Differentiation Strategies for Level 3 ELL Students

Differentiation Strategies for Level 3 ELL Students Katie Kern and Vicki Reed

Meet Toua and Aung http://hsdesl.wiki.hempfieldsd.org/WL+ED+483#Meet%20Toua%20and%20Aung Student Descriptors https://moodle.hempfieldsd.org/file.php/187/Total_Participation_Technique.m4v As you watch the video- identify the student descriptors, reading, writing, speaking and listening skills

Level 3 Student Descriptors • Generally possess a strong foundation of social language and continue to broaden and deepen academic language • Benefit from sensory support • Can speak and write using increasingly complex sentence structures • Errors may inhibit communication

Listening • Can grasp some main ideas of increasingly complex communication • Rely on sensory supports in order to better comprehend details

Speaking • Can generate simple sentences and often attempt higher forms of complexity • May inhibit understanding • Continue to develop vocabulary and grammar related to concrete and abstract ideas

Speaking continued... • Extensive ability to communicate socially, teachers could be fooled into thinking they are fully proficient and thus prematurely cease differentiation strategies • Lack of scaffolding and explicit and informed instruction may result in lifelong Level 3 inhabitants • An increasing phenomenon

Reading • Can make sense of simple text and attempt to construe meaning from increasingly complex writing • Still benefit from sensory support to solidify understanding • Critical that teachers are fully knowledgable about students' social and academic backgrounds • Biographical profiles • Cumulative folders • Can you think of ways to ensure you are fully knowledgable about your students?

Writing • Can generate various types of writing with increasing complexity • Writing development tends to mirror speaking development • Prone to making errors that obscure meaning • Vocabulary and sentence structure are gaining sophistication across a range of abstract and concrete topics

Necessary Assignment/Assessment Strategies for Level 3 Students • Large-scale standardized assessment tools and classroom-based assessment tools designed for native speakers are likely inappropriate for Level 3 ELLs • Scores a clouded by (under-developed) language proficiency • Create innovative assessments sensitive to linguistic and cultural realities

In General • Create and use assignments/assessments that allow students to demonstrate content knowledge, skills, and abilities without language mastery • Technology • Students generate sensory depictions of understanding • Powerpoint • Podcast • Consider allowing students to complete assessment procedures under the guidance of a bilingual teacher/paraeducator • Continue to need much needed support • More clarification, extensive explanation • Individually or small-group setting

In General continued... • Consider weighting graded components according to student' linguistic strengths • ELLs have a wealth of background knowledge • Emphasize the positive • Can you think of ways to emphasize the importance of students' background knowledge? • Teachers must advocate access to curriculum • Advanced courses • Decide what is being graded • Advocate content mastery rather than English language mastery

In General continued... • Make the assignment/assessment process comprehensible by explaining directions orally and providing visual support (realia, icons, manipulatives, modeling, and models • Make sure students understand how to complete the assessment procedure • Teachers could familiarize students with ow to answer specific types of test items by modeling

In General continued... • Simultaneously assess content and language development (e.g. through summarizing, story retelling, questioning and responding, analyzing, evaluating • Teachers routinely assess non-ELLs' vocabulary development in the content areas • At this level, ELLs are ready to participate in this kind of assessment, though only through differentiation • Ensure linguistic demands of assessments for Level 3 students' current abilities • ELLS are not on grade level in terms of vocabulary development • They have moved beyond only general academic vocabulary and are capable of using more specific and precise vocabulary • This vocab is "fair game" during assessment (possibly use word bank)

Listening and Speaking • Test orally using and expecting more precise and specific content vocabulary and increasingly complex grammatical structures • Language should reflect sentence-level frames and models used during instruction • Capable of learning and using content specific vocabulary

Reading • Use high-quality, age-appropriate, lower-reading-level materials that provide extensive visual support, expecting comprehension of increasingly complex sentence- and paragraph-leve text • Scaffolding: use visually supported lower-reading-level materials is a necessity • Can contribute to increased comprehension • Grade-level reading materials should not be used for Level 3 assessment purposes • Find these materials at public libraries, school libraries, area education agencies, publishers

Reading continued... • Test orally using and expecting more precise and specific content vocabulary and increasingly complex grammatical structures • Maintain high expectations, closely matched with student descriptors on chart to ensure progress • Must be explicit in instruction and insistent on the production of both content/academic vocabulary and increasingly complex grammatical structures during assessment • Provide ELLs with opportunity to showcase highest extent of their content knowledge, skills, and abilities

Reading continued... • When traditional paper and pencil tests must be used, employ simplified English and visual support (e.g. clip art, graphs) • Level 3 students cannot effectively demonstrate their content knowledge, skills, and abilities on tests that require full proficiency in grade-level English • Range of Level 3 proficiency extremely broad • Provide support from the beginning to the end of Level 3

Writing • Elicit writing of increasingly complex sentence structures using a developing range of content/academic vocabulary • Recommend teachers frame their prompts using language that students are certain to comprehend (comparable to the simplified English) • Comprehension of the assessment prompt should not be part of what is assessed; rather, students should be assessing the written response to the prompt • When traditional paper and pencil tests must be used, employ simplified English and visual support (e.g. clip art, graphs) • Applies to tests of reading and tests of writing

Staff Development http://tinyurl.com/7ymj2a5

Websites for Pictures • http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ss_rLDyRQCk/R3OsGASMS-I/AAAAAAAAFQM/Zl6Csj-P1gU/s400/children_globe_00.jpg • http://www.differentiatedresources.com/images/children.jpg • http://esl.beaufort.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/announcement/-2597568.JPG • http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l32g9b-KiV0/TgpTCLhKgyI/AAAAAAAAALQ/jy0o3JNhfEw/s1600/conversation.png • http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/assets/images/buttons/students-needs2.jpg • http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1435&bih=779&tbm=isch&tbnid=7yOgqkoTd2Rz_M:&imgrefurl=http://studentunitypower.org/going-to-graduate-school-as-an-esl-student.html&docid=osn4JNlqRavHLM&imgurl=http://www.swau.edu/uploads/pics/ESL_with_Flags_in_classroom.jpg&w=550&h=382&ei=jvZHT6H9PKLs0gHKyvCtDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=941&vpy=161&dur=319&hovh=187&hovw=269&tx=128&ty=80&sig=117940668895625615102&page=1&tbnh=150&tbnw=198&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0 • http://blogs.scholastic.com/.a/6a00e54faaf86b8833011168ee8508970c-800wi • http://ingles-personalizado.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/cimg1137.186211811.jpg • http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/6/10/1276180152769/Students-learning-English-006.jpg • http://blog.mingoville.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/french-kids-learn-english2.jpg

Differentiation Strategies for Level 3 ELL Students