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Activating and BUILDING BACKGROUND. SIOP: Ensuring that English Language Learners have access to subject-area work. SIOP Defined: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyqUHWV0XuU.
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Activating and BUILDING BACKGROUND SIOP: Ensuring that English Language Learners have access to subject-area work.
Tony slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong but he thought he could break it. He knew, however, that his timing would have to be perfect. Tony was aware that it was because of his early roughness that he had been penalized so severely—much too severely from his point of view. The situation was becoming frustrating: the pressure had been grinding on him for too long. He was being ridden unmercifully. Tony was getting angry now. He felt he was ready to make his move. He knew that his success or failure would depend on what he did in the next few seconds. • From Anderson, Schallert, and Goetz (1977) Example: What is the main idea of this passage?
When adequate background knowledge is developed, material is better understood and retained. • ELs are not necessarily lacking in schema, they lack schema within the American academic system. • Some have not developed academic schema; others have developed it from a different perspective. Essential Understandings
Developing an ELL – Friendly Lesson Plan What does “develop background” mean? What are the specific instructional actions you should include?
Increase student background knowledge before teaching a unit • Encourage ELLs to make connections between what they already know and new material. • Embed new learning in a meaningful context (ELLs “care”) • Connect learning to real life. SIOP Elements for Backgrounding
STEPS IN THE BACKGROUND BUILDING PROCESS • Students need to retrieve the knowledge they have • You need to assess what they know about the topic • You need to fill in the gaps of knowledge • You need to tie your new “inputted” knowledge with what they already know. • Focus on meaning is forgotten in ELLs • When ELLs are struggling to decode language, they may forget to make sense of the message; They may need to evoke the correct schema to understand Issues: Schema with ELL Learners
Unit Plan for an English Language Learner Cluster Class: An Example Mr. Ramos
Mr. Ramos – Marine Life in the Caribbean • Phase One: Finding Out What is Known • In collaborative groups, students brainstormed their own experiences with ocean life. Teacher debriefed and copied down the generated info on transparency. • Mr. Ramos typed up experiences and distributed to class the next day. • Mr. Ramos introduced vocab. With theme words. • Phase Two: Building More Background • Mr. Ramos showed a National Geo movie on marine life in the Caribbean. Students took notes and shared what they learned. • The teacher and students read a book together about marine life. • Mr. Ramos took them to an aquarium where the students did a scavenger hunt for Caribbean sea life. Instructional Example (from Echevarria and Graves)
Phase Three: Practice and Expand Background (optional) • Students chose one sea animal to research (at library… notes on cards), to draw, to map. • Students wrote a short written report. • Students did a PowerPoint about their animal for presentation to the class.
PHASE ONE PHASE TWO / THREE • Awaken the knowledge that the students possess. • Ask students to organize that knowledge. • Find out what students do NOT know. • Provide knowledge. • Provide words to describe the knowledge. • Provide experiences that deepen the knowledge and develop schema.
Determine What Your Students know and don’t know…. • Simply, before you begin a new topic, find out what the students already know. You do this for two reasons: • Do the students already know quite a bit about the topic and so you just need to review and fill in the gaps? • Have the students never been exposed to this topic before and thus will have very little schema and very little or no prior background knowledge? In that case, you will need to start from the very beginning of the topic. • Is there a mixed schema class? Do some of your students know quite a bit and some know very little or nothing at all? Providing Background Knowledge
Simple brainstorm • KWL Chart • Questions: Thumbs up / Thumbs down • Graphic organizer fill-ins • Journal about topic • Draw and label • Post-It Notes in answer to blackboard questions • White (response) boards Strategies for Finding Out What is Not Known
Assessing and building background • Ask students to fill out a spider map or Concept Definition Map prior to teaching—take a quick look and assess their background
Work with a partner: choose one of the strategies for assessing background knowledge. • Each partner will assess the other partner’s background using one of the strategies. (Each must use a different strategy.) • When finished, discuss what an ELL is likely to know? Practice: Cinderella…What is known?
Use media or visuals to introduce new concepts • (films, photos, realia, picture from picture dictionaries, labeled scenes, etc.)
Teacher or student-taken photographs • Old textbooks or line drawings from workbooks • Illustrations from children’s books • Videos of all kinds (Your own and commercial) • Picture dictionaries (ex. Oxford) • Commercial image books • Magazines and catalogues • DIGITAL /NEW MEDIA NARRATIVES • Realia!! Of all kinds • OTHERS?? Visual Input
Plate Photos: Dinner with an American Family
Audacity audio files of vocab words and definitions • Audio files of content, teacher made • Audio commercial podcasts • TV show assignments • Phone messages • Skype interviews • Audio files of real Americans in conversation • Audio files of vocabulary lists with commentary • Audio / Visual Media Formats such as digital stories Auditory Input
Print Input: Generally easier text on same topic • Parallel material from the internet, below grade textbook or ESL book prior to assigned grade level reading. Knowledge Input
TEXT ADAPTATIONS • Highlighted text • Taped text • Rewritten/adapted text • Native language texts or annotations • READING STRATEGY TRAINING • Marginal notes • Sticky note annotations Strategies for helping ELs to understand content text
Activity: 10 minutes • Go over the excellent Teaching Scenario of Ms. Chen. • Make a list of all of the lesson preparation / lesson adaptations she does and makes to help her ELLs understand the material. SIOP p. 31, Ms. Chen
“Jump starts” are short small-group mini-lessons that precede the regular whole class lesson. • In the Jump Start group, the teacher • Reviews necessary background concepts • Introduces vocabulary • Does a “text-walk” through the material to be read • Engages in simulations or hands-on activities • Builds language skills For Content Teachers: Jump Starts
