD LIKE TO OPEN THIS UP TO DICUSSION: THINK ABOUT THE DISCOURSE IN YOUR CLASS and RESPOND ON THIS WEBINAR. I’ll give you about 30 seconds to write something up quickly. How does looking at what teachers choose NOT to include in a classroom say just as much about their values about what they choose to include?
• #12 When the reading material is unmodified, the ELA teacher may still offer support to ELLs by (1) providing an enlarged text that is read aloud, thus supporting left-right directionality, and a model for how these words are pronounced; (2) setting up structures for paired-reading with a fluent reader; or (3) providing audiotaped versions of text (Drucker, 2003).
• #13 Debate? Express? Repeat? Pronounce? Summarize? Formal? Informal? Conversational?
• #14 students must also express their learning will be through high-level academic discussions and written essays and products, which also are linguistically demanding. In the productive skills of speaking and writing, ELA teachers can support ELLs’ language development by: 1. Providing response formats appropriate to the learners’ oral proficiency levels, such as yes/no, either/or, short answer, or extended response; 2. Preparing them for participating in class discussions by pre-assigning roles, scripts, questions, or set phrases; 3. Responding to journal writing with more direct feedback regarding word choice and grammar errors; 4. Supporting emerging writers with techniques like the Language Experience approach, which allow the learners to express their ideas orally with a scribe recording their speech; 5. Maintaining individualized vocabulary notebooks, where ELLs can attend to high-frequency academic words they will likely encounter across the curriculum.
• #16 It needs to be stated that these differentiated tasks should be manageable and achieved through small adaptations, or they will become too daunting and time-consuming for teachers.
• #17 Again, I wanted to leave a lot of time open for interaction, which I believe is one of the easiest ways to learn and influence practice. I’d like to hear from you now. Think about what we’ve been discussing and determine at least ONE strategy that you can implement into your classroom.