Strategies to facilitate and enhance ELLs’ peer-interactions in the classroom

1. Strategies to facilitate and enhance ELLs’ peer-interactions in the classroom Include handouts in teacher manual Gorman, B.K. (2014)

2. Opening Group Brainstorm • What promotes ELLs’ language development in the classroom? • With whom is it more beneficial for children to communicate and why? • With whom is it easier for ELLs to communicate and why?

3. Communicative Interactions • With the teacher or teaching assistant • Large group interactions • Small group interactions • Individual 1:1 interactions • Without the teacher or teaching assistant • Peer Interactions

4. Peer Interactions • Not limited to where the teacher is • Children learn by listening to and interacting with each other.

5. Listening and Learning • Children learn not only from speech directed to them, but also from observing/listening in on others • (Crago, 1992; Forrester, 1988; Rogoff, Paradise, Mejia-Arauz, Correa-Chavez, & Angelillo, 2003; Saffran, Newport, Aslin, Tunick, & Barrueco, 1997)

6. Listening and Learning • Research showed that that 2-year-olds were equally good at learning novel words that they overheard as those that were directly addressed to them. • (Akhtar, Jipson, & Callanan, 2001)

7. Enhancing Peer Interactions • However, merely putting ELLs with other children is insufficient • ELLs may have more difficulty interacting with peers due to their English proficiency.

8. Additional Variables • What other factors may influence the interactions ELLs have with their peers?

9. Enhancing Peer Interactions • Part of high quality early education involves lesson planning for and monitoring of the environment to promote enriching experiences in multiple areas of the classroom simultaneously.

10. Planning to support peer interactions Include handouts in teacher manual

11. Pre-Planning Analysis • Where do you see the ELLs in your classrooms play? • Block center • Water and sand table • Library • Art center • Dramatic play center • Computer center • Others

12. Pre-Planning Analysis • How do these particular children play? • What type of play? • Parallel play • beside each other, not necessarily interactive • Associative play • shared materials • Cooperative play • Interactive play, planning, assigning roles

13. Brainstorming • Imagine that you are hosting an event, and you are inviting a mix of family, friends, and co-workers. • How do you encourage interactions, so that guests mingle and no one is excluded?

14. Planning • Increasing the likelihood of positive interactions • Enabling context/environment • Strategic groupings • Activities • Teacher support

15. Enabling context/environment • Some locations within classrooms are more suitable for sustained communicative interactions than others • Why? • Consider arranging the physical and social environments to increase opportunities for peer interactions

16. Strategic Grouping • Think of a particular ELL in your classroom. • With whom it is difficult/easier for the child to communicate? • How many peers in a center is optimal?

17. Activities • In which interactive activities is the ELL student most interested? • e.g., exploring, building, playing structured game, dramatic play

18. Pre-Teaching to Support ELLs’ Comprehension • Pre-teaching words and concepts before storybook reading or initiation of activities is a beneficial instructional strategy for ELLs • This pre-teaching strategy, using a variety of cues (e.g., visual, gestural, graphic), may help support ELLs comprehension of the language that their English-speaking peers will be using in play.

19. Teacher Support/Scaffolding to Support ELLs’ Production • Assign roles or props to promote the student’s inclusion that are central to the activity to promote inclusion (Bunce & Watkins, 1995). • Give child some key phrases • “Two dollars please” • Prompts to help express • Tell Sarah, “Blocks please”. • Sometimes stay to support interaction and turn-taking, sometimes fadepresence

20. Routines • The predictable sequence of routines supports ELLs’ language comprehension. • Routines support children’s learning and recall of new information. • Routines provides multiple opportunities for children to practice and expand on new skills.

21. ActionPlan Which 3 will you try tomorrow/next week? Lesson plan: objective, activity, outcome measure

22. Large Group Sharing

23. Summary • Teacher-child conversation enriches children's’ language skills • Peer interactions and observation also enrich children’s language skills • Optimal instruction for ELLs includes planning to facilitate and support ELLs’ peer-interactions in the classroom

24. Optional • Assignment • Three-month follow-up reflection and trouble-shooting

25. Contact Information • Facilitator’s contact information

26. References • Akhtar, N. (2005). The robustness of learning through overhearing. Developmental Science, 8, 199-209. • Akhtar, N., Jipson, J., & Callanan, M.A. (2001). Learning words through overhearing. Child Development, 72, 416-430. • Bunce, B. H., & Watkins, R. V. (1995). Language intervention in a preschool classroom: Implementing a language-focused curriculum. In M. L. Rice & K. A. Wilcox (Eds.), Building a language-focused curriculum for the preschool classroom: Vol. I. A foundation for lifelong communication (pp. 39-71). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. • Crago, M. B. (1992). Communicative interaction and second language acquisition: An Inuit example. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 487-505. • Forrester, M.A. (1988). Young children's polyadic conversation monitoring skills. First Language, 8, 201-225. • Rogoff, B., Paradise, R., Mejia-Arauz, R., Correa-Chavez, M., & Angelillo, C. (2003). Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 175-203. • Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., Aslin, R. N., Tunick, R. A., & Barrueco, S. (1997). Incidental language learning: Listening (and learning) out of the corner of your ear. Psychological Science, 8, 101-105.