Strategies for ELLs from Herrell & Jordan

These are strategies from Herrell and Jordan's 50 Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners.

Centers

Centers are created within a classroom to encourage students to seek them out independently by their interests. I really like the idea of learning centers and even creating centers based on the multiple intelligences (Strategy 5 & 8). I believe that group work is really important, but with centers it can be individualized as well as collaborative. I think that to create a love of learning it needs to be somewhat internally motivated, which centers can create if used effectively. I particularly liked the skills center because it gives the chance for students to practice what they have learned. Creating centers based on the multiple intelligences could allow students to excel where they feel most comfortable.

Guided Reading

Guided Reading is small, flexible groups that work well for beginning readers. I found the box on page 161 that described the students behavior and sample questions to ask the child when they are doing these behaviors. This is immensely helpful because I have always wondered about what to do when during read alouds. This strategy also gave a lot of beneficial guidance for assessment on page 162. It told us the formula for assessing a child’s reading level: student reads at a 90-94% accuracy, with 75% comprehension level. This strategy provided many tips I will be using in the classroom.

KWL Chart

            KWL charts are charts that are done with the whole class to determine what you already know about a topic, what you want to know, and at the end, what you learned. I think this strategy is so important in elementary school because it allows the students to have a part in the curriculum planning. It is also a really good tool to assess what students already know about in a particular subject or area. This is done as a great whole group activity that is fun and allows them to express their interests in front of their peers.

Realia

            Realia in the classroom simply means provided real life materials in the classroom. Especially with ELLs who might not have a language base, talking about a topic may lead students to not understand what is happening. If you are talking about an apple and no one has experience with an apple, how would they know what you are talking about? Realia is important in the classroom and can be implemented in many ways throughout the day. Field trips might not be possible, but bringing real items in is much easier. 

Student Centered Websites and Apps

Website One:

http://www.starfall.com/n/N-info/educators.htm

•         Helps young children learn to read. Research based materials focused on the "big five" recommended by the National Institute of Child Health and Development. It is a website, but it links you to various apps for young children. It would work for younger learners if English of L1 and L2. It also works with common core. There is also a section for math and music.The games look really fun, but most cost money to download. This would be a good free time activity to help learn English as well as getting experience with technology. This is more of an individual activity than a group one. 

Website Two: 

http://www.elllo.org

•          This website is geared towards older adults and listening skills. The website is created by and English teacher in Japan. The website ranges from videos, games, news stories and audio notes. It is a little wordier and so I think it would be better for older adults or more advanced English language learners. It would be able to use this more of a whole class and have them listen to clips and then work in groups. It would also be good for supplemental materials or homework. If you had enough computers, it could be a good tool for computer labs as well. 

Website Three:

http://www.eslmania.com/students/students.htm

•          This is a website that is geared towards adult learners and focuses more on skills needed as an ELL. Some of the focuses are idioms, grammar, business language, accent reduction, ESL books and more. I think this website can be beneficial, but I think it might be geared towards assimilation. I especially love the idioms section because I think this would be one of the most confusing things while learning English. It would be a useful tool to create lessons for the class using it as a starting point. 

Website Four:

http://www.englishgrammar.org/

•          This is a great website for teaching English grammar. Grammar is often overlooked because it is more important to try speaking a language and make mistakes than not trying. Nonetheless Grammar is important and this website provides information in an easy format. This would be great to use in class during free time or have a small group teach a subtopic within in grammar to the class. 

Teacher Centered Websites for Teaching ELLs

Teaching Strategies

·         http://aldnetwork.org/content/test5

•         This website provides many strategies involving ELLs. The article I read in particular gave strategies to use in regards to the common core and ELLs. The strategies are general enough that you can apply them to all ages and levels of English. The negatives are it doesn’t give you background information, so if you haven’t had experience with common core you would need to do additional research in other sections of the website.
•           There are many articles on this website that I think would be beneficial to look over on my own time. This is professional development done at home essentially. I will definitely be using the additional resources tab because it covers things from common core to lesson plans.

Lesson Plan

·         http://www.tesol.org/connect/tesol-resource-center/search-details/lesson-plans/2013/12/09/intercultural-holiday-party-planning

•          This lesson plan involves celebrating holidays in a culturally sensitive manner. The students get to practice research skills and then celebrate the holiday they researched. It could still be difficult to make sure all students are not offended/or being reached, but the research part could be geared towards finding a country first. Another negative could be that students may not have previous research background so they would not know how to begin.
•          This website provided a lot of different types of resources for ELLs (I.e. assessments, lesson plans, and activities). It can be organized by the type you are looking for, but not by age or English level. I could find a lot of fun activities to implement in the classroom using this site.

Songs + Activity Questions

·         http://mondostoppops.blogspot.com/?

•          This website has many resources for teaching ELLs and one of my favorites is the song section. It gives great popular songs for ELLs to listen to and provides questions for you to ask your students. I think that using songs you would actually hear on the radio allows students to hear what words are commonly used. The negative is that the songs are probably best to be used in high school classrooms, but not necessarily.

Professional Development

·         http://busyteacher.org/

•          This website has many great resources for teaching all kinds of students, with a great section for teaching ELLs. There are a lot of great articles that allow for professional development and bettering your teaching. There are also many worksheets available for students to use. I could see myself spending hours after work reading these articles that give great tips on how to teach ELLs. 

The Mask You Live In - Trailer

This video shows the damaging effects of the phrase "be a man". Makes you analyze what we are teaching our sons on what it means to be masculine.

Frozen - A Musical feat. Disney Princesses

A great video that addresses the way media, in particular Disney, has portrayed women in the past to now. Every princess does not need a prince to be happy.

Gender Issues in the Classroom

Link to a prezi I made about Gender Issues in the Classroom

http://prezi.com/kvebwtbg-xrx/gender-issues-in-the-classroom/

Personal Beliefs

My personal beliefs will influence the way I teach someday. After learning about ELLs, it makes me want to be able to help them learn the best way possible. Differentiation will be huge in order to make sure all of my students needs are being met. We were all pretty much immigrants at one point in time and we have to realize we need to accommodate our ELLs if we want to stay competitive worldwide. 

We have discussed in one of our classes that it shouldn't be called "achievement gap" but "opportunity gap". This is a systematic problem and not an achievement problem. Our students are not going out of their way to not pass standard tests, its external forces that are not enabling them to do so. 

Teaching ELLs is more than just good teaching. We need to learn more about how to teach effectively. When you have a serious medical issue, would you go to see a general doctor or a specialist? When going to a fancy restaurant do you want a chef or a cook to prepare your food? The same goes with teaching ELLs we need more than just good teachers, we need good teachers with specialized ESOL endorsements. 

Definition of Success

The term "language proficiency" has been defined many ways, which makes it difficult to assess language proficiency. English language proficiency is somewhat limited to oral language assessment, which can become problematic because written English is becoming increasingly important with the rise of technology.

English language proficiency is often seen as an important prerequisite to success however, the relationship between the two is more complex. Limited English proficient does not automatically mean low academic success.

Einstein did not talk until he was 3 or 4 years old and many of his teachers thought he was lazy growing up. Intelligence is not one single component, which is seen in Gardner's multiple intelligences. We have to be careful and not jump to conclusions about our students. We need to begin each year with a clean slate and not buy into the self-fulfilling prophecy.

As teachers it can become hard to define success. With No Child Left Behind, standards become enforced and we begin teaching to the test. I think a good way to help form our definition of success is to ask what do my students need to know to be productive contributing citizens.

Halle, T., Hair, E., Wandner, L., McNamara, M., Chien, N. (2012). Predictors and outcomes of early versus later english language proficiency among english language learners. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27(1), 1-20.

Possible Solutions

Word walls are a great tool to implement in the classroom. Word walls are a place on the wall with vocabulary students have learned and include visuals to support the words. 

Image Retrieved from: http://www.hammond.k12.in.us/kenwoodes/wwall1.jpg

Teachers should also use multi-sensory, interactive lessons to encompass all types of learners. Inquiry based teaching can be very beneficial because it allows students to explore and come to their own understandings with guidance. 

The use of a child's home language can also be beneficial in the classroom. This can improve the social climate of the classroom. It can present learning opportunities for the ELLs and the other students as well. It can also promote respect for other cultures. 

According to Freeman & Freeman (2011), there are also many kinds of programs districts use when it comes to ELLs. There are many programs that do not work, but there are also several that do. The programs that work are Late Exit or Maintenance Programs, Enriched Immersion, and Bilingual Dual-Language education. These programs emphasize importance of first language in conjunction with acquiring English. 

Freeman, D. E, & Freeman Y.S. (2011). Between worlds: Access to second language acquisition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemenn.

Achievement Gap for ELLs- Part 1

The term achievement gap refers to any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities. Some of the achievement gaps are standardized tests between white and Asian-American students and African American and Hispanic students. Another newly acknowledged achievement gap is between American student's test scores compared to international student's scores. (http://edglossary.org/achievement-gap/) 

What is causing the "achievement gap"?

The United States is going through a demographic shift due the ethnic and racial composition of our society changing. During the past 20 years, the proportion of Hispanic students doubled from 11 to 22%. The number of students kindergarten through twelfth grade that speak another language has tripled between 1979 and 2008.

ELL children may be at risk for low academic achievement not only due to language difficulties, but also because of various family circumstances. Some of the problems ELLs face are being in poverty and their parents having low education levels. This is a never ending cycle if we do not start education our ELLs and reducing this achievement gap. There are many factors that influence second language acquisition and those are: personality characteristics, immigrant status, SES, how developed their first language is (L1), and how different their L1 and L2 are. 

There are also many factors that affect SLA that are completely out of the students control such as, low quality schools, ineffective teaching, poor school facilities, student overcrowding, inferior resources and programs, and lower achieving or inexperienced teachers. There are so many factors that influence how our ELL and students in general can perform academically, demonstrating the need for active effort in remedying some of these problems.

Jackson, J. K., & Ash, G. (2012). Science achievement for all: Improving science performance and closing achievement gaps. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 23(7), 723-744.