EDUC 567

1. EDUC 567

2. One ELL Student’s Thought “I can say what I want, but not for school work and strangers.” McKay, Davies, Devin, Clayton, Oliver, and Zammit, The Bilingual Interface Project Report

3. BICS vs. CALP • Basic Interpersonal Language Skills (BICS) • Can be acquired in 1 to 2 years • Social Language • Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, (CALP). • Can take 5 to 7 years to develop • Directly related to cognition and many aspects of academic achievement. • Proficiency is needed to read social studies texts or solve mathematics word problems

4. The Two Kinds of Context • Context of Culture • Context of Situation

5. Context of Culture • Encompasses speakers within a culture that share particular assumptions and expectations • Speakers take for granted the ways in which things are done • For example: • How to greet someone • How to order a meal in a restaurant • How to participate in a class • How to write a business letter

6. Context of Situation • The Situation refers to a particular occasion on which the language is being used • One of the most fundamental features of language is that it varies to context of situation • This context is characterized by three features: • What is being talked (or written) about • The relationship between the speakers (or writer and reader) • Whether the language is spoken or written • Halliday and Hasan (1985) refer to these factors as as a register

7. What is a Register? • The three variables that constitute a register: • Field: the topic of the text • Tenor: the relationship between speaker and listener • Mode: the channel of communication

8. Make Meaning Explicit Context CULTURE SITUATION Register Tenor Mode Field Target Solution/s The Value of a Register

9. The Value of a Register • The variables that constitute the register of text help instructors recognize or identify when students are: • Having trouble imparting meaning to text • Making the meaning of the text explicit

10. The Value of a Register Register takes into account the: • Context in which the language is used… • the ability to use language appropriately in varying social and academic contexts • Complexity of language… • The “…extension of a learner’s communicative range”

11. Make Meaning Explicit Context CULTURE SITUATION Register Tenor Mode Field Target Solution/s The Value of a Register

12. Making Meaning Explicit • Look, it’s making them move. Those didn’t stick • We found out the pins stuck on the magnet • Our experiment showed that magnets attract some metals • Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous magnets

13. Scaffolding

14. Scaffolding • A temporary assistance by which a teacher helps a learner knows how to do something, so that the learner will be able to complete a similar task alone. • Scaffolding is future-oriented, as Vygotsky has said: what a child can do with support today, she or he can do alone tomorrow.

15. Scaffolding • There are three types of scaffolding that can be used effectively with English Language Learners • Verbal scaffolding – the use of prompting, questioning, and elaboration • Paraphrasing • Using “think-alouds” • Reinforcing contextual definitions

16. Scaffolding Model: Teach, Model, Practice, Apply Apply Practice Teach Model Making Content Comprehensible, pg 87 Scaffolding – cont. • Procedural scaffolding • Using an instructional framework • One-on-one teaching, coaching, and modeling • Small group instruction with children practicing a newly learned strategy with another more experienced student

17. Scaffolding – cont. • Instructional scaffolding • For example: The use of graphic organizers • Can be used as a pre-reading tool to prepare students for the content of a textbook chapter • Can be used to illustrate chapter’s structure, such as comparative or chronological

18. Scaffolding Suggests that educators should reflect on the nature of the scaffolding that is being provided for the learners to carry out tasks. Scaffolding in terms of English Language and Diverse Learners

19. Scaffolding • Classrooms that integrate language and content and infuses socio-cultural awareness is an excellent place to scaffold instruction for students learning English. • When scaffolding, teachers pay careful attention to students’ capacity for working in English by: • Beginning instruction at the current level of student understanding • Moving students to higher levels of understanding through tailored support

20. Gestures Facial Expressions Props Incrementally adjusting instructional tasks Videos Manipulatives Controlled vocabulary Controlled sentence length and complexity Restatement Paraphrasing Repetition Slower speech rate Demonstrations/simulations Graphic organizers Music/rhymes/chants Evaluate and ask questions during activity Short, concise directions; one step at a time Word bank Dictionaries High interest/low level nonfiction Scaffolding Techniques

21. Scaffolding Examples Source: http://www.huntington.edu/education/lessonplanning/Bruner.html

22. Classroom Talk

23. Classroom Talk and ELL’s • The degree of success for ELLs in the classroom depends largely on how classroom discourse is constructed. • Effective classroom discourse must be planned and set up. • Effective methods for accomplishing classroom talk are group or paired work activities.

24. Group Work

25. Group Work and ELL’s Group work benefits ELL’s in three way: • 1. Learners: • Hear more language • Hear a greater variety of language • Have more language directed toward them • Bottom line is…group-work situations increase the input to the learner

26. Group Work and ELL’s Group work benefits ELL’s in three way: • 2. Learners: • Interact more with other speakers; therefore…outputis increased • Tend to take more turns (in absence of the teacher) • Have more responsibility for clarifying their own meanings • Basically…it is the learners themselves who are doing the language learning work

27. Group Work and ELL’s Group work benefits ELL’s in three way: • 3. Learners: • Hear and learn contextualized information • Hear language in an appropriate context • Use language in a meaningful way for a particular purpose

28. Group Work and ELL’s – Cont. • Group work produces message redundancy • Similar ideas will be expressed in a variety of different ways. • Examples of message redundancy are: • Asking questions • Exchanging information • Solving problems (in different ways)

29. Benefits of Message Redundancy • Provide a context where words are repeated, ideas are rephrased, problems are restated, and meanings are refined. • Supports comprehension, because it gives learners several opportunities to hear a similar idea expressed in a number of ways. • Learners who may not be confident in English may feel more comfortable working with peers than in front of a whole class.

30. The Role of Active Listening and Observation in Group Work (Refer to handout) • Provides teachers the opportunity to focus on: • Behaviors that signal interest and/or involvement • Listening to non-verbal messages • Recognizing students’ bid for attention “When someone turns away from a bid, the bidder loses confidence and self-esteem. In our observation studies, we see how people almost seem to “crumple” when their partners turn away. The bidders don’t get puffed up with anger; they get indignant; they just seem to fold in on themselves.” John Gottman (2001) The Relationship Cure

31. Benefits of #1: Clear and Explicit Instructions • A single instruction may be more effective and not cause a problem for learners • Instructions that involve a number of sequenced steps are often more difficult • If this is true, why would message redundancy be an important concept to use in providing complex instructions?

32. The Use of Talk in Completing a Task A group task should require, not simply encourage, talk… • Why are the benefits of requiring talk important in a small group learning activity? • How can you design a group activity that effectively requires talk? • Let’s give it a try…again…