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Instructional Planning and Organization for ELD and SDAIE When instruction is delivered in English and the student has not achieved advanced proficiency in English, a fundamental chasm undermines learning. This gulf between instruction and comprehension cannot be bridged by reducing the standards of expectation for the student-it must be overcome by adapting instruction to the student's second-language-acquisition level by using SDAIE. This chapter addresses pedagogy for English learners by focusing on SDAIE-enhanced curriculum design and lesson delivery, cognitive academic language proficiency, and use of learning strategies as core elements in teaching ELD and content area knowledge. SDAIE is an approach used in multilinguistic content classrooms to provide language support to students while they are learning academic subjects. This can take place either in mainstream classes made up of native-English speakers mixed with nonnative English speakers of intermediate proficiency or in classes consisting solely of nonnative speakers who operate at similar English proficiency levels (Echevarría, Vogt, Short, 2016). Ideally, SDAIE is one component in a program for English learners that includes ELD instruction, primary-language instruction in content areas (so that students continue at grade level as they learn English), and content-based ELD classes. Planning affords teachers the opportunity to adapt lessons for English learners so instruction is understandable and interactive. An SDAIE lesson plan follows a fairly predictable format. Box 5.1 describes the five main elements of a SDAIE lesson. Box 5.1 Fundamental Elements of the SDAIE Lesson Plan I. Setting objectives Content objectives: Subject-matter knowledge goals linked to grade-level standards (Content objectives include mastery of content vocabulary) English-language development (ELD) objectives aligned with ELD standards Productive: speaking, writing Receptive: listening, reading Learning-strategy objectives: Direct instruction to augment long-term cognitive, metacognitive, or social-affective abilities II. Preparing modified materials III. Differentiated instruction Bridging: Accessing and building prior knowledge Access to cognitive academic language SDAIE techniques Scaffolding: Temporary support for learning Guided and independent practice that promotes students' active language use Formative assessment and reteaching Summative assessment of objectives IV. V. Reflective pedagogy SDAIE combines second-language-acquisition principles with elements of quality teaching so students can improve listening, speaking, reading, and writing as they study an academic subject. SDAIE is the preferred method used by both middle and high schools when primary-language instruction is not available or is offered in only one primary language. Instead of organizing this chapter by content area-treating only mathematics in its own section, for example-this material is organized by the main parts of the SDAIE lesson. By viewing the same SDAIE principle across several content domains, it is easier to grasp the concept. Careful planning and a well-organized classroom, combined with effective teaching, are keys to success for English learners. The cycle of instruction consists of the following five phases: (1) The teacher becomes familiar with the characteristics of the students (age, grade level, language-acquisition level); (2) the teacher plans instruction using state and local curriculum standards and textbooks as guides; (3) the teacher delivers instruction using formative assessment to monitor progress; (4) the teacher employs summative assessment to give grades and make information available about student progress; and (5) the teacher reflects. This cycle is repeated throughout the school year. Based on assessment data, the teacher modifies instruction for the class as a whole or for individual students,
groups and regroups students, and acquires additional resources as needed. Over this entire classroom-based cycle is the specter of standardized testing, which reports to the community at large, including federal, state, and local authorities, sometimes with the threat of dire consequences to the school if expectations are not met. This is the contemporary context for planning and instructional delivery. Planning for Standards-Based ELD and Content Instruction Lesson planning involves the careful design of content, language, and learning-strategy objectives and the selection, modification, and organization of materials and text that support those objectives. Objectives are necessary to guide teaching-a lesson with a clear objective focuses instruction by concentrating on a particular goal and guides the teacher to select learning activities that accomplish the goal. Once objectives are clearly stated, the teacher selects materials and designs activities that will help students achieve those objectives. Finally, assessment provides evidence that learning has, or has not, taken place. Considerations When Planning When planning instruction, a teacher takes various factors into consideration. First, what do I know about my students-what does their grade level predict about their developmental abilities, including the reading, writing, speaking, and listening that students can normally perform at this grade level? What is the level of their English proficiency? What are their interests? What prior knowledge do they have on the topic? How can their cultural background(s) and home language(s) contribute to the lesson? Second, what content standards apply? How do my content objectives align with these standards? Third, what language objectives are appropriate in line with the literacy requirements of the content area, taking into consideration the ELD framework? Do I need to differentiate the language objectives according to various levels of proficiency of my students? Lastly, what learning-strategy objectives will be useful in the lesson? What strategies do students already have that they can draw upon, and how can learning strategies, including critical thinking skills, be integrated with students' cultural perspectives? (See Quiocho and Ulanoff, 2009.) Objectives What is a lesson objective? The objective states, in behavioral terms, what the student will be capable of doing at the close of the lesson. Such verbs as contrast, identify, list, summarize, compare, predict, survey, and outline are specific, describing a behavior that can be measured or has a tangible product. In contrast, such verbs as learn, look at, evaluate, think about, know, review, and become aware are not specific or measurable. Moreover, some verbs do not specify a goal but merely a process or activity. Such terms as listen to, reflect, practice, and work in groups describe activities, not goals. Hence it is difficult to measure what is accomplished. In contrast, draw, map, record data, plan, or punctuate are terms that result in a product that can be assessed. Knowledge and language cannot be separated-language is the brain's input device, whether verbal or figural (pictures, numbers, graphs). Content instruction (mathematics, social studies, literature, science, physical education, visual arts, music, and performance arts) takes place using language as the medium, so language objectives are an integral part of content instruction. To maintain grade-level content objectives and sustain academic expectations for achievement, both language and content objectives are included SDAIE lessons. Moreover, the current emphasis on cognitive teaching mandates that learning-strategy objectives be included as well. This gives every SDAIE lesson a three-part focus. . Content objective. Knowledge, skill, or disposition in a subject area or domain of communicative competence Language-development objective. Knowledge or skill in some facet of English Learning-strategy objective. Knowledge, skill, or learning strategy that teaches the student how to acquire or process information Objectives can include more than one content area. Middle school as well as elementary school instruction increasingly features thematic units that integrate content areas. The teacher considers the various tasks that language users must be able to perform in the unit (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and makes provisions for students to learn the vocabulary and concepts needed in the discourse of the content areas involved. Objectives and Standards How are objectives chosen? Schools, school districts, or state agencies publish standards documents that spell out what students should know and be able to do. These furnish goals for each grade. A classroom teacher plans instruction using curriculum guides at the specific grade level. Units may be organized based on a theme or, if the course is text-driven, based on chapters in the text (instructional planning is presented in greater detail later in this chapter). Units or chapters are further divided into specific lessons containing the essential content area objectives. The classroom teacher is responsible for presenting the material in an understandable way, arranging for students to participate in learning activities, and then measuring the extent of the students' mastery of the material. Thus, instruction and assessment are linked. The chosen objectives must be matched to specific performance that students will demonstrate. This is central to the contemporary focus on accountability because the specific performance expected of the student as a learning outcome can be directly linked to some standard for the performance. Together, these constitute standards-based learning.
A standard becomes useful to teachers only when they can identify when the standard has been met or progress is being made toward meeting it. Moreover, when schools communicate performance standards to students, students know what is considered important for them to accomplish, and they can judge where they stand in relation to the standard. Students must be prepared to receive targeted feedback in a way that encourages them to compare their work with specific standards. Assessment should provide information on what students already do well and pinpoint what they still need to learn; this provides information about aspects of instruction that need to be redesigned (Jametz, 1994). Content Standards Each content domain has standards suggested by the professional organization that represents expertise in the field, such as the National Council for the Social Studies, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). In turn, the state departments. of education (such as the California Department of Education) incorporate these standards into state content standards, designed to define the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students should acquire at each grade level. These are in turn incorporated into curriculum frameworks (blueprints for implementing the content standards) that are then used by individual school districts to determine what instructors in each grade level should teach. When these goals are met, standardized testing should provide evidence that students are learning. Standards-Based Content Objectives The teacher first specifies learning goals using standards documents, usually in the form of school district curriculum programs. The teacher divides the overall goals for the year into units, then into specific lessons, and then into the content area objectives for each lesson. Table 5.2 displays content domains, typical content standards topics, and matching objectives. The idea is to accomplish one content objective in one lesson. Table 5.2 Content Domains, Content Standards, Typical Topics, and Matching Objectives (Note: These feature sample standards only. To find comparable standards, search the website of the Department of Education in your state) Content Domains Mathematics Social Studies Literature Science Physical Education Visual Arts Content Standard (Gr. 7) (Algebra and Functions). Students express quantitative relationships by using algebraic expressions, equations, inequalities, and graphs. (Gr. 6) (World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations). Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush. (Gr. 11 & 12) (Literary Response and Analysis). Analyze ways in which poets use imagery, personification, figures of speech, and sounds to evoke readers' emotions. (Gr.1) (Life Sciences). 2b. Students know both plants and animals need water, animals need food, and plants need light. (High School) (Physical Education). Develop and implement a one-month personal physical fitness plan. (Gr. 4) (Aesthetic Valuing). Describe how using the language of Typical Topic Finding the unknown Religion of Egypt Analyze poem Plants need light Personal physical fitness Interpreting a Matching Objective Identify orally or in writing the pre-algebra concept of finding the unknown. Identify Egyptian gods from tomb paintings. Analyze "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks (Brooks, 1944) for plot, language, and theme. Expose plants to different conditions of light to observe consequences. Compare two kinds of exercise that could become part of a one-month personal physical fitness plan. Compare personal responses to Picasso's
Music Performance Arts the visual arts helps to clarify personal responses to works of art. (Gr. 5) (Historical and Cultural Context). Identify different or similar uses of musical elements in music from diverse cultures. (Gr. 3) (Creative Expression). Create for classmates simple scripts that demonstrate knowledge of basic blocking and stage areas. painting Comparing music from different cultures Staging a play Las Meninas with Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party at Bougival. Contrast the use of drums in three cultural contexts: Brazil, Nigeria, and the United States. In groups, students will act out a scene from the Chinese fable The Magic Sieve. In developing their sequence of content objectives, teachers want to keep two important questions in mind: (1) Have I reviewed the objectives for the year and organized them for thematic flow? (2) Have I considered the sequence of objectives and rearranged them, if necessary, putting more concrete concepts before more abstract ones (i.e., those that can be taught with hands-on materials, visuals, and demonstrations before those that are difficult to demonstrate or that require more oral or written skills)? Classroom Glimpse Matching an Objective to a Standard Emil Chantal's fourth-grade class read Amelia's Road (Altman, 1993) as a tie-in for studying the regions of the state of California where certain crops grow.
He based the class's approach to reading this text on the Reading Standards for Literature Grade 4 contained in the California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (2010, p. 12): "Students will refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text." The content objective for this lesson was "Using a map of California, link regions and crops to the plot of Amelia's Road." Using a map of California's major vegetable production regions (http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lesso ... d/map.html), students located where Amelia was born, as well as the locations described in the book. On a study sheet, they also answered questions such as "What grew in the area in which Amelia went to school?" Language Standards The California ELD Standards (California Department of Education, 2012) require that English learners develop proficiency in both the English language and the concepts and skills contained in the English language arts (ELA) content standards (California Department of Education, 2010). Like the ELA standards, the California ELD standards are organized in areas of reading, writing, and listening/speaking. The California English Language Development Test is aligned with the standards as a placement and achievement test. Using the ELD and ELA standards, teachers can work with students through a developmental framework that stipulates the requirements of each proficiency level. Classroom Glimpse Language Standards 6711 In a content-based intermediate/advanced ELD high school social studies class, standards-based instruction was incorporated into the unit Exploring World Religions. Students created a word web journal to define religion; used reading passages and journals combined with discussions about religion; and read library and Internet research to identify important religious figures. Final portfolios were used to archive students' essays and other writings. Through the unit, note-taking skills, outlines, timelines, maps, games, and other knowledge technologies were incorporated into group research, oral presentations, paragraph writing, and grammar work. Source: Adapted from Riles & Lenarcic, 2000 Content-Related Language-Development Objectives The language-development objectives of an SDAIE lesson are drawn from the ELD standards. Because students in a class are usually at various SLA levels- even a single student usually scores at different SLA levels on listening/speaking, reading, and writing-the teacher plans for differentiated instruction by incorporating more than one level of language skill in each lesson. The language objective must also address the language needed to accomplish the content objective. In other words, if the lesson features a science laboratory objective, the language objective is integrated with laboratory activity-for example, making observations orally and recording data by writing in a lab manual.
observations orally and recording data by writing in a lab manual. The CALLA Handbook (Chamot, 2009) is a valuable resource for helping teachers understand the language demands of various disciplines. Each of the ch subjects-science, mathematics, social studies, and literature and composition-is the focus of a chapter in which the authors specifically address its langua demands. Table 5.3 illustrates the alignment of content and language-development objectives for two ELD levels. This demonstrates differentiated instruction. Table 5.3 Content and Language Objectives for Two ELD Levels in Two Content Areas (Note: These feature sample standards only. To find comparable standards, search the website of the Department of Education in your state) Content Standard Students know both plants and animals need water, animals need food, and plants need light. Develop and implement a one-month personal physical fitness plan. Content Objective Expose plants to different conditions of light to observe consequences. Compare two kinds of exercise that could become part of a one- month personal physical fitness plan. Language Standards Life Sciences (Grade 1) (Beginning). Responds to simple directions and questions using physical actions. (Intermediate). Participates in instructional conversations using expanded vocabulary. Physical Education (High School) (Early Intermediate). Uses writing to convey meaning. (Early Advanced). Produces independent writing using consistent grammatical forms, mechanics, and word order, In reviewing language objectives, teachers should keep the following questions in mind: Language-Development Objectives (Beginning). Working in a group, students will follow verbal directions to set up a plant light exposure experiment. (Intermediate). Students will discuss in a group how to set up an observation sheet plant light exposure experiment. (Early Intermediate). Students will list three reasons for and three reasons against two types of exercise for their personal fitness plan. (Early Advanced). Students will write a comparison paragraph giving three reasons for and three reasons against two types of exercise for their personal fitness plan. What is the concept load of the unit and what are the key concepts to demonstrate and illustrate? What are the structures and discourse of the discipline and are these included in the language objectives? Are all four language modes included in the planning (listening, speaking, reading, writing)? Classroom Glimpse Planning for SDAIE Science In a sheltered (SDAIE) seventh-grade science class, students improve their English language skills while studying about the universe. The teacher's primary goal is for students to understand the content materials (in this case, about the origin of the universe). But she also spends some time helping students with language-related issues (e.g., academic vocabulary, reading skills) that pertain to the science unit they are studying. The exposure to higher- level language (through the content materials) and the explicit focus on language issues by the teacher set the stage for successful language acquisition.
Strategic Learning The cognitive revolution in learning turned the spotlight on how people transform, elaborate, store, and recover information. According to the cognitive view, people are active learners who initiate experiences, seek out information, and reorganize what they already know to achieve new insights, pursue goals, solve personally relevant problems, and attempt to make sense of the world. Cognitive training includes the use of learning strategies, study skills, memory enhancement, text-processing competencies, note taking, research techniques, test-taking abilities, problem solving, transfer, graphic organizers, and information processing tips, as well as learning the characteristics of the brain. A cognitivist view of learning means teaching students how to learn. Teachers motivate students best when they provide course activities and projects that tap students' natural abilities and interests and develop their confidence in their ability to think. Teachers who ask thought-provoking questions and use concrete examples, activities, and demonstrations stimulate students' imaginations and develop their critical thinking skills. This includes metacognition in the form of cognitive self-knowledge (multiple intelligences, learning styles), goal setting, planning, self-monitoring, and self-evaluating. Learning-Strategy Objectives A cognitive lesson needs one or more learning-strategy objectives, which can be defined as the achievement or practice of direct or indirect strategies that facilitate acquiring new skills or information (Díaz-Rico, 2013). Learning strategies can be distinguished from content objectives by a simple test: Can the objective be applied outside the specific lesson? Is it a skill that can be used again and again as part of a learner's "mental toolkit"? Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) Learning strategies are being recognized more and more as an integral part of teaching, an idea made explicit in Chamot's Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) (2009). CALLA, designed for English learners at the early intermediate to advanced levels of English-language proficiency, incorporates explicit teaching of learning strategies within academic subject areas. The CALLA model includes three components: topics from the major content subjects, the development of academic language skills, and explicit instruction in learning strategies for both content and language acquisition (Chamot, 2009). Best Practice Helping Students Develop a Personal Set of Learning Strategies Students can become aware of, and acquire, learning strategies in the following ways: . The teacher can demonstrate several ways to solve a problem and encourage students to choose which works best for them. Various students can describe how they solved a problem and show the rest of the class. Teachers can encourage students to acquire multiple strategies and use whichever suits the problem at hand. Direct instruction of problem-solving algorithms or methods can help students to be faster and more flexible in their strategy use. Direct instruction in learning strategies includes three types: metacognitive, cognitive, and social-affective. The metacognitive strategies help students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning processes. Teachers help students learn to preview the main concepts in material to be learned, plan the key ideas that must be expressed orally or in writing, decide in advance what specific information must be attended to, check comprehension during listening or reading, and judge how well learning has been accomplished when the lesson is completed. Classroom Glimpse Think-Alouds as Metacognition Mrs. Barr, a first-grade teacher, verbalizes her thoughts aloud to show students how she experiences reading comprehension. "I always model a think- aloud before asking anything from students," she says. Then students try it with a partner before sharing their thoughts with the whole group. Finally she asks students to write down what they are thinking, so she can assess how they use this metacognitive strategy.
Cognitive strategies include using reference materials resourcefully; taking effective notes; summarizing material adequately; applying rules of induction or inference; remembering information using visual images, auditory representation, or elaboration of associations to new knowledge; transferring prior skills to assist comprehension; and grouping new concepts, words, or terms understandably. Social-affective strategies teach how to elicit needed clarification, how to work cooperatively with peers in problem solving, and how to use mental techniques or self-talk to reduce anxiety and increase a sense of personal competency. Classroom Glimpse Learning-Strategy Objectives The high school ELD classroom just received three new computers. Mrs. O'Dale knew that several students had computers at home, but nevertheless she wanted to make sure that all the students had basic word-processing skills. Before beginning a unit on autobiography, she identified a set of skills that are useful in word processing. In addition to such content objectives as identifying a topic, including descriptive details, and using time sequence connectors, each lesson in the writing unit would have an objective relating to word processing, beginning with saving and retrieving files, moving text within a file, and spellchecking. Thus, the acquisition of computer skills became learning-strategy objectives. Skillful lesson planning includes integrating content, learning-strategy, and language- development objectives. A unit on bacteria would include a learning- strategy objective on the use of microscopes and a language objective relating to writing a brief summary (of laboratory observations). In contrast, a social studies lesson would use the reading selection as content but a comprehension-enhancing technique such as "using a cause-and-effect organizer" as a learning strategy. I Classroom Glimpse Integrating Three Types of Objectives The Most Beautiful Place in the World is an instructional unit based on the book by the same title (Cameron, 1988) about a young boy in Guatemala who longs to attend school and learn to read (Levine, 2000). Levine found that the Spanish words, foods, and other cultural aspects incorporated in the novel were particularly appropriate for her students, who were all from Spanish-speaking families. The unit also integrated social studies curricular goals as students studied map locations, compass directions, and cultural comparisons. A Model for SDAIE A model for SDAIE originally developed at the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1993 had four components-content, connections, comprehensibility, and interaction. Often, however, teachers could be technically proficient in many of the SDAIE elements yet not be successful with English learners. Discussion and observation revealed that the teacher's attitude played such a critical part in the success of the class that it needed to be explicitly incorporated into the model. Therefore, teacher attitude was added as an overarching component (see Figure 5.1). This model has been the foundation for the SIOP model.
Figure 5.1 A Model of the Components of Successful SDAIE Instruction Teacher Attitude The teacher is open and willing to learn from students. Content Lessons include subject, language, and learning-strategy objectives. Material is selected, adapted, and organized with language learners in mind. Comprehensibility Lessons include explicit strategies that aid understanding: . . Contextualization Modeling Teacher speech adjustment Frequent comprehension checks through strategies and appropriate questioning Repetition and paraphrase Connections Curriculum is connected to students' background and experiences. Interaction Students have frequent opportunities to Best Practice Summarizing Positive Teacher Attitudes To set a positive tone for English learners, skilled ELD teachers do the following: Talk about lesson content Clarify concepts in their home language Represent learning through a variety of ways Teachers often find that they do not use every aspect of the model in every lesson, but by working within the overall frame they are more assured of providing appropriate learning opportunities for their English learners. The following sections explain and illustrate each of the five SDAIE components. Teacher Attitude Teachers are no different from the rest of the population when faced with something new or different. Many recoil, dig in their heels, and refuse to change. But teachers have also chosen to work with people, and they frequently find delight and satisfaction in their students' work, behavior, and learning. It is this sense of delight that is important to capture in working with all learners, particularly English learners. Three aspects characterize successful attitude in working with second-language learners: Teachers believe that all students can learn. Teachers are willing to nurture language development. Teachers recognize that a person's self-concept is involved in his or her own language and that t times students need to use that language. Set up attractive learning environments for the English learners, using colorful, student-friendly classroom displays (some incorporating the home language(s) Create an atmosphere in the classroom that helps English learners integrate into the life of the school, such as pairing each English learner with a buddy Encourage intercultural friendships by inviting non-ELD teachers to make cross-language student pairing at lunch Find ways to lower English learners' anxiety by the use of home-language music and pictures of life in the native culture(s) of the students. Content in SDAIE Content objectives are necessary to guide teaching. lesson with clear objective focuses the instruction by concentrating on a particular goal and guides the teacher to select learning activities that accomplish the goal. Teachers may have to be selective in choosing only the most essential content standards to address in the time allotted. Best Practice Organizing Content for the Theme of "Acculturation" Content materials for the social studies theme "acculturation" might include primary documents, personal histories, and literature. Students who research
specific concepts related to acculturation, such as immigration assimilation, culture shock, job opportunities, or naturalization, may find that each document features a unique voice. A government document presents a formal, official point of view, whereas a personal or family story conveys the subject from a different, more intimate perspective. In addition, numerous pieces of literature, such as Eve Bunting's How Many Days to America? (1988) or Laurence Yep's Dragonwings (1975), offer yet other points of view. Connections in SDAIE Students engage in learning when they recognize a connection between what they know and the learning experience. Therefore, critical element of the SDAIE lesson is the deliberate plan on the teacher's part to elicit information from and help make connections for the students. This can be accomplished in several ways: through bridging-linking concepts and skills to student experiences or eliciting/using examples from students' lives-and by schema building-using scaffolding strategies to link new learning to old. Comprehensibility in SDAIE A key factor in learning is being able to understand. Through all phases of a lesson, the teacher ensures that students have plenty of clues to understanding. This is one of the aspects of SDAIE that makes it different from mainstream instruction. Teachers are aware that they need to present concepts in a variety of ways. They increase the comprehensibility of lessons in four ways: contextualization (strategies that augment speech and/or text through pictures, realia, dramatizations, etc.); modeling (demonstration of the skill or concept to be learned); speech adjustment (strategies to adjust speech from the customary native speech patterns); and comprehension checks (strategies to monitor listening and reading comprehension). Table 5.4 provides a list of both object and human resources that can help contextualize classroom content. Table 5.4 Media, Realia, Manipulatives, and Human Resources to Contextualize Lessons Object Resources Picture files Maps and globes Charts and posters Printed material: Illustrated books Pamphlets News articles Puzzles Catalogs Magazines Science equipment Manipulatives: M&Ms Buttons Human Resources Cooperative groups Pairs Cross-age tutors Heterogeneous groups Community resource people School resource people Parents Pen pals (adult and child) Keypals
Tongue depressors Gummy bears Costumes Computer software Internet Interaction in SDAIE The organization of discourse is important for language acquisition in content classes. In "teacher-fronted" classrooms, the teacher takes the central role in controlling the flow of information, and students compete for the teacher's attention and for permission to speak. More recent research, however, points to the role of the learner in negotiating, managing, even manipulating conversations to receive more comprehensible input. Instead of English learners being dependent on their ability to understand the teacher's explanations and directions, classrooms that feature flexible grouping patterns permit students to have greater access to the flow of information. The teacher orchestrates tasks so that students use language in academic ways. Students are placed in different groups for different activities. Teachers themselves work with small groups to achieve specific instructional objectives (e.g., in literature response groups, as discussed in Chapter 7, or in instructional conversations, discussed in Chapters 2 and 6). In planning for interaction in the SDAIE lesson, the teacher considers opportunities for students to talk about key concepts, expects that students may clarify the concepts in their primary language, and allows a variety of means through which students can demonstrate their understanding. Classroom Glimpse Interaction In one fifth-grade class, the students produced a news program with a U.S. Civil War setting. The program included the show's anchors; reporters in the field interviewing generals, soldiers, and citizens; a weather report; and reports on sports, economics, and political conditions. There were even commercial breaks. The students engaged in much research to be historically accurate, but enthusiasm was high as they shared their knowledge in a format they knew and understood. In addition, students were able to work in the area of their particular interest. SDAIE offers English learners an important intermediate step between content instruction in the primary language, an environment in which they may not advance in English skills, and a "sink-or-swim" immersion, in which they may not learn key content-related concepts. In most effective instruction for English learners, ELD methods and SDAIE are used together to provide language development and achievement of core content standards for English learners, depending on the program model used and the specific needs of the students.
Teaching with SDAIE Strategies English learners need support to enable them to successfully complete tasks that require academic language proficiency. SDAIE means a curriculum that teaches content first and English second. Whereas ELD classes focus on English-language acquisition at the student's proficiency level, SDAIE classes focus on teaching the same content curriculum (English literature, science, history) as the regular courses, with added support materials and alternative ways for students to acquire knowledge. In this way, students can understand and keep pace with the mainstream curriculum. SDAIE strategies include increasing the use of cooperative learning, activating connections to students' previous knowledge, differentiating instruction to meet the needs of students with varying learning styles, promoting cognitive academic language proficiency, modifying instructional delivery without simplification, furnishing scaffolding (temporary support for instruction), providing graphic organizers, and providing assessment to promote learning and reflection. These strategies are addressed in the following pages, followed by examples in such content areas as language arts, social studies, math, science, music, and visual and performing arts. Lesson plans in science using the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model for SDAIE can be found in Short, Vogt, and Echevarría (2011). SIOP plans for mathematics are found in Echevarría, Vogt, and Short (2016). Cooperative Learning Many teachers include opportunities for discussion about key concepts, ensuring that students have numerous conversational partners and occasions to interact with the content of lessons. A noncompetitive environment can be established through cooperative-learning activities, both formally and informally structured. Heterogeneous groups encourage language development as students talk about learning experiences with one another. Material presented in a mainstream class may be difficult for English learners if the topics are cognitively complex and highly language dependent. Using cooperative learning, English learners have increased opportunities to verify their comprehension by receiving explanations from their peers and sharing prior knowledge. This helps them clarify and familiarize themselves with the lesson content. Probably more was written on cooperative and collaborative learning in the last twenty years of the twentieth century than in all the previous history of education. David and Robert Johnson, Robert Slavin, and others advocated the use of cooperative learning for elementary students. Others documented the success of cooperative learning with elementary school English learners (for example, Cohen, 1994; Johnson & Johnson, 1994) as well as with secondary school ELD
students (Faltis, 1993). Other research has contributed to an extensive body of knowledge about the benefits of collaborative learning to English language development. Benefits to English Learners Small-group learning provides English learners with a rich discourse environment and multiple opportunities for face-to-face interaction. This is particularly necessary when students must exchange information about academic content and procedures. When students are collaborating in small groups, they have substantially more chances to practice language-without worrying about whether their production is exactly right. This lowers their anxiety and lets them concentrate on the content of learning. They can hear and say key words and phrases and repeat them in a variety of ways until they feel comfortable with their language mastery. Cooperative grouping also increases the possibility that English learners will feel a part of the culture of the classroom as a whole. Guidelines for Cooperative Learning Developing cooperative skills requires a focus in the classroom on communication and teamwork. Kluge (1999) emphasized the following elements: Group members of a group depend on one another, and no one is left out; students work in proximity to one another; group member bears full responsibility for the work performed by the group; the teacher explicitly explains and models the kind of communication and cooperation that is desired; and the group has time to reflect on how they are working together and to set group goals for improvement. From these principles, it is clear that successful collaboration depends on planning, interdependence, and groups learning how to work together. Table 5.5 summarizes the instructional use of cooperative learning with English learners. This information represents a synthesis of tips and guidelines from Bassano and Christison (1995), Cantlon (1991), and Kagan (1998, 1999). (Sources are identified with number keys.) Table 5.5 Instructional Use of Cooperative Learning Sources: (1) Bassano & Christison (1995); (2) Canton (1991); (3) Kagan (1998); (4) Kagan (1999); (5) Coehto, Winer, & Olsen (1989). Component of Cooperative Learning Definition Rationales for using cooperative learning Roles in teams Optimal team size Explanation or Example "An approach to education and a repertoire of teaching strategies based on the philosophy that students can learn effectively in small groups. Cooperative learning restructures the traditional classroom into small, carefully planned learning groups to provide opportunities for all students to work together and to learn from one another." (Source: 5, p. 3) Practice speaking and listening. Share information. Create things together. Learn democratic processes. Practice negotiating and compromising. (Source: 1, p. 29) Develop leadership, communication, decision making, and conflict management skills. (Source: 2) Promote real-world team skills. Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)! Builds positive interpersonal relations. Transcends differences (cliques). (Source: 4) Language Monitor, Task Monitor, Timekeeper, Secretary, Clarifier, Encourager, Reporter. (Source: 1, p. 29) Materials Monitor, Quiet Captain. (Source: 3) For initial start-up, dyads (teams of two) are most successful. (Source: 2) teams of three are necessary, have them sit side by side. (Source: 2)
Frequency of use of cooperative structures Room and seating arrangements Role of the teacher Team composition Team management Rationale statement Necessary group skills Trust building/bonding Teaching social skills Appreciation statements by peers at debriefing Clarification statements by peers Procedural statements by peers Peers asking for/offering help Teams of four are ideal, small enough for active participation and split evenly for pair work. (Source: 3) Minimum of three times a week; but simple structures (pair/share) can be used more often. (Source: 2) Partners should sit side by side. If students are in fours, provide two sets of materials. No student's back should be to the teacher. (Source: 2) Source of task; arranger of materials; accountable authority; partner in learning. (Source: 1) Heterogeneous (mixed gender, ethnicity, ability); teacher-assigned, long term; this is preferable. (Source: 3) To form heterogeneous ability groups, list students in ability from high to low (1-28), divide into quartiles, then form one group from 1, 8, 15, 22; next group 2, 9, 16, 23, etc. (Avoids highest grouped with lowest.) Random (randomly mixed ability, etc.); breaks up the monotony; short term. (Source: 3) Random teams may be a problem if all high achieving are in one group, or two students create mutual discipline problems. (Source: 2) Random grouping: Use colored marbles or slips with group numbers in a jar; group students by month of birth; count off around class. (Source: 1) Inform students how much time is allotted to task; have an agreed signal to stop working (clap pattern, ringing a bell, countdown, etc.). (Source: 2) Teacher explains why work is done in a team, what the benefits are, and what behavior is expected. (Source: 2) Forming into groups quickly. Participating with muted voices. Establishing turn-taking routines. Involving more hesitant members in group processes. (Source: 1) Rapport building; discuss favorite foods, hobbies, likes, dislikes. Nonacademic fun activities: games, puzzles. Academic tasks: partner reading, checking homework together (staple papers together, teachers correct top paper). (Source: 2) Teacher models behavior: quiet voices, taking turns, everyone participating, encouraging partner, signal to stop. (Source: 2) "(Name), you helped the team by" "), you did a great job of______" "), I appreciated it when you "(), you are very good at." (Source: 2) "I don't understand." "Excuse me?" "Speak more slowly, please." "Okay?" (Source: 1, p. 29) "It's my/your/his/her turn." "Quickly! We have four minutes." "You first, then me." (Source: 1, p. 29) "Are you finished?" "I need help." "Do you need help?" (Source: 1, p. 29)
Individual accountability Rewards (nonmaterial); avoid message that reward involves escape from work (extra recess) Feedback Cooperative learning helps to build a sense of community in the classroom. Nut Salm/123H Challenge Students have progress conferences with instructor. Groups are rated by teacher using monitoring chart. Groups monitor themselves periodically using rating charts. (Source: 1) Even under the best of circumstances, cooperative learning has its challenges. Even though many educators seize on the advantages of having English learners help one another in class, this should not become the default strategy for classroom cooperative learning. Cohen (1994) found barriers to successful group work, including "undesirable domination on the part of some students, and nonparticipation and withdrawal on the part of others" (p. 26). As Beaumont (1999) noted, the quality of collaborative learning varies with the maturity of students, and "often peer assistance did not provide sufficient support for students whose academic success depended on additional instructional interventions" (p. 235). Table 5.6 offers tactics for teachers to address barriers to successful cooperative learning. Students cannot get along. Elementary: Happygrams, applause, display group work, AV treat, play a special game. Middle/high school: library passes, computer time, daily announcements recognition, newsletter recognition, display work, special privileges, team picture displayed. (Source: 2) Table 5.6 Challenges to Cooperative Learning and Tactics to Meet Them Source: Ells & Whalen, 1992. Student prefers to work alone. At the close of activity, teammates write on 3" x 5" card: "Which question/problem gave you difficulty?" "Give examples of what you might do differently next time." "List ways in which your partners helped the team to reach its goal." (Source: 2) Student is unmotivated. Tactics for Teachers Keep activities short and simple while students are learning how to work together. Group students wisely; place a socially immature student with two who are more mature. Teach social skills and review regularly. Provide encouragement by emphasizing importance of working in a group, giving examples from teacher's work. Give bonus points to class for working well together. Provide individual work occasionally as "safety valve." Use interest inventory to discover student's likes and dislikes. Ask previous teachers what works for the student. Give student a role in the group in which he or she will succeed.
Student cannot keep up with others. Group finishes before others. Group finishes last. Too much noise. Name of Activity Jigsaw Many types of tasks have been designed that feature cooperative structures. These range from simply pairing students for discussion to more elaborate setups requiring extensive time for preparation and monitoring. Table 5.7 presents a few cooperative structures and tasks. (Sources are identified with number keys.) Relay Group Memory Table 5.7 Sample Cooperative Learning Activities Sources: (1) Bassano & Christison (1995) (2) Cantion (1991); (3) Kagan (1998); (4) Kagan (1999) (5) Whisler & Willams (1990). Listen Please (also called Information Gap) Sequencing Task Scavenger Hunt Round Robin Numbered Heads Together Rotating Review Let student prepare some part of task prior to group work. Provide a modified worksheet for slow student. Provide an alternate way for student to perform. Send-a-Problem Provide an extension or enrichment task that extends the activity. Two groups who finish first can compare their products. Pairs Compare See if task can be modified so all groups will finish together. Teacher or member of early finishing group can spend some time to help slow group. Let individuals take home tasks. Monitor groups and commend those who are quiet and on task. Use a standard signal for noise such as blinking room lights. Assign a member of each group as noise control. Description of Activity Four students learn a skill; they teach it to four others; eight teach it to eight more, until everyone knows it. (Source: 1) In groups of six, give each group a line to memorize. Group members receive extra credit if everyone can say it when time is up. (Source: 1) In this paired activity, student A has words on various cards and student B has a matching set of picture cards. Listening to the description on a card, student B must pick out the matching card. (Source: 1) Students put a cut-up sequence in correct order. Example: scrambled dialogue from a phone call to a friend. (Source: 1) With a stack of newspapers, group finds one of each: some good news, some bad news, weather map, letter to editor, overseas news, etc. (Source: 1) Each person does a problem (using one color ink) and then passes paper to next team member, who does the next problem. Teacher corrects one sheet. (Source: 2) Students receive number and letter (Ex.: I-IV, A-D). Base teams: I, II, III, IVs. Students exit base team; all As group to study one aspect, etc., then return to base team to share expertise. (Source: 2) Each student in the group has a number (1-4); students huddle to make sure all can respond, then a number is called and that student responds. (Source: 3) Students visit wall charts; each chart has different review question; they write answers, then rotate to next chart. (Source: 3) If they agree with what is already written, they mark with asterisk. Groups create problems that are sent around the class for other teams to solve. (Source: 3) Pairs come up with ideas to solve a problem. When pairs are through, two pairs make a team of four and compare ideas, generating more ideas. (Source: 4)
4S Brainstorming Group Memory Partner Prediction 2/4 Question Some More Panel of Experts Picture Dialogue While brainstorming solutions to an open-ended prompt, team members take one of four roles: Speed Sergeant: Encourages many responses quickly; Sultan of Silly: Tries to come up with silly ideas; Synergy Guru: Helps members build on one another's ideas; and Sergeant Support: Encourages all ideas, suspends judgment. (Source: 4) them. In Students write everything they know about a topic they plan to study, including unanswered questions that come t groups of three, they read the paper to the group, and everybody adds ideas to their list. The group compiles unanswered questions and turns in a Group Memory Sheet. (Source: 5) Source: Weatherly, 1999, p. 79 Teacher preidentifies places in a literature story where the students can stop and predict what happens next. They share predictions with a partner. They must then share aloud what the partner predicts. Teacher identifies key points in a read-aloud story. Partners talk about the story so far, then discuss what questions occur to them. They share these in a team of four, then with the class. (Source: 5) Students read selected passages, taking notes of possible comprehension questions. In a group, students agree on four questions. One group in the room forms a panel, and others question them. Play continues until panel gets two right or one wrong; then questioning group becomes panel. (Source: 5) Before reading, teacher displays a picture from the book or sets a mental image using words. Working in pairs, students take character A or B and write a dialogue that characters say to each other. They read them aloud. (Source: 5) The jigsaw model of cooperative learning is particularly useful in that students are individually accountable for learning their own material and for sharing their information effectively with other group members. In the jigsaw method, each member (A, B, C, or D) of each base team (I, II, III, or IV) attends an expert group session (all the As huddle together) to study one aspect or section of the topic and thus has one piece of the knowledge puzzle (hence the name "Jigsaw"). Then the individuals return to their base team to share what they have learned. The ultimate learning goal is for each member of the base team to have the whole set of information, so each member must communicate what has been learned in the expert group. Classroom Glimpse Jigsaw Cooperative Learning In one use of the jigsaw model, intermediate ELD students studied the use of persuasion in advertising by looking at three different types of ads in three expert groups and completing worksheets with questions such as "How is the ad trying to persuade you? Is it using reason, an appeal to the emotions, or an appeal to a feeling of right or wrong? Is the advertisement effective? Why or why not?" Returning to their base group, group members described the ad they studied and completed a second worksheet summarizing the types and effectiveness of persuasion used in various ads. Students then worked cooperatively to write their own ads. Activating Connections to Students' Previous Knowledge In the teaching context, prior knowledge refers to what students bring with them that can be tapped and built on during the lesson, consisting of students' existing concepts, understandings, and relevant experiences. These ideas may include misconceptions, so some "unlearning" may have to take place. Also, some prior knowledge may be based on experiences and conceptualizations of the students' home cultures that are beyond the teacher's experience.
Brain-based theory postulates that learners are engaged when the brain is able to create meaning by blending knowledge from previous experiences with concepts from present experiences. Effective teachers thus orchestrate meaning by making connections, instead of leaving this to chance. These connections can be made by establishing links to students' lives and their previous academic knowledge and then by anchoring previous knowledge to new ideas and concepts. Best Practice Tapping into Previous Knowledge The following strategies elicit information from students and help the teacher understand the extent students' understanding: Brainstorming K-W-L (What do I know? What do I want to learn? What have I learned?) Mind maps Pretests Questionnaires Interviews If students have little prior knowledge about the topic at hand, teachers can help them build schema or schemata-that is, construct a framework of concepts that shows the relationships between old and new learning and how they are connected. Semantic mapping and webs are ways of presenting concepts show their relationships. After a brainstorming session, the teacher and students could organize their ideas into a semantic map, with the main idea in the center of the chalkboard and associated or connected ideas as branches from the main idea. Alternatively, a teacher could be more directive in creating a map by writing the central topic and branching out from it with several major subtopics. Students could provide information that the teacher then writes into the appropriate category. Classroom Glimpse Building Schemata Mrs. Figueroa read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Barrett, 1978) to her second-grade students. Using a concept map with the words "junk food" in the center, they brainstormed on the following questions: "What is junk food?" "What junk food can you think of?" and "What is in junk food that our bodies don't need?" Students then grouped in pairs to write an adventure story with junk food as the villain. An anticipation guide can help to determine the extent of students' prior knowledge. As a prelearning exercise, students receive five to ten statements presented in written or oral form, which they judge as true or false. Reviewing the same statements after teaching can help students clarify any misunderstandings they might have had initially. Classroom Glimpse Anticipation Guide for Earthquake Unit Ellen Wexford's sixth-grade earth science class was about to begin a unit on earthquakes. She knew from experience that despite being residents of an earthquake-prone region, her students held many misconceptions about tectonic activity. So she constructed an anticipation guide that would be useful to her and her students. She chose items that would correlate with the core knowledge they would need for the unit. Included was the statement, "California might break off from the continent because of a large earthquake." By the end of the unit, she hoped that students would be able to give a reason-based response, choosing "False!" Source: Adapted from Fisher & Frey, 2009, pp. 43-47 Differentiating Instruction to Meet Students' Learning Diversity Offering Diverse Learning Modalities The nature of teaching requires some kind of standardization and grouping because class sizes are usually too large to treat each student in a unique manner. The reality in U.S. classrooms, however, is that students are increasingly heterogeneous in an array of ways beyond language. Students with disabilities may be
mainstreamed into English learners' classrooms; English learners may have disparate second-language-acquisition (SLA) levels; students may have stronger listening/speaking skills in English than reading, or the reverse; and students may be entering the classroom in midyear, having missed important content. The challenge is clear: How can curriculum, instruction, and assessment be responsive to this learner diversity? Best Practice Learning Centers for Differentiated Instruction Centers can be used in any content class to provide intentional experiences that allow students to learn in diverse ways, such as the following examples of centers that can be used at the middle-school level to teach about Egypt: . Poet's corner. Using different types of verse as models, students can work alone or with partners to read or create poetry. Technology center. Students can write and publish their own stories, using Inspiration software that displays the sequence of events in the story. Storyboards. Students can create storyboard pictures, with text underneath to tell the story. Cool stuff. Using interesting materials such as gel pens and paper with interesting borders, students can create ads for books they write or have read. Using Realia, Manipulatives, and Hands-on Materials Student learning activities should develop students' interactive language but not disadvantage an English learner. Collaborative problem-solving teams include member roles that provide a variety of input and output modalities to balance the English skills and nonverbal talents of students. English learners can benefit from the use of media, realia, science equipment, diagrams, models, experiments, manipulatives, and other modalities that make language more comprehensible and that expand the means and modes by which they receive and express information. Promoting Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Cummins (1979) posited two different yet related language skills: basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency
(CALP). BICS involves those language skills and functions that allow students in school to communicate in everyday social contexts that are similar to those of the home: to perform classroom chores, chat with peers, or consume instructional media as they do television shows at home. BICS is context embedded because participants can provide feedback to one another, the situation itself provides cues that further understanding, and factors apart from the linguistic code can furnish meaning. In contrast, CALP, as the name implies, is the language needed to perform abstract and decontextualized school tasks successfully. Students must rely primarily on language to attain meaning. For English learners, BICS has been found to approach nativelike levels within two years of exposure to English, but five or more years may be required for minority students to match native speakers in CALP (Collier, 1987; Cummins, 1981). Students need skills in both kinds of language. Because CALP provides few concrete cues to assist comprehension, it is context-reduced communication. CALP also involves systematic thought processes, the cognitive toolbox needed to categorize, compare, analyze, and accommodate new experiences and is therefore key to acquiring the in-depth knowledge needed in a complex modern society. CALP requires growing beyond the simple use of language to the more complex ability to think and talk about language-metalinguistic awareness Precise differentiation of word meaning and the ability to decode complicated sentences demand from students a gradual understanding of the cultural and social uses of the language to which they are exposed. CALP is not gained solely from school or solely from the home-one reinforces the other. However, CALP is highly dependent on the assistance of teachers because, for the most part, CALP is learned in school. Teachers can help students to acquire academic language by analyzing the conceptual and critical thinking requirements of the grade-level curriculum and taking the time to ensure that all students are explicitly taught such requirements. Without this explicit attention to teaching English learners high-level academic language, one of three outcomes is all too common. First, students who come to school already having acquired CALP as a benefit of a privileged home environment may outshine English learners. Second, the curriculum for English learners may be watered down due to the assumption that those who lack CALP cannot perform academically at a high cognitive level. Third, students lacking CALP in English are not able to participate knowledgeably and are often confined to a skills-based, direct instruction approach that does not encourage a constructivist learning environment. Academic materials that focus on teaching academic language teach not only content but also the cognitive skills to acquire the vocabulary for academic functions. Such words as choice, decision, advantages, disadvantages, pros, and cons accomplish the academic function of "justifying." (p. 223). Other academic language includes such all-purpose words responsible, avoid, accept, solve a problem, denotation, connotation, thesaurus, substitute, and synonym. Note that some of these academic vocabulary words have cognates in Spanish (responsible, problem, substitute) whereas others do not (avoid). Cognates often make learning easier, but not always. The complexity of CALP can be captured by examination of the five Cs: communication, conceptualization, critical thinking, context, and culture (see Table 5.8). Many of the skills that are a part of CALP are refinements of basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), whereas others are more exclusively school- centered. Table 5.8 Components of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) Component Communication Explanation Reading: Increases speed; masters a variety of genres in fiction (poetry, short story) and nonfiction (encyclopedias, magazines, Internet sources). Listening: Follows verbal instructions; interprets nuances of intonation (e.g., in cases of teacher disciplinary warnings); solicits, and benefits from, help of peers. Speaking: Gives oral presentations, answers correctly in class, and reads aloud smoothly. Writing: Uses conventions such as spelling, punctuation, report formats.
Conceptualization Critical thinking Context Culture Concepts become abstract and are expressed in longer words with more general meaning (rain becomes precipitation). Concepts fit into larger theories (precipitation cycle). Concepts fit into hierarchies (rain → precipitation cycle → weather systems → climate). Concepts are finely differentiated from similar concepts: (sleet from hail, typhoons from hurricanes). Conceptual relations become important (opposites, subsets, causality, correlation). Uses graphic organizers to represent the structure of thought. Uses textual structures (outlines, paragraphing, titles, main idea). Reads between the lines (inference). Detects bias; separates fact from opinion; tests validity of sources. Nonverbal: Uses appropriate gestures; interprets nonverbal signs accurately. Formality: Behaves formally when required to do so. Participation structures: Fits in smoothly to classroom and schoolwide groups and procedures. Draws on background knowledge. Uses social-class markers, such as "manners." Moves smoothly between home and school. Marshals parental support for school achievement. Deploys primary-language resources when required. Maintains uninterrupted primary-culture profile ("fits in" to neighborhood social structures). Classroom Glimpse Developing CALP Mrs. Álvarez found in her second-grade structured English immersion class that, although the students were fairly fluent in English when chatting with one another, they lacked the vocabulary to perform on academic tasks. When she gave instructions or briefly reviewed concepts, the students appeared lost. She became aware that students needed to move along the continuum from their everyday English usage to more abstract academic language. The class was studying the ocean. Mrs. Álvarez set up learning centers with shells, dried seaweed, fish fossils, and other ocean objects. The instructions for these centers featured patterned, predictable language tied to the concrete objects, with words such as group, shape, and size. Gradually Mrs. Álvarez tape-recorded more complex and abstract instructions for use in the learning centers, such as classify, arrange, and attribute. This progression and integration of activities helped the children move along the continuum from BICS to CALP. Modifying Instructional Delivery Without Simplification Teachers must ensure that students understand what is said in the classroom. Teachers in SDAIE classrooms devote particular attention to four communication strategies: language contextualization, teacher's speech modification, repetition and paraphrase, and use of patterned language. Language Contextualization Teaching should be focused on the context of the immediate task, augmenting vocabulary with gestures, pictures, realia, and so forth to convey instructions or key words and concepts. This provides a rich visual and/or kinesthetic (e.g., through drama and skits) environment. Verbal markers are used to organize the lesson, such as note this to denote importance, or now, first, second, and last to mark a sequence. To help with directions, teachers can determine the ten most frequently
used verbal markers and teach these through mini-total physical response (TPR)-type lessons. The teacher might also learn how to say simple directions in the students' language(s). Teacher's Speech Modification To be understandable to those who do not speak or understand English well, the teacher must adjust speech from the customary native speech patterns. This takes place at many linguistic levels-phonological (precise articulation); syntactic (shorter sentences, with subject-verb-object word order); semantic (more concrete, basic vocabulary; fewer idioms); pragmatic (frequent and longer pauses; slower delivery; and exaggerated intonation, especially placing more stress on important new concepts); and discourse (self-repetition; main idea easily recognized and supporting information following immediately). Teachers in SDAIE classrooms also speak less in the classroom, encouraging students to talk. There is much evidence indicating that teachers should reduce teacher talking time (TTT) while teaching and increase the amount of student talking time (STT). As Harmer (2007) pointed out, Overuse of TTT is inappropriate because the more a teacher talks, the less chance there is for students to practice their own speaking-and it is students who need the practice, not the teacher. If the teacher talks and talks, the students will have less time for other things, too, such as reading and writing. For these reasons, a good teacher maximizes STT and minimizes TTT. (p. 38) As students become more proficient in English, teachers again adjust their speech, this time increasing speed and complexity. Ultimately, English learners will need to function in an all-English-medium classroom; therefore, over time, SDAIE teachers need to reduce the speech- modification scaffolds they use to accommodate their students' evolving proficiency. Table 5.9 summarizes the modifications teachers can make in speech and instructional delivery to make their teaching more comprehensible. Table 5.9 Teachers' Language Modification in SDAIE Type of Modification Precise articulation Use of gestures Intonation Simplified syntax Semantic clarity Pragmatic distinctness Use of discourse markers Use of organizational markers More structured discourse Definition Increased attention to enunciation so that consonants and vowels in words are understandable Showing with hands what is to be done Increased stress on important concepts Shorter sentences, with subject-verb-object word order More concrete, basic vocabulary; fewer idioms Frequent and longer pauses; slightly slower delivery Careful use of transition words, emphasis, and sequence markers Clearly indicating change of activity Main idea easily recognized and supporting information following immediately Example "Trade your homework with the person beside you." Make a swapping gesture with papers to act out "trading homework." "The number of correct answers goes at the top of the page." "Mark the papers. Give them back." "Turn in your work. I mean, give me your homework." "Check the chemicals... Check the list... Be sure your team has all the chemicals for your experiment." "Note this" to denote importance, or "now," "first," "second," and "last" to mark a sequence. "It's time for recess... Put away your books." "Today we are learning about mole weight....I will show you how to calculate mole weight to make the correct solution."
Use of clarification checks Soliciting written input Repetition Use of mini-TPR lessons to preteach key terms Use of primary language Stopping instruction to ask students if they understand; monitoring students' comprehension Having students write questions on index cards Revisiting key vocabulary terms Acting out terms to increase understandability Saying simple directions in the students' language(s) "Hold your thumb up in front of your chest if you understand how to use the formula for acceleration." "I have a card here asking for another explanation of longitude degrees and minutes. OK..." "Precipitation means overall rain or snowfall; we are going to study the precipitation cycle." "On the other hand": "Carlos, stand over here, and Elena, stand here you are 'on one hand," he is 'on the other hand."" "tsai jher, over here, tsai nar, over there" (Mandarin). Repetition and Paraphrase Verbal repetition can be employed to increase comprehensibility (for example, using the same type of directions throughout various lessons), as can organizational repetition (lessons that occur at specific times, lessons with clearly marked verbal and nonverbal boundaries, such as "Now it's time to...," or the use of specific locations for specific content). Concepts are presented numerous times through various means. Elaboration, in which the teacher supplies redundant information through repetition and paraphrase, may also prove effective. Use of Patterned Language It is helpful for teachers to signal the beginnings and endings of lessons clearly, using stock phrases (e.g., "Math time is over. Put away your books"). Procedures and classroom routines should be predictable so that English learners do not feel they have to be ever vigilant for a change in rules. This reduces stress and gives students a feeling of security. students a feeling of security. Although SDAIE teaching involves presentation of subject matter in English, opportunities are available throughout the lesson for students to clarify their understanding using their primary language, supplemented whenever possible by primary-language resources (print, electronic, personnel) that can help students with key concepts. The scope of this book does not permit an exhaustive discussion of SDAIE. For an excellent in-depth treatment, refer to Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarría, Vogt, & Short, 2016). Explanation of Concepts in the Primary Language In SDAIE classrooms, students are afforded opportunities to learn and clarify concepts in their own language. When possible, the teacher offers primary-language resources (print, electronic, personnel) that can help students with key concepts. Although SDAIE teaching involves presenting subject matter in English, teachers continue to provide opportunities throughout the lesson for students to clarify their understanding using the primary language. Recourse to the primary language is still a controversial issue, and many teachers shy away from it on the mistaken belief that primary-language use detracts from developing English proficiency. However, research continues to show that when students are able to employ their first language, they make more academic gains in both content and language than if they are prohibited from using it. Clarification Checks Teachers monitor listening and reading comprehension at intervals to gain a sense of the students' ability to understand. The teacher might pause to ask a question requiring a simple response, such as "Show me how you are going to begin your work," or ask individual students to restate the instruction using their own words. Questions at the literal level are designed simply to check whether students understand directions, details, or procedures. During formal presentations, teachers often use strategies such as asking students to "vote" on their understanding of what has been said by a show of hands. This helps to maintain interest and check for understanding. Depending on student response, teachers may need to rephrase questions and information if the students do not initially understand. Using Questions to Promote Reflection Effective questioning techniques can probe for students' abilities to infer and evaluate. Teachers need to be patient when asking questions-to wait for students
to understand the question before calling on individuals. Even after nominating a student to answer, wait-time is necessary to allow an English learner to compose and deliver a response. He or she may know the answer but need a little more processing time to say it in English. Effective mediational questions-those that promote reflection-focus on the process of thought rather than on low-level details. The following questions or requests provoke thought: "Can you explain how you did that?" "Is there another way we could solve this problem?" "If we do that, what might happen?" or "What do you think is the next step?" Students need to be encouraged by teachers to engage in active oral participation in class. Zwiers (2008) suggested five kinds of prompts to urge students to elaborate their talk. First, teachers should prompt further thinking using phrases like "You're on to something important. Keep going" or "You're on the right track. Tell us more." Students can be asked to justify their responses: "That's a probable answer. How did you get to that answer?" or "What evidence do you have to support that claim?" Teachers can ask for a report on an investigation by saying, "Describe your result," or "What do you think caused that to happen?" To see other points of view, students can be asked, "If you were in that person's shoes, what would you have done?" or "Would you have reacted like that? Why or why not?" Finally, to prompt students to consider consequences, one might say, "What if she had not done that?" or "How can we apply this in real life?" Open-ended questions like these elicit a greater balance between the amount of student talk and teacher talk. Skilled questioning using a linguistic hierarchy of question types helps teachers ascertain students' understanding. For students in the "silent period," questions elicit a nonverbal response-a head movement, pointing, or manipulation of materials. Once students begin to speak, they can choose the correct word or phrase to demonstrate understanding of either/or questions: "Does the water expand or contract to form ice?" "Did Russians come to California from the west or the north?" Once students are more comfortable producing language, wh- questions are used: "What is happening to the water?" "Which countries sent explorers to California?" "What was the purpose of their exploration?" Skillful teachers can ask questions requiring critical or creative thinking even at the beginning level; students at advanced English levels are not the only ones capable of inferential thinking. Scaffolding: Temporary Support for Learning In education, scaffolding is used to help the learner construct knowledge. During scaffolding, the teacher helps to focus the learner's attention on relevant parts of the task by asking key questions that help to determine the zone of proximal development for that student on the particular task. Questions and verbalizations give students the opportunity to think and talk about what they must do. Dividing the task into smaller, manageable subcomponents and sensitively withdrawing assistance when it is no longer required furthers success. The teacher who uses scaffolding skillfully does so in a form of dynamic assessment, evaluating and teaching at the same time. Table 5.10 presents scaffolding strategies in various content areas. Table 5.10 Scaffolding Strategies for Use in Content Areas Scaffolding Strategy Previewing vocabulary Prereading activities Language experience approach Interactive journals Shared reading Learning logs Process writing Description of Use in the Content Class Before beginning a social studies lesson, students pairs skim the chapter and look up definitions in the glossary. Students make collages with pictures of vegetables cut from magazines before reading in the health book about the vitamins found in common foods. After performing a laboratory experiment, students interview one another and write down a report of the experiment results. Students describe personal exercise goals and write daily results in a journal; their peer "personal trainer" reads and provides feedback and encouragement. Students "buddy read" encyclopedia entries as they write a group science research report. In a mathematics center, students make entries into a group log as they try to solve a weekly puzzle. Students working on a month-long family history project share their rough drafts with family members to gain input before final revision.
Providing Graphic Organizers Another way to scaffold is to make verbal information visual. Graphic organizers are visual frames used to represent and organize information-"a diagram showing how concepts are related" (McKenna & Robinson, 1997, p. 117). Many kinds of graphic organizers can also be used to help students focus their thoughts and reactions-for example, as they read a literature selection. Because graphic organizers balance visual with verbal representation, they can help to make visible the conceptual structures that underlie content. This helps students make models for understanding ideas and outcomes. Once students and teachers become familiar with graphic organizers, they are a help to English learners in grasping basic concepts without dependence on language as the sole source of understanding. Graphic organizers are particularly useful content instruction. With mind maps or other information organizers, students can interact with the concepts presented in various content areas in a way that supplements verbal text. Thus, English learners can access core content even when their reading skills are weak. This results in greater student engagement in their learning. Graphic organizers have at least three major applications. First, representative/explanatory organizers are used to increase content understanding, either by building background knowledge before students read a text or synthesizing new information that is gained from a text. Second, generative organizers promote ideas related to content. Students can talk or write about the information presented on a chart. Third, evaluative organizers help explain content. Figure 5.2 shows examples of these three types. Figure 5.2 Three Types of Graphic Organizers Representative/Explanatory - Sequential . Compare/contrast circles - T-chart . Comparison chart • Embedded •Whole/part • Cause/effect Classification Figure 5.3 Sample Sequential Organizer: Story Sequence Chart Beginning Middle Generative End - Concept development • Mind map •Spider map •K-W-L Evaluative A sequential organizer is an explanatory diagram that shows items in order, such as parts of a book, a letter, or an essay; events in a story plot; or steps in written directions. Figure 5.3 shows sequential organizer used to list the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Figure 5.4 shows the problem-solution chain in a Native American "coyote" story. If the events repeat, a cycle graph might be used. A sequence can be a cartoon, a picture strip, or a timeline. • Grade scale .Likert scale
Figure 5.4 Sample Sequential Organizer: Problems and Solutions in a Story Problem 1 Solution1 Problem 2 Solution 2 Compare/contrast organizers can be used to compare characters in the same story or in different stories, types of correspondence (business versus friendly letters), or genres of reading (fiction versus nonfiction). Visually, comparison charts can be of various types: compare/contrast circles (Venn diagram, see Figure 5.5), T-charts (see Figure 5.6), or comparison charts (see Figure 5.7 ). Figure 5.5 Sample Compare/Contrast (Venn) Diagram Used for the Questions "How Are Two Things Alike? How Are They Different?" What A is like How A and B are the same Same What B is like Figure 5.6 Sample T-Chart: Comparison of Same and Different Different
Figure 5.7 Sample Comparison Chart Showing Comparison by Attributes Comparison of Civilizations Duration Political structure Religion etc. Atom Egypt More than 4000 years Check Towns united by centralized government switch Pharaonic, later Islam Other relational organizers can show information that is embedded (see Figure 5.8), whole/part (see Figure 5.9), or cause/effect (see Figure 5.10 ). Lamp Figure 5.8 Sample Relational Organizer Showing Embedded Concepts (Teacher's Phenomenal Field of Personal Relations in the Role of Teacher) The Community Members broken? of Our Class Myself Figure 5.9 Sample Relational Organizer Showing Whole/Part (Parts of the Atom) Protons Neutrons United States Nucleus About 400 years Electrons Hierarchy: towns, counties, states, federal government Figure 5.10 Sample Relational Organizer Showing Cause/Effect (Possible Causes of Lightbulb Nonfunctioning) Plugged in? Predominantly Protestant Christian, then Catholic Christian, then Jewish, Islam, other Replace cord bulb 555 Bulb? Cord problem? Replace Effect: No light Classification organizers are used to create hierarchies (Figure 5.11 ), matrixes (Figure 5.12 ), or other concept relations that show specific structures. Figure
5.13 shows a two-dimensional plot; Figure 5.14 demonstrates an alternative way to display a hierarchy. Figure 5.11 Sample Classification Chart Showing Main Ideas Main Idea Details Figure 5.12 Sample Classification Chart Showing a Matrix Boys Girls Totals Blue-eyed 4 7 11 Brown-eyed 13 10 Totals 17 17 23 34
Figure 5.13 Sample Classification Chart Showing Dimensions (Learning Styles) Concrete Random Abstract Sequential Figure 5.14 Sample Classification Chart Showing Hierarchy Fiction Reading genres Nonfiction
Fantasy Science fiction Detective Noir What We Know Figure 5.15 Sample Concept Development Chart: K-W-L History Military Best Practice A Classification Task Students can practice a classification graphic organizer by sorting a list of recyclable items: newspapers, soda bottles, soup cans, shampoo containers, office paper, clean aluminum foil, junk mail, a shoe box, plastic water bottles, and so on. (Let them make their own categories.) What We Want to Know Source: Adapted from Bonesteel, Gargagliano, & Lambert, 2010, p. 169 Concept development organizers are used to brainstorm. They do not display information that is already related. The K-W-L chart is used to introduce a theme, a lesson, or a reading. It can help generate interest in a topic and support students in using their prior knowledge as they read. Students can enter K (what we know) and W (what we want to know) in advance, reserving L (what we Learned) for the end of the unit or lesson (see Figure 5.15 ). The mind map is basically a circle showing the topic in the center, with lines or other connectors around it that tie students' ideas to the topic (see Figures 5.16 and 5.17 D). Biography Autobiography What We Have Learned
Figure 5.16 Sample Concept Development Chart: Mind Map or Idea Web Figure 5.17 Sample Concept Development Chart: Character Trait Web What character is like Character's name
What character is like What character is like Evaluation organizers show degree of positivity. These can be grade scales (A to F); Likert scales (from 1= strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree); rubric scales (needs work→ satisfactory good excellent); or they can comprise two boxes ("I like/agree with versus "I dislike/disagree with") or three boxes (plus/maybe/minus). Classroom Glimpse Tutoring with Graphic Organizers Semantic mapping proved to be a successful approach for three English learners, two boys ages five and nine and their sister, age ten, whom Judy was tutoring. The children had chosen "Halloween" as an interesting topic to explore as a way to increase their vocabulary in English. Starting with words they knew in English (skeleton, witch), Judy wrote the words on chart paper, which the children copied in their notebooks. The children gave other words in Spanish, and Judy found the English equivalents and wrote them too. Using a fresh piece of chart paper, Judy asked the students how the list of words could be grouped into categories. The activity continued until the words had been grouped into the categories Animals, Monsters, and Trick-or-Treat. Judy followed up this activity by reading a book on Halloween, Rotten Ralph's Trick or Treat. When they came to a word on the chart, Judy pointed it out for reinforcement. Source: Brisk & Harrington, 2000, pp. 71-72 Using Assessment to Promote Learning and Reflection Formative Assessment and Reteaching As students are learning, the teacher can help them maintain momentum and solve ongoing problems through a process of formative assessment involving progress checks, which helps students to evaluate their efforts in the light of their goals and stay on track. The teacher may require formal weekly progress reports, ask for partial products at predetermined times, or set deadlines for circulation of rough drafts. Formative evaluation can permit much valuable ongoing readjustment of the learning process. Teachers exercise patience in helping students monitor and adjust their learning to meet the desired performance standards; vanquish students' habits of sloth or procrastination, f these are a problem; conquer the students' lack of faith in themselves by providing encouragement, structure, and guidelines; overcome students' impatient desire to improve instantly, as they perhaps try and fail several times before succeeding; help students accept the disappointment of failure if there is some aspect of a complex problem that eludes solution; or make themselves available during students' basic struggle to use English as a means of expression. Not all learning is successful. Sometimes problems that are worth addressing are beyond comprehension, and sometimes problems that are comprehensible are simply not interesting. Most teachers do everything possible to facilitate successful learning. But, in the last analysis, it is not the teacher's job to rescue students from disappointment or failure; these are a part of authentic learning. Sometimes metalearning-the wisdom about learning-comes after the learning has been attempted, in a process of reflection and hindsight. Summative Assessment, Culminating Performance, and Metalearning A final performance on a certain day-such as a play with other students as audience or an exhibit for parents-helps students understand the real world of promise and fulfillment. Despite the satisfaction these culminating events offer, the substance of assessment remains with the content standards that have been
attempted, in a process of reflection and hindsight. Summative Assessment, Culminating Performance, and Metalearning A final performance on a certain day-such as a play with other students as audience or an exhibit for parents-helps students understand the real world of promise and fulfillment. Despite the satisfaction these culminating events offer, the substance of assessment remains with the content standards that have been achieved. Peer evaluation, self-evaluation, and teacher evaluation together garner the final evidence: Was the learning successful? What was learned about the content? What was learned about the process? And most excitingly, what is still not known? What remains to be discovered? Reflective Pedagogy Pausing to reflect is the final step in lesson delivery; it occurs at the end of instruction for English learners and in turn reactivates the cycle of teaching and planning. Some questions teachers may use to frame critical contemplation of their teaching are listed in Box 5.2. Box 5.2 Critical Reflection in Lesson Planning . . . . What were the strengths in the lesson? Were content, learning, and language objectives clearly stated to students? Were students, including English learners, engaged in the lesson? How many opportunities were provided for English-language development? What evidence do I have to demonstrate that lesson adaptations for English learners were adequate? Which evidence demonstrated learning by English learners? Which opportunities allowed students to self-assess and be responsible for their own learning? What areas require changes for lesson improvement? Effective Resource Use in ELD and SDAIE A key to success in the SDAIE classroom is the provision of resource-rich teaching to expand the modalities in which English learners can receive information. But which materials? And how to select them? Selecting and Using Appropriate Materials Choosing the right genre is one way to help English learners develop their conceptual and linguistic schemata. The literature curriculum, for example, can be a planned sequence that begins with familiar structures of folktales and myths and then uses these as a bridge to more complex works of literature. Myths and folktales from many cultures are now commonly available in high-quality editions with vibrant illustrations. Students can move from these folktales and myths to selected short stories by authors of many cultural backgrounds, then to portions of a longer work, and finally to entire works. Classroom Glimpse A Variety of Materials William Pruitt (2000, pp. 31-49) describes how his students move from studying different versions of a folktale to studying other kinds of tales. One of the
goals of the story unit is for students to examine how the same story may differ as it appears in different perspectives, media, and cultures, and to compare and contrast these forms. Over the course of the two-week unit, the class reads and compare/contrasts an original (translated) version of "Beauty and the Beast," a poem entitled "Beauty and the Beast," and three video versions of the story. Once students have gained experience with this folktale and understand the pattern of activities, the class moves to other texts that have film adaptations, for example, Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt, 1976). Materials used in the classroom are most accessible when they match the age, language ability, and prior content knowledge of the students. Materials in the primary language can supplement content delivery in English. In fact, with a rich theme, materials from around the world can be featured in instruction. Selecting materials involves an initial choice by the teacher whether to have one main content source or a package of content-related materials (chapters from various texts, video- and audiotapes, magazine and newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, literary selections, Internet sources, software programs, etc.). Regardless of what is chosen, the teacher must consider two criteria: Are the content objectives for the lesson adequately presented by the material? Is the material comprehensible to English learners? The following list enumerates items to consider when selecting materials: . . . The information is accurate, up-to-date, and thorough. The tasks required of students are appropriate to the discipline and promote critical thinking. The text is clearly organized and engaging, with attractive print and layout features that assist students' comprehension. Content area teachers must also use primary-language resources, such as dictionaries, books, software programs, Internet sites, encyclopedias, textbooks, and illustrated charts as well as people resources, such as cross-age tutors, parents, and community volunteers, in helping students to understand concepts. English learners in the content class are continually exposed to new content material and often find primary-language sources helpful. . The text appeals to a variety of learning styles. Sources represented in the text include various literary genres (e.g., narrative, descriptive, analytic). goals of the story unit is for students to examine how the same story may differ as it appears in different perspectives, media, and cultures, and to compare and contrast these forms. Over the course of the two-week unit, the class reads and compare/contrasts an original (translated) version of "Beauty and the Beast," a poem entitled "Beauty and the Beast," and three video versions of the story. Once students have gained experience with this folktale and understand the pattern of activities, the class moves to other texts that have film adaptations, for example, Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt, 1976). Materials used in the classroom are most accessible when they match the age, language ability, and prior content knowledge of the students. Materials in the primary language can supplement content delivery in English. In fact, with a rich theme, materials from around the world can be featured in instruction. Selecting materials involves an initial choice by the teacher whether to have one main content source or a package of content-related materials (chapters from various texts, video- and audiotapes, magazine and newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, literary selections, Internet sources, software programs, etc.). Regardless of what is chosen, the teacher must consider two criteria: Are the content objectives for the lesson adequately presented by the material? Is the material comprehensible to English learners? The following list enumerates items to consider when selecting materials: . The language of the text is straightforward, without complex syntactic patterns, idioms, or excessive jargon. New content vocabulary is clearly defined within the text or in a glossary. Diagrams, graphs, and charts are clearly labeled and complement and clarify the text. The information is accurate, up-to-date, and thorough. The tasks required of students are appropriate to the discipline and promote critical thinking. The text is clearly organized and engaging, with attractive print and layout features that assist students' comprehension. The text appeals to a variety of learning styles. Sources represented in the text include various literary genres (e.g., narrative, descriptive, analytic). The language of the text is straightforward, without complex syntactic patterns, idioms, or excessive jargon. New content vocabulary is clearly defined within the text or in a glossary. Diagrams, graphs, and charts are clearly labeled and complement and clarify the text. Content area teachers must also use primary-language resources, such as dictionaries, books, software programs, Internet sites, encyclopedias, textbooks, and illustrated charts as well as people resources, such as cross-age tutors, parents, and community volunteers, in helping students to understand concepts. English learners in the content class are continually exposed to new content material and often find primary-language sources helpful.
Modifying Materials for Linguistic Accessibility The teacher selects, modifies, and organizes text material to accommodate the needs of English learners. In modifying text, the goal is to improve comprehensibility through such means as providing study guides or defining new content vocabulary by showing definitions pictorially. Other modifications that may be necessary to help English learners comprehend connected discourse include the following approaches: Supply an advance organizer for the text that highlights the key topics and concepts in outline form, as focus questions, or as concept maps. Change the modality from written to oral. By reading aloud, the teacher can also model the process of posing questions while reading to show prediction strategies used when working with text (see the discussion of directed reading-thinking activity in Chapter 7). Selected passages can be tape-recorded for students to listen to as they read along in the text. By working in groups, students can share their notes and help one another complete missing parts or correct misunderstood concepts. These adaptations increase readability. As students' language proficiency increases, so should the complexity of their reading material. The goal is to move students toward the ability to work with unmodified texts as they make the transition from ELD teaching to the mainstream classroom. Culturally Appealing Materials Multicultural materials are a rich source of language and content area learning, including books and other print media, visual aids, props, realia, manipulatives, materials that access other modalities, and human resources. Students may be able to bring in pictures, poems, dances, proverbs, or games; new ways to do math problems; or maps that show a different perspective than that given in the textbook. Shen's Books (www.shens.com) carries a wide selection of multicultural materials that include such themes as multicultural Cinderella stories and other fables; music around the world; foods of the world; immigrant life, adoption, and interracial families; Arabic and Islamic culture; Southeast Asia; and alphabets around the world. The Internet is also a rich source of multicultural content. Students can search for their own primary-language materials. However, it's possible that the teacher who does not speak or read the primary language of the student may not be able to screen for inappropriate content. However, family or community members might be able to assist in finding educationally relevant content. Sources for multicultural viewpoints and materials for various curriculum areas are presented in Table 5.11. Table 5.11 Multicultural Materials: Sources for the Content Areas Content Area Mathematics Social Studies Literature Science Suggested Material Multicultural Mathematics: A More Inclusive Mathematics. Online at www.ericdigests.org/1996-1/more.htm. Multicultural history and social studies sites. Online at www.edchange.org/multicultural/sites/history.html. Multicultural Children's Literature. Online at www.multiculturalchildrenslit.com. Multicultural Science and Math Connections Online t http://walch.com/Multicultural-Science- ... tions.html. Technological Resources to Enhance Instruction Technology-enhanced learning-or computer-assisted instruction (CAI), as it was once known-has been used in classrooms since the earliest days of word processing (late 1970s), with large-scale tutoring systems available in the 1980s that enabled the individual user to attempt repeated answers and receive error feedback without public embarrassment. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and more sophisticated computer-simulated learning environments have come into use in the twenty-first century. Tools for Instruction and Communication The digital revolution is changing the way people learn. Websites offer lesson plans, quizzes, chatrooms, and bulletin boards that allow the learner to sample English idioms, prepare for standardized tests, or connect with English learners in other parts of the world. Many teachers have access to Internet hookups in the classroom. Students can interact with others meaningfully, writing informal emails with "keypals" in different areas of the world or using writing-based chatrooms online in real time.
The instant communication available through the Internet connects students with other parts of the world, with speakers of English, and with rich sources of information. The Internet delivers authentic materials, including texts, images, sound recordings, videoclips, virtual reality worlds, and dynamic, interactive presentations. Students can listen to live radio stations from around the world or hear prerecorded broadcasts of music, news, sports, and weather. Search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Bing) help the student find authentic materials on classroom, group, or individual research topics. Hand-held devices such as cell phones can be used to for group or individual teaching or assessment. Even virtual-reality devices are bringing both the world and artificial worlds into the classroom (see Gadelha, 2017). Today's teachers are educated to maximize the instructional and communicative use of the Internet, CD-ROM-based software, and other CMC tools, including audio and video production using computers, although in the process, older noncomputer-based tools of multimedia production are falling by the wayside. Some teachers are also skilled in using computer-managed instruction (CMI) techniques such as grade book programs and database management. Computers Support Learning Word processing supports the formal writing process by allowing students to electronically organize, draft, revise, edit, and publish their work. Students can develop oral skills by using presentation or authoring software to create professional-looking oral presentations, and they can apply both aural and oral skills in Internet-enabled telephone conversations. Software available for ELD includes traditional drill-and-practice programs focusing on vocabulary or grammar; tutorials; games; simulations that present students with real-life situations in the language and culture they are learning; productivity tools, such as word processing, databases, spreadsheets, graphics, and desktop publishing (DTP); and presentation or authoring programs. Material from encyclopedias and even National Geographic is available on CD-ROM and DVD formats. Students who are literate in their native language can use the computer to access primary-language content information as they leam English. Klaus Vedfert/DigitaMision/Getty Images The computer is a powerful learning tool that requires the teacher to organize, plan, teach, and monitor. Computer technology can provide students with the means to control their own learning, to construct meaning, and to evaluate and monitor their own performance. Although language learning has long consisted of face-to-face interaction between teachers and students in the same physical location, new virtual learning environments have been made possible by the development of widespread, rapid Internet access. During virtual learning, students can participate when they choose (many events do not take place simultaneously) and where they choose (students can "log on" from home, from a neighborhood Internet-enabled café, or from a self-access computer lab at school). Software such as Skype enables users to see one another while learning, but even so, it is difficult to replicate the immediacy of real-life presence. Virtual learning is made possible by up-to-date software and hardware and fast, reliable Internet connections; but it is made effective in the same way that learning has always been effective-by expert teaching and motivated, receptive learners. Best Practice Tips for Online Teaching When designing Internet-based virtual environments, some aspects are important to remember: . Students often need mentoring in addition to academic content; in their minds, the two are intertwined to the extent that learners want to see that course assignments are part of a "bigger picture" of real-world applicability. Students may not be computer-savvy to the same degree. Computer-based delivery should require middle-of-the-road abilities, not expecting an extreme degree of expertise but not boring those who are accomplished "net-denizens." One cannot take for granted that students know their way around online educational software. They may need an orientation module before content delivery. Some students may need the instructor specifically to take them step by step through the software, with explicit modeling of what is required. Students often want "instant" turnaround and feedback on assignments. Instructors must balance these demands with a responsive yet controlled rhythm of communication to accustom students to regular patterns of reinforcement. Students often want a high degree of interactivity and communication not only with the course instructor but with other students in the class, using both synchronous (simultaneous) and asynchronous (delayed) delivery. There should be some mechanism for mediating communication issues that arise between students if they are engaged in peer communication online.
Examples of SDAIE in the Content Domains When the planning for instructional objectives aligned with content standards has been completed, consideration then moves to the needs of the English learner. The following sections address the issue of making instruction meaningful to the learner using various facets of SDAIE. Bridging: Accessing Prior Knowledge and Building Schemata All learning builds on what has been previously learned, because the brain uses schemata to think. When exposed to new information, students access what is already known to them. If little prior knowledge exists, the teacher must supply background knowledge so that instruction can make sense. Best Practice Ways "Into" Literature Before reading a work of literature, the teacher can employ various ways to access prior knowledge: . Anticipation/reaction guides. A short list of statements with which students agree or disagree Pictures, art, movies. Visual cues to build a feeling for the setting Assessing What Is Known on Before teaching, one must assess students' prior knowledge of the concepts and vocabulary that will be presented in the lesson to establish a starting point for the lesson, help students to review and stabilize their background information, and avoid spending instructional already known. Assessments can include a quick written pretest, informal survey, show of hands, pair/share (students discuss in pairs, then tell the whole class), teacher-led oral review, or a student quick write of some key points. Physical objects. Items relating to the reading selection that students identify and discuss Selected read-alouds. Passages that pique students' interest in the selection Sometimes what is already known is a mishmash of media images and hearsay that must be clarified. At other times, students may not be familiar with, or may disagree with, commonly held beliefs of the mainstream culture. [Students bring much more background knowledge to the study of history than we sometimes credit them with. History is, after all, not confined to historians. The media also interpret historical events. [There are also persistent historical myths and legends held dear by parts of the larger culture-Betsy Ross sewing the first flag, Columbus discovering a new world, and so forth. For some students, these images are comforting; others may feel excluded by the popular culture's mythologies. (Levstik & Barton, 2001, p. 25) . Best Practice Some Questions to Ask Before Beginning Sometimes students can write down their prior knowledge. Before beginning a new topic, students can interview each other in pairs to ask the following questions: . Have you ever read or heard anything about this topic? Can you tell me about a similar topic that you think will help us learn about this one? If you were a reporter and could talk to someone about this topic, who would you seek out? Source: Adapted from Fisher, Brozo, Frey, & Ivey, 2007 Building Background Schemata Teachers can provide new experiences that arouse interest in and draw attention to a topic, including field trips, guest speakers, fiction and nonfiction films, experiments, classroom discovery centers, music and songs, poetry and other literature, and computer simulations. To deepen these experiences, the teacher can guide the students to talk and write about them.
Classroom Glimpse Interest-Generating Questions Mr. Gruen, a seventh-grade science teacher, wrote the following statement on the board: "It's only a matter of time before the earth will be hit by a large object from space." He then asked students to find a partner and think of three questions they would most like answered about this statement. Afterward, he gathered the questions and wrote them on the board, placing a star next to the ones that were similar so students could see common themes of interest. This is part of a larger sequence known as Student Questions for Purposeful Learning (SQPL) (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). Classroom Glimpse New Experiences to Build Background Knowledge The firsthand experiences of a field trip piqued the interest of Dorothy Taylor's students in Virginia history and prepared them for the unit she had planned about colonial America. In the fall, all of the fourth-grade classes in the school went on a field trip to Jamestown, Virginia. The children returned from their trip eager to talk about what they had learned. The field trip and students' enthusiasm were a perfect introduction to the social studies unit on the hardships faced by the Jamestown colonists. The students shared with one another what they knew about Jamestown and colonial America and added to their knowledge and vocabulary by reading and watching a video. Source: Taylor, 2000, pp. 53-55 Teachers who are familiar with the background of the students can elicit beliefs, observations, and questions using students' everyday knowledge and cultural patterns. Best Practice The Cheche Konnen Science Project Case studies in classrooms with low-income students from African American, Haitian, and Latino backgrounds found ways that students deployed "sense-making practices-deep questions, vigorous argumentation, situated guesswork, embedded imagining, multiple perspectives, and innovative uses of
everyday words" (Lee, 2005, p. 504)-to construct new meanings that were productive bridges to scientific practices. The teachers in the Cheche Konnen project tapped students' linguistic and cultural experiences to link their prior experiences to instruction, letting students draw on the forms of reasoning they employ in their daily lives as intellectual resources in science learning. Source: Warren, Ballenger, Ogonowski, Rosebery, & Hudicourt-Barnes, 2001 Contextualization When students are asked to learn a new concept, the use of materials, resources, and activities can provide contextualization. The verbal presentation of a lesson is supplemented by manipulatives, realia, media, and visual backup as teachers write key words and concepts on the chalkboard or butcher paper and use graphs, pictures, maps, and other physical props to communicate. By presenting concepts numerous times through various means and in a rich visual, auditory (for example, software programs and Internet sources that offer sounds and experiences), and kinesthetic (drama and skits, "gallery" walks) environment, teachers provide lessons that also appeal to students' different learning styles. Teachers can contextualize mathematics instruction by having sports fans calculate batting average, points per game, or average speed; students who shop with their parents can help to keep purchases within budget by determining the best-priced item. Many activities in mathematics lend themselves to multicultural reference. Systems of numeration and measurements that originated in ancient civilizations (e.g., Egyptian, Inca, Aztec, Maya) can be explored and contrasted (Hatfield, Edwards, Bitter, & Morrow, 2004). Many countries around the world use the metric system, and English learners may have expertise in this system that they could share. Classroom Glimpse Cultural Contextualization Linda Arieto, a Puerto-Rican American who grew up in a low-income community in the Bronx, shared a great deal in terms of language, culture, race, and class background with her students at Peter Towns Elementary. She was skillful using and responding to multiple varieties of language familiar to her students, such as Puerto-Rican Spanish, Puerto-Rican English, Black English vernacular, and Standard English. In the area of mathematics, she consistently found and applied lessons in the text that made sense to her students' cultural backgrounds and urban experiences. She used dominoes as math manipulatives, for example, because they correspond to a game that is popular in Caribbean culture. Source: Romillar & Cahnmann, 2005, pp. 178-179 One example of contextualization is the effort to organize science instruction around common themes (e.g., nature of matter or magnetic energy) or societal issues (e.g., water pollution, drug addiction) to increase the relevance of scientific knowledge to students' lives. This makes science more approachable, allowing for more understanding and reflection, and permits key vocabulary to be used again and again. Vocabulary Preteaching Building vocabulary concept by concept is integral to content teaching. Not all vocabulary is learned when it is pretaught; it can be presented before a lesson, but it must also be repeated again and again during the lesson as well as afterward, for purposes of long-term memory. Several strategies are central to vocabulary retention. To encourage visual cueing, teachers can post important concepts on the bulletin board throughout a unit, offer key terms in test questions to be used in short-answer responses, color or highlight new words, or try to connect concrete images with terms. Teachers cue episodic memory by having students role-play the meanings of key terms, demonstrate or model new ideas, or create semantic maps, posters, or collages to make key ideas more memorable. To promote verbal rehearsal, teachers can praise the use of key terms during student discussions, require important words to be used during oral presentations, or use a pointer to refer to central concepts during lectures (Gregory & Kuzmich, 2005). Best Practice Vocabulary Development Across Proficiency Levels Instructors of English learners should not assume that all vocabulary instruction must be concrete. Each particular word calls for a unique balance of concrete (real objects, meaningful movement (TPR), modeling, actual experience), symbolic (pictures, charts, icons, maps, models, graphic organizers), or abstract representation (verbal-only explanations orally or in print). Boyd-Batstone (2006) recommends a three-part checklist to judge the best way to teach or depict a new word: (1) Can a real object or experience be used? (2) Is a visual model useful? (3) Can an abstract term be "unpacked" (using word origin, related roots, cognates, primary-language translation, or metaphors)?
Classroom Glimpse Teaching I Word Metamorphosis Ny Ha took considerable care to teach her third-grade students the term metamorphosis. She brought in a fishbowl with tadpoles and students observed and recorded the change of life cycle. She provided numerous picture books as well as computer programs that showed sequential pictures. Students created semantic maps of the concept. They made life cycle collages. They looked a t models of caterpillars undergoing change. They used Kidspiration to generate mind maps using pictorial clip art. In the end, Ny thinks they "got it"! Source: Adapted from Boyd-Batstone, 2006 Strategic Teaching Using Multimodalities Students can be provided with cognitively engaging input (both oral and written) in ways that appeal to their learning styles and preferences. Many students need to see, hear, smell, touch, and feel knowledge all at the same time! Classroom Glimpse Supplementing the Verbal Presentation In a middle school life science class, Ms. Chen teaches about flowers by referring students to the explanation in the text (paragraph form), to a diagram of a flower in the text (graphic form), to a wall chart with a different flower (pictorial form), to a text glossary entry (dictionary form), and to actual flowers that students can examine. Through these numerous media, the concepts "petal," "stamen," "pistil," and "sepal" are understood and provide a basis for future study about life-forms. The teacher's task here is to ensure that these multiple sources are organized to communicate clearly and distinguish each concept. Access to Cognitive Academic Language Across the Content Areas Each academic subject makes distinct demands on the student. For example, mathematics uses discourse that is unlike natural language. Readers may find confusing the tendency to interrupt for the inclusion of formulae. Such texts require a reading rate adjustment because they must be read more slowly and require multiple readings. Charts and graphs are an integral part of the text, not a supplement, and technical language has precise meaning. Besides the key words and phrases heard in lesson presentations, there are also key direction words that students need to know, such as analyze, compare, contrast, define, describe, discuss, explain, evaluate, illustrate, justify, state, and summarize. Academic language skills include all four language modes in daily content lessons. Students learn not just vocabulary and grammar but also important concepts
and skills using academic language. In addition, they learn language functions important for specific curricular areas, such as analyzing, evaluating, justifying, and persuading. The Language of Mathematics Language difficulties for English learners lie in vocabulary, syntax, semantics, and discourse. Vocabulary in mathematics includes technical words such as numerator, divisor, and exponent. Words such as regroup, factor, and table have a meaning different from everyday usage. Two or more mathematical concepts may combine to form a different concept: line segment, cross multiply. A variety of terms can signal the same mathematical operation: Add, and, plus, sum, combine, and increased by all represent addition (Dale & Cuevas, 1992). Sentence structures may involve complex syntax:"_ is to as is to "and" is percent of Statements must be translated into logical symbols before problems can be completed, posing additional linguistic difficulty. Problems with meaning (semantics) occur when natural language becomes the language of mathematics. For example, in the problem "Five times a number is two more than ten times the number," students must recognize that "a number" and "the number" refer to the same quantity. Abbreviations and other math symbols may need to be interpreted. For example, ft for foot or the use of the apostrophe may be confusing for students, especially those who were previously educated in the metric system. Vocabulary charts that include the use of abbreviations and symbols can be placed around the classroom to help students remember. Teachers must be aware of these language differences and mediate the transition in learning a new language to express mathematical concepts. The Language of Science The four major language areas (vocabulary, syntax, semantics, discourse features) detailed in the section on mathematics are also relevant for science. Students not only have to learn scientific definitions, but they must also learn complex syntactic structures, which include passive voice, multiple embeddings, and long noun phrases. A number of types of text structures are common in science content materials. The cause/effect structure links reasons with results or actions with their consequences. The compare/contrast structure examines the similarities and differences between concepts. The time-order structure shows a sequential relationship over the passage of time. To assist in their comprehension, students can receive special training in following written instructions for procedures or experiments. ELD must be an objective in all science instruction. Teachers should review vocabulary terms to be used in a lesson before beginning, including the names of equipment and activities that will be used; scientific definitions of some common words (e.g., energy, speed, work); and new content words (e.g., acceleration, inertia). Students need to be taught text processing techniques (how to take notes, how to reread text for answers to study questions, how to interpret charts and picture captions) and then held to a high level of recall about the information they read. To assist their learning of scientific language, students can receive special training in following written instructions for procedures or experiments and in using glossaries. If students are engaged in hands-on activities in which they discuss concepts and content vocabulary in a genuine communicative context, they are more likely to absorb the truth of a scientific hypothesis or the meaning of scientific data. The Language of Social Studies Because history itself has taken place in many languages, a strong social studies curriculum builds on dual-language skills. Students can use communication skills in two languages to gather oral histories from their families and communities. Their own family histories can teach them firsthand about complex historical issues. For more information about oral history projects, read "Junior Historians: Doing Oral History with ESL and Bilingual Students" (Olmedo, 1993). As a discipline, social studies is concept-rich in ideas that may be difficult to depict in visuals. Student interaction is necessary for concept acquisition and subsequent application in different situations. Inquiry skills that are used first in the classroom and then in the community help students practice what they are learning in authentic situations (Sunal & Haas, 2005). The Language of Music Music is a universal language. All cultures make music, expressing their cultural heritage in the particular sounds they make. However, music has its own language that requires specific understanding before an individual can become a proficient performer. For example, words such as jazz, pitch, atonality, and folk music are important technical concepts specific to music; if not taught within the proper context, they may pose a challenge for many English learners. Music can also be used to teach concepts in other content domains. A first-grade lesson teaches opposites through music. Students listen to a story about opposites, which they then discuss before seeking opposites in music, using the books Elmo's Big Lift and Look Book and Pooh Popping Opposites and the music tapes Down on Grandpa's Farm and Lullaby and Goodnight. After a warm-up in which the teacher asks students, "What are opposites?" and "How do we find them?" the teacher reads books that illustrate the concept, asking students for some more examples and stating some pairs that are not opposites. Then the teacher plays tapes of songs that show opposites: fast/slow, number of instruments or people singing, etc.). For assessment, students listen to two more tape selections and write the opposites found.
Language in the Visual Arts Artists have specific ways of doing art, and there is a language to express those ways. Part of an effective visual arts education involves exposing students to appropriate language that describes artistic expression and creates a common language in the community of artists. Accomplished teaching, particularly with English learners, requires explicit teaching of words such as movement, medium, or organic. Art lends itself to contextualization of terms but still demands careful and skillful teaching to connect language and art. Scaffolded Content Instruction Each content domain has particular ways of presenting content, including differences between elementary and secondary methods. Scaffolded teaching approaches support learning in various content areas at both elementary and secondary levels. Elementary Mathematics Adapting math instruction for English learners takes many forms. Table 5.12 shows how math centers set up to teach multiplication in the mainstream classroom can be adapted for English learners. Table 5.12 Adapting Math Centers for English Learners: Multiplication Station Activities Source: Adapted from http://mathforum.org/t2t/message.taco?t ... &message=4 Unadapted Center 1. In Shopping Spree, students make purchases from a list of items, spending exactly $25 for their combination of items. 2. In Circles and Stars, students use dice to play a multiplication game. The roll of the first die determines the number of circles the student will draw. The second roll, using a different colored die, indicates the number of stars the student should draw in each circle. The student then writes a number sentence that reflects the roll of the dice and the product (the total number of stars drawn). 3. In Comparison Game, students use a deck of cards from which the face cards have been removed. Aces are equal to one. Students draw two cards each and use the numbers to create a multiplication number sentence and the product of the two numbers. A "more or less" spinner is used to determine which student's product wins for each round. Suggested Adaptations Directions can be in pictorial form. A peer or older tutor can be stationed at the center to explain directions in a mutual first language. A pair of students can observe while another pair plays until they get the idea. Secondary Mathematics: The Three-Phase Pattern Many mathematics teachers follow a three-phase pattern. The first phase involves the introduction, demonstration, and explanation of the concept strategy by the teacher, followed by an interactive questioning segment, in which the teacher establishes how well students are grasping the concept. The second phase involves guided practice, in which students make the transition from teacher guidance to student supporting techniques that can include coaching, prompting, cueing, and monitoring student performance. The third phase allows students to work independently. If students are having difficulty during independent practice, they can receive more guided practice. Further research in secondary mathematics teaching suggests the importance of making short- and long-term goals clear, as well as explaining to students the usefulness of each mathematical concept. Projects are very effective, although long projects need to be used with discretion. Table 5.13 shows additional strategic approaches for teaching mathematics to English learners.
Table 5.13 Mathematics Teaching Principles for English Learners Teaching Principle Encourage curiosity. Connect the hand and the brain. Link to "funds of knowledge." Encourage both spoken and written mathematics expression. "Stretch" students with challenging activities. Offer variety in problem-solving experiences and information representation. Description Plan activities that stimulate creativity and nurture students' sense of exploration Use experiences that help students make abstract concepts concrete. Using mathematic examples that families might use in daily life to solve real-life problems. Students should be provided opportunities. practice and express their mathematical knowledge orally and in writing, perhaps using sentence frames. Mathematics is a subject area with its own academic language, with activities involving inquiry, problem solving, and higher thinking. Teachers should plan challenges that are nonroutine and open-ended; for example, math problems that may have various correct solutions and answers, and answers that can be represented in multiple ways. Elementary Science The important idea in science instruction is to adopt a problem-solving approach featuring questions that are both comprehensible and interesting. Students can be assisted to solve problems in science by developing a personal set of learning strategies. Teachers can help students describe the thinking they use come up with solutions and praise innovative techniques they apply. Students can share their processes with one another, resulting in multiple ways of approaching a problem. Teachers can also discuss with students the biographies of famous scientists, showing the perseverance it took to solve the problems they addressed. Secondary Science Alternative means of representing information is important in secondary science instruction. T-charts and other graphic organizers are ways to train students to translate verbal information from texts and lectures into mental structures for purposes of memorization as well as understanding. Pictures are important sources of information, whether from texts or supplementary sources. In summary, any method of noting and organizing details or creating and testing hypotheses furthers the goals of science inquiry. Elementary Literature Many graphic organizers are available for use in scaffolding literature instruction: character trait charts, sequence-of-events outlines, cause-and-effect diagrams, setting description maps, and so forth. One key method of scaffolding literature that can be used in other content areas is the cognitive apprentice model. Children learn to read from teachers, but they also learn from teachers to enjoy reading. Teachers can model why they like certain genres, why a certain turn of phrase is delightful, why a plot is compelling, and so forth. Students then become the apprentices of teachers' thinking about literature-an apprenticeship in literature appreciation. Secondary Literature nption with production. It is Building on the love of reading that is the foundation of elen instruction, students at the second level must bala one thing to read poetry and entirely another to write it, to struggle firsthand with the freshness of images, the discipline of meter, the lure of rhyme. To appreciate literature, one must be willing to dive in, to create and re-create in the leading genres of the day. Therefore, scaffolding literature is intrinsically bound up with creative production of language. Integral to production of language is scaffolded creativity in the primary language. Students who create in two languages are addressing a peer audience that appreciates the effort. Even students with a primary language not understood by peers can share the poetic sound and meaning (in translation). All creativity stimulates the common underlying proficiency that makes language a human treasure.
Classroom Glimpse Primary-Language Poetry Judith Casey (2004) encourages students to share native language with classmates during a poetry activity, in which students bring in and read aloud a poem in their first language. On Poetry Day, the atmosphere of the class is charged. No one knows exactly what to expect, but the students are excited. Amazingly, hearing one another read in their first language lets the students see each other in a new light. The class is forever changed as students recognize the value, contributions, and abilities of their classmates. (pp. 51-52) Elementary Social Studies Scaffolded social studies starts with the timeline and the map as the basic graphic organizers. Students need a firm understanding of when and where events took place. Any mental device is useful that helps students visualize when and where. If the computer program Google Earth can be displayed from the computer screen onto a large surface at the beginning of each lesson, students can start "zoomed in" at their own school and then "zoom out" to the picture of the earth in space, move the map to the location of the day's lesson in history or geography, and then "zoom in" to locate any feature under discussion. This grounds students in their own place before making the transition to another. Secondary History/Social Science The reading load in secondary history often needs to be scaffolded. Bradley and Bradley (2004, n.p.) offered several useful methods to help students monitor their comprehension during reading. Analyzing captions. Look at the picture captions and ask, "How does this tie into the reading?" Turning subheads into questions. By rephrasing a subheading into a question, readers are able to predict upcoming content. Making margin notes. Using small sticky notes, students write new vocabulary words they encounter-even words not in the content glossary. A useful scaffolding technique for secondary social studies, the question-answer relationships (QAR) model (Raphael, 1986), describes four kinds of questions: Right There (direct quote from the text), Think and Search (the answer must be inferred from several text passages), Author and You (text integrated with personal experience), and On Your Own (drawn from personal experiences). Each question requires a different set of text processing or thinking resources. This method can be taught in one lesson, and thereafter students can learn to classify questions and locate answers independently. Best Practice Teaching Note-Taking Skills Better note takers produce greater academic achievement in middle and high school. Here are tips on taking better notes: Date and title notes at the top of the page. Split the page: Keep lecture notes on the left side and organizational and summary notes on the right side. Skip lines to show change of topic. Apply the same organization as the lecturer to number subpoints or mark details. Use underlining, circling, or highlighting to indicate important ideas.
background for other students' questions throughout the reading. Charts, graphs, pictures, and symbols can trace the development of images, ideas, and themes. Best Practice Guided Practice in Reading Literature Scaffolded activities help students as they work with text. Reading aloud as students follow along can give them an opportunity to hear a proficient reader, get a sense of the format and story line, and listen to the teacher think-aloud about the reading. In the think-aloud, teachers can model how they monitor a sequence of events, identify foreshadowing and flashback, visualize a setting, analyze character and motive, comprehend mood and theme, and recognize irony and symbolism. To help students develop a sense of inflection, pronunciation, rhythm, and stress, a commercial tape recording of a work of literature can be obtained for listening and review, or native-English-speaking students or adult volunteers may be willing to make a recording. Maintaining the First Language in Guided Practice Students can be encouraged to use and develop their native language during guided practice. Aides and tutors can help explain difficult passages and guide students in summarizing their understanding. Native-language books, magazines, films, and other materials relating to the topic or theme of the lesson can support and even augment students' learning. They can also maintain reading logs or journals in their native language. Independent Practice Computers and other resources can be used to extend practice in various content domains. Many English learners are unfamiliar with the basic tools associated with mathematics (rulers, protractors, calculators, computers, etc.). After demonstrating each, teachers can provide students with real-life opportunities to use them. For example, students are told that the playground needs to be repaved. They first have to estimate the area, then check their estimates with the actual tools (using both standard and metric measuring instruments, as they will not know which system the parking company uses), and then use calculators to find the percentage of error in their estimates. Computer programs can also help to provide estimates and calculations. Best Practice Independent Reactions to Works of Literature . . . Authentic written responses encourage students to reflect on the piece of literature and to express their interpretations to an audience beyond the classroom. Students write poems and share them with other classes or parents at a Poetry Night. Student journalists write reviews of literature works for the school or classroom newspaper or act as movie critics and review the film version of a text studied in class. They can then compare the differences and draw conclusions about the pros and cons of the different media. Students write letters to authors to express their reactions to the story or to pen pals recommending certain pieces of literature. Favorite parts of selections can be rewritten as a play and enacted for other classes as a way to encourage other students to read that piece of literature. Students can plan a mock television game show and devise various formats that include ideas from the literature studied. Best Practice Independent Questioning Strategies "Question swap" (Gregory & Kuzmich, 2005) is a useful device for helping students personalize social studies. For any given topic, students write out two questions each (with answers) and then swap one question with the first partner, each writing out answers. The questioners then do the same with the second question. This process restructures information from verbal input to mental schemata. The questions are the scaffold. The teacher should gather up the questions and answers at the end and skim quickly to clear up any misrepresentation. Resources for Independent Practice Across the content areas, teachers can help make resources available for students as they approach learning tasks autonomously. This helps students take responsibility for their own learning.
Classroom Glimpse Using Multiple Resources for Independent Research Students studying a fifth-grade unit on settlement of the West can examine the legal issues involved in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, compare the various cultures that came into contact in the Southwest, delve into the history of land grant titles, and pursue many more issues of interest. Through filmstrips, films, videos, computer simulations, literature, nonfiction texts, and oral discussions, students develop conceptual knowledge. Such a unit incorporates history, geography, sociology, economics, values, information-seeking skills, group participation, and perhaps dramatic talents as students act out the signing of treaties and other cultural events. Math Resources for Elementary English Learners Almost all math programs at the primary level are supported by sets of manipulative materials; however, manipulatives are not a magic substitute for intensive, multimodal instruction that ensures all students acquire mathematics concepts at every stage. The Internet is a vast source of problems, contests, enrichment, and teacher resources to supplement classroom instruction. Family Math is a program that focuses on families learning mathematics together in support of the elementary math curriculum. Adults and children come to Family Math classes together once a week for several weeks, doing activities in small groups, with two or three families working together. As a follow-up, family members use inexpensive materials found in the home (bot caps, toothpicks, coins) to practice idea that were present website www.techteachers.com/mathweb/familymath/index.htm offers resources for Family Math activities. Math Resources for Secondary English Learners The Internet provides numerous sites that are both resources for teachers and opportunities for students to practice mathematical skills. Table 5.14 features several websites recommended by some of the mathematics teachers with whom I work, including their descriptions of how these sites help them in working with English learners. Table 5.14 Websites for Teaching Secondary Mathematics to English Learners Website www.DiscoverySchool.com http://atozteacherstuff.com Description An excellent supplement to world history videos. The site offers vocabulary words and terms used in the video, rubrics, and a list of additional resources. Contains many ELD lessons specifically designed for all content areas, especially for English learners in U.S. history and government. www/eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons An easy to use site, containing social studies lessons for English learners. Internet Social Studies Resources for English Learners Classroom teachers can combine the enormous range of materials from the Internet with other instructional resources and methods. Field trips via the Internet include visiting the White House (www.whitehouse.gov), exhibitions of African and pre-Columbian Native-American art (www.nmai.si.edu), or the Egyptian pyramids (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid). Many of the virtual field trip sites are designed specifically for education, featuring lesson plans and interactive student activities (see www.internet4classrooms.com). Students can also create their own virtual field trips of local historical sites, or even of their school. Table 5.15 offers selected websites for teaching secondary social studies to English learners.
Table 5.15 Websites for Teaching Secondary Social Studies to English Learners Strategy Identify similarities and differences Historical investigation Inventions Role-playing Group work Decision making "What if" stories Puzzles, riddles Explanations with concrete referents Alternative representation formats Summarizing and note taking Preteach assignments Prepare for exams Provide learning. reading, and study support Word association Listen for specific information How It Helps Helps students compare, create metaphors, and use analogies (comparing the U.S. Cabinet to a school can clarify the concept of analogy); builds vocabulary, comprehension. Gives students an active role in understanding history and allows them to pursue a question using strategies that work for them; focuses on students' interests; allows students flexibility; encourages self-monitoring of progress. Inventions are/have been an important part of U.S. history; students are able to demonstrate comprehension, knowledge, and creativity within a historical framework while reliving history. Adolescents are quite dramatic and like to be in "someone else's shoes"; students learn about others' perspectives while using language, gestures, and body language to show their understanding. Collaborative projects or assignments help students to solve problems together as they hear and use history-related CALP in a low-anxiety environment; structured group work addresses status issues so that "everyone participates, no one dominates" and English learners have chances to talk. This provides for contemplation and discussion of concepts central to many historical issues; provides students hear and use language to make decisions. Help students use uage to create hypothetical predictions about histo for ample, what if Columbus had not sailed to America? chance to Students see representations of historical concepts in different formats that engage and incorporate multiple intelligences. Help students understand abstract concepts. Different ways of presenting facts; for example, graphic organizers, maps, tables, charts, and graphs can reduce verbiage and identify key concepts in a lesson; this also models the different means historians use to gather evidence. An important skill of historians; allows students to make sense of extensive text and lecture by listening for key words and identifying relevant information. Helps students anticipate key concepts before reading assignment. Teacher can model how to use textbook features such as chapter goals and overviews, summaries, and glossaries; this also helps students self-monitor comprehension and progress. Helps students process text and use language to voice their ideas; puts them in role of experts. Teachers arrange jigsaw groups to read text, assigning students to groups and making groups of students experts on specific portions of reading; students read and discuss together; teacher reviews and addresses specific issues with the entire class. Vocabulary enrichment; teaching students to hear a word and associate it with an image helps comprehension and retention. Teaches students explicitly what is important in a lecture, text, or historical document; students use teacher-created graphic organizers or fill-in-the-blank lecture notes.
Classroom Glimpse A Historic Website Ms. Rosie Beccera Davies's third-grade class at Washington Elementary School in Montebello, California, made beginning with the Gabrielino (Tongva) Indians, and including many local historical sites. historical website for their community, Science Resources Outside of the School The school science program often extends beyond the walls of the school to the resources of the community. Teachers can work with local personnel, such as those at science-rich centers (museums, industries, universities, etc.), to plan for the use of exhibits and educational programs that enhance the study of a particular topic. In addition, the physical environment in and around the school can be used as a living laboratory for the study of natural phenomena in project- based and service-learning activities. Resources for Music When adapting music lessons for English learners, primary-language music audiotapes are available through Shen's Books at www.shens.com, including tapes in Spanish, Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, as well as tapes from cultures other than the native cultures of the students. Technology is increasingly an important resource music education. A powerful application for music education is the use of computers, allowing students to improvise, make arrangements, and access vast libraries of recorded music. When instruments are connected to electronic instruments and computers, they can be used to record, transcribe, and even permit practice performances. Musical and cultural resources abound in all communities, and skillful music educators tap into these resources by working with parents, churches, and other civic organizations. Local musicians, professionals, music faculty at local universities, family members, and students at colleges and universities can conduct sessions and workshops in conjunction with the regular instructional program. Formative Assessment and Reteaching Content The hands-on nature of problem solving in science can naturally align with performance-based assessment. By performing actual science activities, students are actively demonstrating the skills for which assessment holds them responsible. The use of formative assessment involves teachers in the role of offering guidance and feedback so the given skills can be accomplished. Classroom Glimpse Checking Exit Comprehension in Science Mr. Petersen uses exit slips as a strategy just before students leave their middle school science class. He provides a preprinted prompt, such as "I'm still not clear about..., to help students pinpoint what is still fuzzy for them about the day's lesson. Students can reflect on what they have just learned, show their thinking process, and prepare for continued learning on the topic. Teachers can use this information to select what to revisit, elaborate, or expand on in the next lesson.
Summative Assessment of Content Lessons Multiple strategies can be used to assess students' mastery of language objectives and grade-level content objectives across diverse content domains. Assessment in Mathematics Although traditional assessment in mathematics focuses on the mastery of algorithms, many alternative forms can be used to measure mathematical thinking and problem solving. Authentic assessment allows the teacher to evaluate mathematics understanding while students are actively engaged in such learning activities as running a school store or simulating trade on the stock market. Assessments should allow for differences in understanding, creativity, and accomplishment. Flexible expectations permit different pacing for students with basic versus advanced math skills. Best Practice Alternative Means of Demonstrating Math Knowledge Students can use various methods to show math learning: Produce or find three different drawings for the number x. Write three story problems that have the number x as an answer. Make up a pattern and explain it. Interview ten people to find out the favorite ice cream flavors and then invent a way to show this information to the class. Source: Adapted from Rowan & Bourne, 1994 Assessment in Visual and Performing Arts Instruction and assessment go hand in hand in the visual and performing arts. The teacher and the artist interact and collaborate in ongoing feedback, with self- monitoring and self-assessment being a part of the daily experience. Portfolios are very common assessment tools used by artists in the performing arts because they track individual growth. They can help high school students, for example, apply for college entrance to an art institute or for employment in the visual arts. Student exhibitions are also a way that teachers can create safe opportunities for assessment, whereby peers and other adults give feedback on completed works or works-in-progress. These exhibitions can take place in the classroom, and rubrics can be developed by the class to evaluate basic elements in a work. Best Practice Assessment As Musical Performance Showcasing musical talent by means of group and individual performance is a time-honored assessment of musical involvement. The excitement of performance and the responsibility of individuals toward their peers and audience teach maturity and poise. Bridging cultural gaps by offering music in many languages helps to involve the families and community in preparing for, attending, and enjoying concerts. Assessment in Social Studies Assessment of all students must be equitable in a social studies program. English learners can show proficiency in multiple ways: portfolios, performance assessments, written reports, role-plays, and research projects. When high-stakes educational decisions for individual students are made, the decisions should be based on a variety of assessments, rather than on a single test score. Assessments of students in social studies should be designed and used to further the goal of educating students to be active citizens in a democratic society (see Chapter 8 for more on assessment).
Table 5.16 presents strategies for adapting curricula in secondary school social studies. Similar strategies may apply in other content areas. These strateg represent a sample of SDAIE methods. Table 5.16 Strategies for Adapting Curricula in Secondary Social Studies Strategy Identify similarities and differences Historical investigation Inventions taking Role-playing Group work Decision making "What if" stories Puzzles, riddles Explanations with concrete referents Alternative representation formats Summarizing and note Preteach assignments Prepare for exams Provide learning. reading, and study support Word association Listen for specific information How It Helps Helps students compare, create metaphors, and use analogies (comparing the U.S. Cabinet to a school can clarify the concept of analogy); builds vocabulary, comprehension. Gives students an active role in understanding history and allows them to pursue a question using strategies that work for them; focuses on students' interests; allows students flexibility; encourages self-monitoring of progress. Inventions are/have been an important part of U.S. history; students are able to demonstrate comprehension, knowledge, and creativity within a historical framework while reliving history. Adolescents are quite dramatic and like to be in "someone else's shoes"; students learn about others' perspectives while using language, gestures, and body language to show their understanding. Collaborative projects or assignments help students to solve problems together as they hear and use history-related CALP in a low-anxiety environment; structured group work addresses status issues so that "everyone participates, no one dominates" and English learners have chances to talk. This provides for contemplation and discussion of concepts central to many historical issues; provides students a chance to hear and use language to make decisions. Help students use language to create hypothetical predictions about history: for example, what if Columbus had not sailed to America? Students see representations of historical concepts in different formats that engage and incorporate multiple intelligences. Help students understand abstract concepts. Different ways of presenting facts; for example, graphic organizers, maps, tables, charts, and graphs can reduce verbiage and identify key concepts in a lesson; this also models the different means historians use to gather evidence. An important skill of historians; allows students to make sense of extensive text and lecture by listening for key words and identifying relevant information. Helps students anticipate key concepts before reading assignment. Teacher can model how to use textbook features such as chapter goals and overviews, summaries, and glossaries; this also helps students self-monitor comprehension and progress. Helps students process text and use language to voice their ideas; puts them in role of experts. Teachers arrange jigsaw groups to read text, assigning students to groups and making groups of students experts on specific portions of reading; students read and discuss together; teacher reviews and addresses specific issues with the entire class. Vocabulary enrichment; teaching students to hear a word and associate it with an image helps comprehension and retention. Teaches students explicitly what is important in a lecture, text, or historical document; students use teacher-created graphic organizers or fill-in-the-blank lecture notes.
"What if" stories Puzzles, riddles Explanations with concrete referents Alternative representation formats Summarizing and note taking Preteach assignments Prepare for exams Provide learning, reading, and study support Word association Listen for specific information Help students use language to create hypothetical predictions about history: for example, what if Columbus had not sailed to America? Students see representations of historical concepts in different formats that engage and incorporate multiple intelligences. Help students understand abstract concepts. Different ways of presenting facts; for example, graphic organizers, maps, tables, charts, and graphs can reduce verbiage and identify key concepts in a lesson; this also models the different means historians use to gather evidence. An important skill of historians; allows students to make sense of extensive text and lecture by listening for key words and identifying relevant information. Helps students anticipate key concepts before reading assignment. Teacher can model how to use textbook features such as chapter goals and overviews, summaries, and glossaries; this also helps students self-monitor comprehension and progress. Helps students process text and use language to voice their ideas; puts them in role of experts. Teachers arrange jigsaw groups to read text, assigning students to groups and making groups of students experts on specific portions of reading; students read and discuss together; teacher reviews and addresses specific issues with the entire class. Vocabulary enrichment; teaching students to hear a word and associate with an image helps comprehension and retention. Teaches students explicitly what is important in a lecture, text, or historical document; students use teacher-created graphic organizers or fill-in-the-blank lecture notes. Instructional Needs Beyond the Classroom To be successful in their academic courses, English learners often need assistance from organizations and volunteers outside of the classroom. This assistance can come from academic summer programs, additional instructional services such as after-school programs and peer tutoring, and Dial-a-Teacher for homework help in English and in the primary language. Support in the affective domain may include special home visits by released time teachers, counselors, or outreach workers and informal counseling by teachers. Monitoring of academic progress by counselors also helps to encourage students with language needs. Best Practice Meeting Instructional Needs Beyond the Classroom Escalante and Dirmann (1990) explicated the main components of the Garfield High School advanced placement (AP) calculus course in which Escalante achieved outstanding success in preparing Hispanic students to pass the AP calculus examination. Escalante's success was not due solely to outstanding classroom teaching; he was the organizer of a broad effort to promote student success. In his classroom, he set the parameters: He made achievement a game for the students, the "opponent" being the Educational Testing Service's examination; he coached students to hold up under the pressure of the contest and work hard to win; and he held students accountable for attendance and productivity. But beyond this work in the classroom was the needed community support. Community individuals and organizations donated copiers, computers, transportation, and souvenirs such as special caps and team jackets. Parents became involved in a campaign against drug use. This helped Escalante emphasize proper conduct, respect, and value for education. Past graduates served as models of achievement. They gave pep talks to students and acted as hosts in visits to high-tech labs. The support from these other individuals combined to give students more help and encouragement than could be provided by the classroom teacher alone. Students saw concentrated, caring, motivated effort directed toward them-something they had rarely before experienced. The results were dramatized in the unforgettable feature film Stand and Deliver.
Teacher Commitment Although technological tools and techniques for ELD and content area teaching are changing rapidly, what remains constant is the need for English learners to receive high-quality instruction that permits them access to the cognitive academic language they need for school success. Teachers who are dedicated to student achievement are key. Although in present-day U.S. classrooms, almost 90 percent of English learners were born in the United States, often teachers will find students from all around the world in their ELD classes. In university towns, there are children of international graduate students and professors; in border towns, there are students from the bordering country; in industrial cities, there are children of experts and blue-collar workers who are drawn there by means of global trade. Teachers often find themselves with students of both familiar and uncommon languages and cultures. If teachers are the professional learners of the world, students are their apprentices. Students are not only learning academic content, but with their teachers as leaders, are learning about how to interact with the world. In SDAIE classrooms, it is not only the students who are learning. Successful teachers themselves are open to learning about their students, learning about their students' culture(s) and language(s), and also getting to know families and the local community; teachers are not only willing to learn but also expecting to learn. ELD and content learning go hand in hand in classrooms that support high-quality instruction for English learners. These classrooms feature multiple modalities for instruction and a rich mix of stimulating materials and linguistic interaction. Most of all, classrooms that foster high achievement have teachers who are committed to enriching language and promoting a high level of content learning using SDAIE to make instruction comprehensible and meaningful. 7 English-Language Literacy Development Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to ... . . . Advocate the empowerment of English learners by such practices as integrating oracy and literacy, teaching reading first in the primary language, and employing English language-development (ELD) standards that facilitate students' transfer to mainstream classroom; Identify reading instructional practices for English learners that develop reading fluency and comprehension as well as critical literacy response and analysis skills across a spectrum of genres and modalities; Explain how writing both in English and in the native language can create bilingual writers who are able to express their ideas and opinions fluidly with a high level of grammatical accuracy, and how a process approach to writing can help learners to overcome frequently occurring ELD hurdles; Clarify the role of grammar in bilingual literacy, and ways that implicit awareness of grammar can be combined with explicit grammar teaching and error correction to advance the writing skills of English learners; Contrast content-based ELD with other models of English instruction, looking at ways with which content instructors and ELD teachers can collaborate in lesson planning and delivery; and Describe how multimodal ways of reading and writing combine with the possibilities of digital tools to expand existing notions of literacy.
Meeting the Varied Literacy Needs of English Learners Literacy instruction is a crucial aspect of K-12 schooling in the United States. The topic of how best to instruct English learners has been a part of the debates over the best ways to help students learn to read and read to learn (see Wolfe & Poynor, 2001, for a discussion of the politics of reading instruction). However, a complicating factor in the acquisition of literacy is the varying background experiences that English learners bring to the reading task. English learners may have backgrounds that place them in the following categories: . . . K-3 learners whose beginning literacy instruction is in their primary language K-3 learners acquiring initial literacy in English because they do not have access to primary-language reading instruction Older learners with grade-level primary-language literacy who are beginning to develop literacy in English Older learners with limited formal schooling in their home country Older learners with inconsistent school history and limited development of either the primary language or English This complex terrain, with English learners coming from a wide range of backgrounds and primary language literacy and achieving a wide range of scores on English proficiency tests before and during instruction, suggests it is unlikely that a one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction is suitable. Instead-especially as contemporary ideas about literacy expand in the Cyber Age-instructional models must become ever more complicated and differentiated to respond to the literacy skills that will be necessary as the twenty-first century advances. Connections among Oracy, Literacy, and Social Functions How do speaking and listening connect to reading and writing? Vygotsky (1981) believed that children learn to engage in higher-level thinking by learning first how to communicate. The more students can use language (both their first and second languages) in the classroom environment, the more they will learn. The language that students bring from home is the foundation not only for the language used at school but also for the process of learning itself. Thus, both English proficiency and learning in the content areas are furthered by a solid base of primary-language proficiency; and current ideas about translanguaging encourage dual-language use in instruction. Writing and reading, like speech, are social acts. This means that the natural sociability of children in their first language is the foundation for their intellectual development. This chapter presents ways in which literacy and oracy develop within a social context and are enhanced by strategic teaching of language functions. Students need opportunities to engage with English in natural interactional contexts and for a variety of purposes: to establish and maintain social relationships; to express reactions; to give and seek information; to solve problems, discuss ideas, or teach and learn a skill; to entertain or play with language; or to display achievement as they continue to develop literacy skills in their primary language. While teaching, observant educators take note of what activities "light a fire" in learners and take care to balance students' receptive and productive skills within a learning environment that respects culture, human interests, and imagination. English for Empowerment Teachers of English must become aware that language is inextricably joined with cultural identity and social differences, and the individual's relationship to institutions and sociocultural contexts affects opportunities for oracy and literacy. Not just any activity in class simply and directly enhances language development. Direct connections to the community and to the circulation of power strengthen the chance that an individual's oracy and literacy efforts will actually enhance his or her social and cultural prospects in life. Banks (1991) set empowerment in the context of personal and social change:
A curriculum designed to empower students must be transformative in nature and help to develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and implement their decisions in effective personal, social, political, and economic action. (p. 131) However, Wink (2000) cautioned that the verb empower should not be used with a direct object, because it is patronizing to believe that one can empower someone else. Take the contrasting examples of two parent newsletters sent home by a school. The first newsletter is part of the school's open house packet distributed with about six other papers, some of which are in Spanish. The newsletter is a word-for-word primary-language translation of the reverse side, a letter to English- speaking parents. There are no illustrations-merely a page consisting of ten paragraphs, each explaining a different homework tip. This newsletter assumes that the parents welcome the advice of the school authorities and that the parents' role is to help the students complete the assignments sent home by the teachers. In contrast, another teacher works with students to write Homework Help manuals, six-page "little books" composed by students themselves in cooperative groups. Each group decides on a title for their book and brainstorms the book's content. Will it be in both Spanish and English? Will it include recommendations of a special place to study at home? Will it mention adequate lighting? Will it discuss how to deal with the distractions of television or of siblings? Will it advise students how to solicit help from parents? Each group adds the ideas that the members choose. When the books are ready, the teacher asks each student to take the book home, discuss it with the family, and then come back to class with feedback about whether the suggestions are apt, plus additional ideas. Looking at these two products, which would benefit students more? Which is more likely to be a focal point for discussion at home? One must admit that the student product is more likely to influence attitudes and behavior toward studying than the administrator's version, no matter the difference in expertise. Moreover, what social functions of language were involved in the student project (interpersonal, representational, heuristic)? In the process of creating the manual, the students naturally used speaking and listening together with reading and writing. This is an example of a transformative literacy that served both institutional purposes and student empowerment. Teachers with an advocacy agenda speak of "social justice literacies" (Boyd, 2017), going beyond an inclusive curriculum that includes a wide range of reading materials written by authors of diverse ethnicities, social classes, geographic areas, and sexual orientations. This is akin to what Banks (2010) has called a "heroes and holidays" approach, wherein a superficial celebration of difference is used to signify diversity. Instead, social justice educators realize that a critical approach is necessary, engaging students in discussions along with diverse authors of topics of oppression, privilege, and power, using inclusive language practices to allow students to grapple with the world as they experience it. In this way, literacy becomes an avenue for truth. An Integrated Approach to Oracy and Literacy The idea that speaking and listening must precede literacy is outdated. Oral-language proficiency promotes literacy and vice versa. Most people are visual learners-memory of a new word, for example, is enhanced when the word can be seen as well as heard. So an integrated approach to English language arts is recommended, not only at the elementary level but also for content-area instruction at the secondary level. Speaking and listening should be combined with reading and writing, and content instructors should integrate the teaching of English with subject matter instruction. To integrate oracy with literacy, English learners need environments that help them to meet the social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic demands of learning. Students need a positive emotional setting, a climate of trust and respect. Teachers can encourage students to respect the language of their peers and can model respectful listening when students speak. Students need a flexible physical setting for interaction: round or rectangular tables, clusters of desks, workstations, and centers. In addition, classrooms need to contain things to talk about: nature displays, flags, maps, artifacts, a variety of print material, and a challenging, interesting curriculum. Finally, students need frequent opportunities to interact: flexible grouping that allows work with a variety of classmates, cross-age tutors, the teacher, aides, volunteers, other adults at school, and guests. Speaking can be integrated with literacy and oracy activities in many ways. Students can listen to the sharing-time stories of others and use these as starting points for their own "adventures." Inviting community elders to tell stories in class provides rich stimuli, and when the visitors are gone, the students can finish these stories to continue the entertainment or write other stories in response. Older students can write response comments to their peers' oral presentations, share notes from class lectures with a group, or create group research reports. Negotiating, co-creating, responding, and giving presentations help to integrate speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Reading First in the Primary Language Study after study has demonstrated that the degree of children's native-language proficiency is a strong predictor of their progress in ELD. Hurrying young children into reading in English without adequate preparation in their own language is counterproductive. If at all possible, children should be taught how to read in their native language while acquiring oral proficiency in English and subsequently taught to extend their skills to reading in English.
Personal Factors Affecting Literacy Development in English Similar factors influence literacy in English as those that affect second-language acquisition (SLA) in general (see Chapter 3). An understanding of these factors can help teachers support students' process of learning to read in English. Primary-Language Literacy Level The more advanced the native-language competency, the more rapid the progress made in English, providing the student is motivated and the social context is supportive. Each year of schooling adds sophistication. In the early grades, a child with concepts about print in the first language (L1) has an advantage, including the ideas that print carries a message; that books are organized with a cover, title, and author and are held in a certain way for reading; that reading flows in a particular and consistent direction (whether left to right and top to bottom or some other way); that (most-especially alphabetic) printed language consists of letters, words, sentences, punctuation marks, and case markers-upper- and lowercase, title case, etc.). Successful beginning readers build on their emergent literacy that starts before formal schooling. In later grades, students who have learned in their primary language how discourse works have an advantage. For example, they can scan text for key ideas or specific details, they can read picture captions to interpret visual information, and they can use text aids such as the table of contents or a glossary. In addition to concepts about print and basic literacy skills, students bring a wealth of reading strategies. Most important, however, is metastrategic knowledge -being able to choose the right strategy for the task from a repertoire of strategies. In addition, students with oracy skills can use their listening and speaking productively in understanding task directions, asking clarifying questions, or displaying knowledge in response to the teacher's questions. For the most part, primary-language literacy means that the student is familiar with the culture of schooling, including the need to sit still and focus, to follow classroom procedures, and to use pragmatic skills such as manners to act as a productive member of the class. Having the intellectual self-discipline instilled by schooling accompanied by literacy skills in the primary language bodes well for success in English literacy. Transfer of Primary-Language Literacy Language transfer occurs when the comprehension or production of a second language is influenced by the way the L1 has been acquired. Sometimes learners use rules from their L1 that are not applicable to the second language (negative transfer). As an illustration, some negative phonetic transfers that Spanish speakers make when writing in English include es for /s/ as in *estop, d for /t/or /th/ as in "broder, ch for /sh/ as in "chort, j for /h/ as in "jelper, and g for /w/ as in *sogen (sewing). What are positive transfers from the L1? The capacity to focus on syllables and words is a foundational reading skill, which helps students read, and in turn is advanced as they read. Moreover, phonemic awareness-the ability to separate phonemes; to add, delete, or substitute phonemes in words; and to blend or split syllables-is a metalinguistic ability that transfers from L1. Students can also transfer sensorimotor skills (eye-hand coordination, fine muscle control, spatial and directional skills, visual perception and memory); auditory skills (auditory perception, memory, discrimination, and sequencing); common features of writing systems (alphabets or syllables, punctuation rules); comprehension strategies (finding the main idea, inferring, predicting); study skills (taking notes, using reference sources); habits and attitudes (self-esteem, task persistence, focus) (Hamayan, Genesee, & Cloud, 2013); the structure of language (speech-print relationships, concepts such as syllable, word, sentence, paragraph); and knowledge about the reading process. Aside from the preceding skills, students can transfer direct linguistic content. Of course, names for concrete objects in the first language must be relearned, but a few cognates can transfer from Spanish to English (cognates are words in two languages that look alike and have the same or similar meaning). Recognizing a similar word with a similar meaning makes learning new vocabulary easier. Even more important than concrete nouns and cognates are abstract concepts that can transfer. Students have to learn such concepts as proofreading or photosynthesis only once; they can then transfer that knowledge into the second language. The more concepts that are stored in the L1, the more enabled the student during ELD. In addition to language labels, phonological awareness, and discourse skills, students can transfer metalinguistic awareness-the ability to use language to think and talk about the language itself. Metalinguistic awareness may develop during middle childhood as the child learns to think about the linguistic system. Another view is that metalinguistic awareness is a result of schooling, particularly of learning to read. Metalinguistic ability is a function of age-to a point-and students vary in this ability. To summarize best practice in promoting metalinguistic awareness, knowledge, and skills, Table 7.1 divides these into four components and prescribes practices that enhance these components.
Personal Factors Affecting Literacy Development in English Similar factors influence literacy in English as those that affect second-language acquisition (SLA) in general (see Chapter 3). An understanding of these factors can help teachers support students' process of learning to read in English. Primary-Language Literacy Level The more advanced the native-language competency, the more rapid the progress made in English, providing the student is motivated and the social context is supportive. Each year of schooling adds sophistication. In the early grades, a child with concepts about print in the first language (L1) has an advantage, including the ideas that print carries a message; that books are organized with a cover, title, and author and are held in a certain way for reading; that reading flows in a particular and consistent direction (whether left to right and top to bottom or some other way); that (most-especially alphabetic) printed language consists of letters, words, sentences, punctuation marks, and case markers-upper- and lowercase, title case, etc.). Successful beginning readers build on their emergent literacy that starts before formal schooling. In later grades, students who have learned in their primary language how discourse works have an advantage. For example, they can scan text for key ideas or specific details, they can read picture captions to interpret visual information, and they can use text aids such as the table of contents or a glossary. In addition to concepts about print and basic literacy skills, students bring a wealth of reading strategies. Most important, however, is metastrategic knowledge -being able to choose the right strategy for the task from a repertoire of strategies. In addition, students with oracy skills can use their listening and speaking productively in understanding task directions, asking clarifying questions, or displaying knowledge in response to the teacher's questions. For the most part, primary-language literacy means that the student is familiar with the culture of schooling, including the need to sit still and focus, to follow classroom procedures, and to use pragmatic skills such as manners to act as a productive member of the class. Having the intellectual self-discipline instilled by schooling accompanied by literacy skills in the primary language bodes well for success in English literacy. Transfer of Primary-Language Literacy Language transfer occurs when the comprehension or production of a second language is influenced by the way the L1 has been acquired. Sometimes learners use rules from their L1 that are not applicable to the second language (negative transfer). As an illustration, some negative phonetic transfers that Spanish speakers make when writing in English include es for /s/ as in *estop, d for /t/or /th/ as in "broder, ch for /sh/ as in "chort, j for /h/ as in "jelper, and g for /w/ as in *sogen (sewing). What are positive transfers from the L1? The capacity to focus on syllables and words is a foundational reading skill, which helps students read, and in turn is advanced as they read. Moreover, phonemic awareness-the ability to separate phonemes; to add, delete, or substitute phonemes in words; and to blend or split syllables-is a metalinguistic ability that transfers from L1. Students can also transfer sensorimotor skills (eye-hand coordination, fine muscle control, spatial and directional skills, visual perception and memory); auditory skills (auditory perception, memory, discrimination, and sequencing); common features of writing systems (alphabets or syllables, punctuation rules); comprehension strategies (finding the main idea, inferring, predicting); study skills (taking notes, using reference sources); habits and attitudes (self-esteem, task persistence, focus) (Hamayan, Genesee, & Cloud, 2013); the structure of language (speech-print relationships, concepts such as syllable, word, sentence, paragraph); and knowledge about the reading process. Aside from the preceding skills, students can transfer direct linguistic content. Of course, names for concrete objects in the first language must be relearned, but a few cognates can transfer from Spanish to English (cognates are words in two languages that look alike and have the same or similar meaning). Recognizing a similar word with a similar meaning makes learning new vocabulary easier. Even more important than concrete nouns and cognates are abstract concepts that can transfer. Students have to learn such concepts as proofreading or photosynthesis only once; they can then transfer that knowledge into the second language. The more concepts that are stored in the L1, the more enabled the student during ELD. In addition to language labels, phonological awareness, and discourse skills, students can transfer metalinguistic awareness-the ability to use language to think and talk about the language itself. Metalinguistic awareness may develop during middle childhood as the child learns to think about the linguistic system. Another view is that metalinguistic awareness is a result of schooling, particularly of learning to read. Metalinguistic ability is a function of age-to a point-and students vary in this ability. To summarize best practice in promoting metalinguistic awareness, knowledge, and skills, Table 7.1 divides these into four components and prescribes practices that enhance these components.
Table 7.1 Practices That Promote Metalinguistic Awareness Source: Gombert, 1992, pp. 15, 39, 63; Pratt & Nesdale, 1984, p. 105. Component of Metalinguistic Awareness Metaphonological Metasyntactic Metapragmatic Metasemantic Definition Identifying the phonological components in linguistic units and intentionally manipulating them The ability to reason consciously about the syntactic aspects of language and to exercise intentional control over the application of grammatical rules ELD Level Concern with the awareness or knowledge one has about the relationships that obtain between the linguistic system and the context in which the language is embedded Beginning Refers both to the ability to recognize the language system as a conventional and arbitrary code and the ability to manipulate words or more extensive signifying elements, without the signified correspondents being automatically affected by this Suggestions to the Teacher to Enhance Awareness . . Listening Comprehension Teach sound-symbol connection (phonics). Teach word segmentation into syllables and onset-rime awareness (the idea that rhymes occur when the ending phonemes are the same sounds, even when beginning phonemes vary). Responds to simple directions and questions using physical actions Have students make good/bad judgments on the correct form of sentences. Help students judge the adequacy of messages and their context. Teachers can transform language transfer into a learning strategy by helping students become aware of ways in which they can draw from prior knowledge of how language works to make English easier. Explicit attention to transfer, both in teacher attitude (welcoming dual-language use, understanding code-switching, providing support for literacy in multiple languages, and honoring primary languages) and in specific strategies, will help students build SLA on a firm foundation of L1 proficiency. Point out ironic, sarcastic, humorous, and polite forms of language. Level of English-Language Proficiency English learners enter U.S. schools from diverse backgrounds. Some are balanced bilinguals, literate in two languages; others are limited bilinguals, with oracy and literacy skills more developed in one language than the other. Others are monolingual and literate only in their native language; still others are monolingual yet preliterate. This creates a complex situation for instructors and requires differentiated instruction. Careful assessment is needed so that the teacher is aware of the various skill levels (speaking/listening, reading, writing) of each student, and flexible grouping is required to advance each student differentially in his or her strong and weak skills. Teach students about word denotation and connotation. A student's assessed proficiency score, combined with other measures of proficiency such as teacher observation and reading assessment, determines the appropriate level of instruction for that student. Table 7.2 displays ELD objectives for listening and reading comprehension at five SLA levels. The complexity of the standards increases gradually as expectations increase for language proficiency. Table 7.2 Expectations for Listening and Reading Comprehension at Five ELD Levels Expand vocabulary of synonyms and antonyms. Help students find cognates between languages. Reading Comprehension Responds orally to stories read aloud by answering factual comprehension questions using one- or two-word responses
Early Intermediate Intermediate Early Advanced Advanced Asks/answers questions and makes statements using phrases or simple sentences Asks/answers instructional questions using simple sentences Comprehends detailed information with minimal contextual clues on unfamiliar topics Identifies orally and in writing key details and concepts from information/stories on unfamiliar topics Responds to stories read aloud by answering factual comprehension questions using phrases or simple sentences Uses simple sentences to respond to stories by answering factual comprehension questions in the language experience approach (LEA) and guided reading Restates facts and details from content area texts Locates and uses text features such as title, table of contents, chapter headings, diagrams, and index A student's proficiency level is often represented as three scores: listening/speaking, reading, and writing. Because of individual differences, students will have mixed skill proficiency levels; one person may be at the early advanced level in speaking/listening, the intermediate level in reading, and early intermediate level in writing. Each proficiency requires distinct ELD objectives. It would be relatively easy to plan instruction if students at a grade level were homogeneous in English ability, but that is seldom the case. More frequently, English learners with four or five levels of proficiency are mixed in the same class. Therefore, planning must accommodate twenty to thirty students across a range of levels, with many students at mixed levels. How is this possible? The answer is differentiated instruction that develops students at two SLA levels at a time. If a lesson is geared to accomplish writing objectives at the early intermediate and early advanced levels, the beginning-level students may listen while the early intermediate students read aloud what they have written; intermediate and advanced writers may act as peer tutors. In this way, students can participate in lessons although their particular SLA objectives are not addressed on that day. ELD and ELA Standards in Reading In many states, the ELD standards correspond to the English Language Arts (ELA) Standards in reading. The same categories are used so that as English learners progress, their skills are developed in the categories that will be used for evaluation in the mainstream class. These categories may include Reading Word Analysis, Reading Fluency and Systematic Vocabulary Development, and Reading Literary Response and Analysis. Although the subskills that make up these categories become progressively more challenging from Beginner to Advanced, even at the beginning level students are exposed to literature and asked to respond ("Listens to a story and responds orally or in drawings"). The chief difficulty in teaching reading to English learners is that for native English speakers, reading is a matter of recognizing on paper the meaning that already exists in oral language. Those who do not understand English, however, must first learn the language before decoding its written form. The difficulty, then, is that when working with English learners, teachers have to teach English simultaneously with teaching how to read English. Most teachers of reading are aware that students do not understand everything they read-even native English speakers need to acquire vocabulary as well as the thinking skills (comprehension, inference) that accompany literacy. English learners need to learn thousands more words just to reach the starting point of the linguistic knowledge that native speakers learned before starting school. This catch-up must take place at school. ELD reading and English language arts (ELA) reading fundamentally differ in that there is a double burden on the English learner. Therefore, the ELD standards precede the mainstream ELA standards. Foundations of Literacy Purposes for Reading During the advent of the era of television, critics asked, "Is reading dead?" With the advent and proliferation of the Internet, people are asking the same question as they see young people inundated with images and sounds that flout classic print conventions. At the same time, however, more individuals are expected to be literate than ever before, as employment in modern technology requires advanced reading and writing skills. However, in the midst of calls for enhanced literacy to benefit the workplace, one might remember that this functionalist approach ignores the need for critical literacy, which Corley (2003) defines as "the practice of helping learners make sense of what they are learning by grounding it in the context of their daily lives and reflecting on their individual experiences, with an eye toward social action" (p. 1). McLaren (1995) called for media studies to be a central focus of school curricula so that learners can be educated beyond a functional literacy that serves the purpose of the school but perhaps not the purpose of the individual. The search for reading strategies that fit the generic learner quickly runs afoul not only of current calls for situated literacy but also of the impossibility of finding a "best" method. Certainly, contextual and instructional variation complicates matters: Older learners need different reading instruction than do children, learners' prior schooling creates diverse starting points for instruction, and learners' goals deviate from official policy mandates. In spite of these shortcomings, it is clear that instruction in reading can be applied situationally and experimentally until some wisdom is reached about best practices for the particular context and learners. Most people learn new skills in an integrated way, starting from the need to learn for some purpose. Most learners read and write because they see others doing it-reading directions, newspapers, or road signs for information, or reading comics or novels, just to pass the time. However, many English learners do not see their families reading or writing. Therefore, it takes a leap of imagination for them to see themselves as readers. It is important, then, that the classroom as a community become a place in which reading is enjoyable. A context of shared enjoyment is the key to making literacy an everyday part of life. Reading is a complicated process, requiring the reader to coordinate letters and sounds; spelling patterns; word meaning; combining words to form phrases, sentences, and paragraphs; and drawing on prior knowledge to understand how the text fits the context. A reading program must not ignore any of these facets. Does phonics work? Yes-but it cannot be the only component of good reading instruction. Phonics instruction in the absence of purpose and meaning, in other words, interesting things to read and hear and talk about-will not help children learn to read well.
Standards-Based Reading Instruction Basal readers on the market reflect the current emphasis on standards-based instruction. For example, Launch into Reading, Level I (Heinle & Heinle, 2002), an ELD reader, refers to the specific California English Language Arts Standard to which each lesson is connected. Lesson 13, "Flowers (A Poem by E. Greenfield)" addresses Reading Standard 6, 3.4, "Define how tone or meaning is conveyed in poetry." Follow-up exercises ask students to use a continuum scale to rank "five ways you can learn about people's feelings and ideas" (short story, poem, magazine or newspaper article, movie or TV program, and conversation), which addresses Reading Standard 2, 2.7, "Interpret information from diagrams and charts." Later in the lesson, students are asked to find the rhyming words in the poem "Flowers" (Reading Standard 1, 1.6, "Create and state a series of rhyming words") and then work with a partner to interpret a poem (Writing Standard 6, 2.4, "Write responses to literature: Organize the interpretation around several clear ideas, premises or images"). All teaching materials, including the teacher's resource book, the student workbook, and the student reading book, contain explicit references to standards on each page. Transfer of Reading Skills Students who are already literate in their L1 have many useful reading skills that transfer directly into the second language. These include the ability to decode a word by sight, to sound out more difficult words, to use context clues, to read text in a certain direction, to skim or scan as necessary to find information, to use cues such as the title and pictures to help create meaning, to identify the main idea when reading, to use story-sequence skills, to predict or anticipate story outcomes, to read critically, to understand characters and plot events, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to connect causes with effects (Cloud et al., 2000). These who do read in their L1 have to be taught reading skills explicitly. Developing Word Analysis Skills What characterizes literacy instruction for English learners? The natural developmental processes that children undergo in learning their L1 (oral and written) also occur in SLA (oral and written). For reading, these processes include using knowledge of sound-symbol relationships (graphophonics), word order and grammar (syntax), and meaning (semantics) to predict and confirm meaning, as well as using background knowledge about the text's topic and structure along with linguistic knowledge and reading strategies to make an interpretation (Peregoy & Boyle, 2016). The following sections specifically detail the major tenets of current reading pedagogy and practice. Emergent Literacy A key insight of emergent literacy theory is that children learning to read already understand quite a bit about print. Most young children have had much exposure to print in the culture at large and may have engaged in various informal kinds of reading. Even homes without books often have magazines and the ubiquitous advertising on television, which includes product names. Therefore, it is the teacher's job to build on these nascent skills so students can "grow into reading." Emergent literacy involves a combination of components. Emergent readers must learn the following skills: . Drawing on their prior knowledge of the world to connect the printed word with its semiotic meaning (for example, the red octagonal sign at a street corner means "stop") Enhancing their phonemic awareness by linking sounds with symbols Recognizing a set of sight words that are not phonetically predictable (the is not "ta-ha-ay") Acquiring reading behaviors, such as handling books and focusing on text Participating in a culture of reading for enjoyment and sharing their pleasure in reading with others, borrowing and returning books to the class library, and working in the company of others to acquire meaning from books Concepts about Print Students need a foundation of basic ideas about print. They may already intuit some of these, or they may need schooling to gain these concepts. This knowledge involves practice with print: Where to begin writing or reading, going from left to right. Where to go after the end of the line (return sweep). The print, not the picture, carries the message. Word-by-word pointing (one-to-one correspondence). Concept of a letter, word, sentence.
. . Other authors have called this skill with print, which includes the preceding concepts listed with a few additional insights (Gunning, 2005): Language is divided into words. Words can be written down. Space separates written words. • • . Concept of first and last part (of the word, sentence, story). Letter order in words is important. There are first and last letters in words. Upper- and lowercase letters have purpose. Different punctuation marks have meaning. Sentences begin with capital letters and end with punctuation. A book is read from front to back. For learners who first language is nonalphabetic, or whose language does not use upper-case letters, or in whose language books are read from what English readers would consider back to front, some of the knowledge about skill with print in L1 must be retaught during the acquisition of literacy in English. Best Practice Fostering Emergent Literacy in Children ♦ Reading goes left to right and top to bottom. Words, not pictures, are read. A book has a title, an author, and sometimes an illustrator. . . . Source: Adapted from Gunning, 2005 Provide an accessible, appealing literacy environment with attractive reading and writing materials. Classroom reading materials should include extra copies of books read aloud by the teacher or books by the same author, commercial books, student-written books, comic or cartoon books (with words), magazines, encyclopedias, and bilingual, age-appropriate dictionaries. Encourage children to role-play or playact reading and writing activities. Incorporate shared book experiences using Big Books or enlarged text. Phonemic and Morphemic Awareness The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words is called phonemic awareness. The basic insight is that spoken language consists of identifiable units- utterances are composed of spoken words, which in turn consist of syllables, which in turn have distinct sound units (Chard, Pikulski, & Templeton, n.d.). Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill and does not involve words in print. The following are phonemic awareness exercises: Follow-up shared reading with independent reading, small-group review of the Big Book, or work with language skills such as phonics. Bolster reading with chanting or singing based on reading the lyrics together. Blending: What word am I trying to say? Ppppppiiiiiiin. Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in pin? Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in pin? Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in pin? Best Practice Activities to Help Learners Develop Phonemic Awareness . Wordplay (What is left if I take away the b in bright? right) Rhyming games (One, two, buckle your shoe) Nursery rhymes (Jack and Jill went up the hill) • Picture books with rhymes Morphemic awareness is the understanding that the smallest elements of meaning contained in words play a role in word recognition. Readers advance in skill when they can combine their knowledge of spelling and meaning patterns with sound-symbol correspondence. Both of these concepts are taught explicitly in direct approaches to reading.
Vocabulary and Concept Development The prior knowledge most useful for reading is largely word knowledge (vocabulary). This is the chief hurdle faced by English learners because reading a word successfully depends on knowing the meaning of the word in the first place. Once students start to read, vocabulary acquisition accelerates because general comprehension of a text allows readers to predict and infer meaning of unknown words they encounter. The teacher's job is to help students develop background knowledge through the use of other books, oral discussion, exposure to media, or pictures or other visual prompts, combined with text, in order to build schemata - that is, construct a framework of concepts that shows the relationships of old and new learning and how they are connected. Decoding Incomplete or inaccurate decoding limits comprehension-decoding is essential to reading. Students with phonemic awareness can use this skill in phonics instruction as they come to understand that there is an orderly relationship between written letters and speech sounds. Attempting to read an unfamiliar word is a process of trying to connect the letter with its sound and then to affirm the meaning from the context. Using sight words (those that do not conform to phonetic rules-about 10 percent of English written words), the learner relies on visual memory to match sound with writing. Using phonics, the learner explicitly constructs the sound-symbol connection. Each of these techniques has its place in learning basic words. Lists of sight words can be obtained from reading texts. These include frequently used words with nonpredictable spelling, such as the, might, could, and so forth. Phonics can be taught using the synthetic method (bottom up), with students learning phonemes in isolation, then learning to blend them, and finally seeing them in the context of words. Or students can learn using the analytic method, beginning first with contrasting words that contain the target phonemes and then having students generate similar words. The analytic method is illustrated in Box 7.10. Box 7.1 Teaching Reading via the Analytic Method of Phonics 1. Planning. Make a list of easy words that includes the target phonic element, for example the digraph /sh/: cash, crash, mash, dish, fish, and so forth. Write simple, meaningful sentences for each one, or a little story, if possible, that contains the words. Find pages in a common reading book that has these or other sh- words, including /sh/ as a final sound. 2. Teaching. Read the sentences aloud to the students in a smooth and informal fashion. Have the students echo-read the sentences- repeating after the teacher, then repeating each underlined target word after the teacher, looking to see what sound the words have in common. 3. Guided practice. Students each produce the target sound and look again at the letters that make the sound. Have students say other words with the same sound. Students choral-read the sentences and then take turns reading them aloud. Source: Adapted from May & Rizzardi, 2002, p. 177. Books designed for phonics instruction as much as possible use words with a regular sound-symbol correspondence. This does not always lend itself to engaging prose. Because English as a language has changed in sound-symbol correspondence in the 550 years since the printing press was first used, its basic, everyday prose often features the most irregular, least phonics-amenable words: in English, sometimes the more interesting the text, the less phonics-friendly the words! The International Literacy Association finds that phonics is an important part of a beginning reading program but states explicitly that phonics instruction needs to be embedded in a total reading/language arts program (International Reading Association, 1997). Today, teachers introduce phonics through mini-lessons anc gamelike activities such as making words and word sorts rather than by having students mark letters and words on worksheets. Unfortunately, commercial phonics products such as "decodable" books are designed to provide structured reading practice, but the content is often contrived and the sentences sound unnatural. As Herrera, Pérez, and Escamilla (2010) pointed out, the story lines can be less than compelling: "Three bees got in a cab. Three bees wish to see Cat. Three bees will give Cat a gift" (from Lee, 2001, p. 61). (Nothing here to motivate reading!) On the other hand, Mole's adventure in The Wind in the Willows (Grahame, 1983) begins, "The Mole has been working very hard all morning long, spring-cleanin his little home-first with brooms, then with a pail of whitewash, till he had dust in his throat and spots on his black fur" (p. 4). (I don't know about you, but I have a lot of questions already. How does one clean a mole's tunnel with brooms? How did Mole get the whitewash? Did Mole have spots already?) Nothing sparks the imagination like real literature, even if it is not strictly "phonical"! From Letter to Word Recognition Written English is based on the alphabetic principle, and children need to understand that sounds correspond to letters. Prereading activities help to develop visual discrimination, including such tasks as matching pictures and patterns, sequencing story cards in a meaningful order, and matching uppercase letters to lowercase letters. Teaching letters phonetically takes place in a sequence. First, alphabet cards introduce the name of each consonant letter and the sound it makes. Matching objects and pictures to letters helps learners to identify initial sounds. Ending sounds can be treated in a similar way. Then short vowels are introduced, usually in the order a, i, o, u, and e; this is followed by the short vowels blended with consonants. Simple stories featuring short vowels help students find early success with reading. Long vowels and vowel blends are taught next, followed by digraphs (consonants that together make a single sound, like /th/).
However, reading based on phonetic awareness alone may not be the best approach for English learners. Hamayan (1994) cites four reasons why structural approaches (phonics based and grammar based) are not sufficient to meet the needs of preliterate English learners: (1) They do not meet the learner's need to acquire an understanding of the functional aspects of literacy; (2) literacy is forced to emerge in an unnatural way and in an artificial form; (3) a focus on form without a functional context makes learning abstract, meaningless, and difficult; and (4) literacy becomes a boring chore. Teachers of English learners are encouraged to provide students with rich language experiences, including wordplay, which lead them to understanding sound- symbol correspondences. During and after read-alouds, for example, teachers point out specific sound and letter patterns that occurred in the texts. According to Peregoy and Boyle (2016), specific instruction in sound-symbol correspondence emerges best through students' own writing, including the individualized phonics practice provided by the use of invented or temporary spelling; this can be an important pathway on the way to conventional spelling, that assists both reading and writing development. Developing Reading Fluency The ability to decode rapidly, accurately, and efficiently is known as fluency-"freedom from word-identification problems that might hinder comprehension in silent reading or the expression of ideas in oral reading" (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 85). Because human beings have limited attention capacity, decoding words needs to become so automatic that it can be accomplished with minimal active attention. Automaticity is important, because if a reader has to devote sizable attention to decoding, insufficient attention will be available for that constructive, critical reading comprehension. Chard and colleagues (n.d.) put it this way: "Although fluent decoding is not sufficient for high levels of reading comprehension, it is definitely a prerequisite for comprehension" (n.p.). Through careful attention to print in sequential decoding, readers begin to notice that patterns of letters, such as -ing and -ike, occur in many words. Helping them focus on these patterns and recognize these repeated patterns in words can help readers to process or "chunk" the letters as a single unit. When readers are able to do this, they are able to more rapidly identify and process words during reading, increasing fluency. One would like to believe that extensive use of context cues makes reading more fluent, as the reader does not have to pause to define an unfamiliar word. However, even if a reader correctly identifies a word using context, there is no guarantee the word will be recognized the next time it encountered in print. Without the letter-sound connection, the contextual advantage is lost. If a reader can decode a word using other skills, context can provide a useful "check" or confirmation of the word-but only after the word has been tentatively decoded. Reading Aloud A learner's specific approach to decoding can be analyzed by listening to him or her read aloud. When attempting a sentence with an unknown word, various readers use distinct strategies. One type of reader uses semantic knowledge. If the sentence reads, "Joey pushed open the door of the haunted ...," a reader might guess that the next word is not hose, because the meaning would not make sense. Another type of reader might use syntactic knowledge in the sentence "Joey drives a small ... "to reject the word care as the wrong choice for that part of the sentence. Still a third type of reader might use orthographic shape in the sentence "Joey drove a load of trees to the paper mill," knowing that the words pap and paperwork look wrong. A single reader might use these three types of meaning-making equally often, or the teacher might detect a preference for one type of decoding. Interventions would be designed accordingly. Seeking Meaning The need to understand is natural to the mind. The goal of the reading instructor is for students to come away from a reading passage with meaning. Because the reader constructs this meaning, there will always be some imperfect match between the meaning as intended and the meaning as attained by each reader. The richest of text evokes the most fundamentally meaningful, yet passionate and idiosyncratic response. Anything less is reductionistic-students should not be doomed to accept the exact understandings of others rather than to glory in their own, however unique. This is the chief reason for the existence of literature. Systematic Vocabulary Development Throughout one's schooling, acquiring vocabulary is a constant. One important research question that remains unresolved concerns whether adequate vocabulary in a second language can be acquired through reading, or is more likely to result from some kind of direct instruction. What is the minimal number of recognition vocabulary words needed to facilitate reading comprehension? One study suggests that 3,000 words (in word families) are needed (Laufer, 1989). Part of the problem with acquiring vocabulary is that word learning takes place in increments; although a single encounter with a word may provide some learning, even 100 encounters may not spark in an English learner the native speaker's complex knowledge of the word and the way it is used in the culture. The real problem is achieving adequate, in-depth exposure to content-related vocabulary. New vocabulary words can be introduced before a reading lesson, or meaning can be inferred from context during reading. Explicit work with new vocabulary words, though, is usually reserved for the after-reading phase. Students can study words by means of the word element approach, isolating roots, prefixes, and suffixes and using word families to expand a new word into its host of relations (e.g., the words biology, sociology, and psychology are relatives of anthropology). Or students can practice specific vocabulary-acquisition strategies, such as inferring from context (finding synonyms in apposition, making use of a subsequent list of
examples of a new word, or using a dictionary). Best Practice Identifying Vocabulary Meaning Using Different Forms of Apposition Educators often assume that a reader can find the definition of an unfamiliar vocabulary word within the surrounding context. Finding the meaning of a word in context is easy when apposition is used-using a second word or phrase immediately after a word to supply or supplement its meaning. Apposition is can be taught directly by emphasizing the following cues: . . Look for a comma. An example is "... there was vast rebellion against the despot, a dictator who ruled without legality." Watch for parentheses. An example is "... the details of the accident were lurid (too shocking and sensational) for children to read." Check for a dash. An example is "We enjoyed the monorail-the elevated train-that took us around the whole park." Beware the use of "or" to express an apposition; it can be misleading: "I took a jitney, or small bus." (Does this mean I took either a jitney or a small bus?) Students can practice acquiring technical words by using a glossary, sidebar, chart, or graphs. Worksheets or other kinds of practice can help students recognize meaning. Students can practice word formation through compounding (room + mate = roommate), blending (motor hotel = motel), and making acronyms (self- contained underwater breathing apparatus scuba). However, moving a new word from students' acquisition vocabulary (used in reading or listening) to their production vocabulary (used in writing or speaking) requires far more guided practice. In terms of how many and what type of words a person needs to learn, Richards (2008) described vocabulary learning as "involving acquisition of a core vocabulary that is common to different domains, genres, and text types. In addition, learners build up a more specialized vocabulary related to their own needs and fields of interest, whether these be academic, occupational, or social" (p. 12). As students transition from the structured vocabulary that characterizes the beginning and intermediate states of English acquisition in school, they need strategies to deal with new words that they encounter independently. Strategies are useful such as guided discovery (directing learners to guess word meanings correctly), contextual guesswork (helping students to use cues such as parts of speech to infer the function of a word in a sentence), and dictionary use (to look up not only definitions but also pronunciation, grammar, style, and register). Students can find suggestions and restrictions on which words can go with which in a helpful resource such as the Oxford Collocations Dictionary. Online collocation tools like the Compleat Lexical Tutor (www.lextutor.ca) can help students learn which words and expressions in English are used most often (frequency), in which situations certain words are used (context), which words are found together (collocation), and how words are used grammatically and strategically. Online tutorials for Compleat Lexical Tutor are available for learning to use this computerized language database to teach vocabulary. Additionally, McCarten (2007) recommended presenting vocabulary to students in multiple modalities, including pictures, sounds, stories, conversations, webpages, and so on, with topics relevant to students' interests; vocabulary learning should be personal and enjoyable. Learners need to hear, see, and say new words again and again, while being encouraged to notice, use, and reuse new words in their everyday life. Along with basic word usage, academic vocabulary is learned strategically, as an important part of the content objectives in every discipline. Best Practice Pre-teaching Essential Vocabulary Vocabulary acquisition is an important part of the content objectives in an instructional plan. Here are a few ways to share key terms: In pairs, students examine new words, looking for primary-language cognates, component morphemes, and associated terms. A picture glossary keeps key terms fresh through the lesson. In pairs, students create graphic organizers for each term, including meanings (denotations), analysis of word subparts (morphemes), or word associations (connotations). Source: Adapted from Qulocho & Ulanoff, 2009, pp. 12, 116 Contextual Redefinition Learning to use context to increase comprehension while reading is an important skill of proficient readers. Contextual redefinition shows students the importance of context in gaining meaning. This is a useful learning strategy for beginning, below-grade-level, and above-grade-level readers because the context can be used to define terms they may not know and encourage them to use prior knowledge to find meaning even when there are no dictionaries readily available. The teacher can select a few essential words students will encounter in the text, present these in isolation, and then have students offer suggestions about their meaning. The teacher can then provide a context for each of the words, with clues of definition. Students offer suggestions about the meanings and work in groups. to consult dictionaries. This activity builds reading, writing, comprehension, listening, and speaking skills; encourages a natural and holistic view of language learning; and provides multiple opportunities for English learners to use and hear language in a variety of settings.
Reading Processes Before Reading "Into" activities activate students' prior knowledge by drawing from their past experiences or help students develop background knowledge through new experiences. Films, texts, field trips, visual aids, and graphic organizers can clarify meaning and help students anticipate the work. Brainstorming ideas about a topic is one way to activate prior knowledge. Some teachers have students make predictions about the content of a story. Students can discuss what happened later in the book to confirm or disprove their original predictions. See Box 7.2 for a summary of strategies to use Into, Through, and Beyond. Background knowledge can be activated or developed through classroom activities that include all of the language processes. Two such activities are brainstorming and K-W-L (What do I Know? What do I Wonder about? What have I Learned?). Asking, "What do I know?" allows students to place new knowledge in the context of their own episodic memories and existing concepts. If prior knowledge is scant, the teacher knows that schemata-mental frames that guide meaning-must be built. During brainstorming and K-W-L, all ideas should be accepted. Once ideas are exhausted, the students and teacher together can organize the list, grouping and selecting appropriate category labels to create a beginning model from which they can work and learn. K-W-L not only taps into what students already know but also draws from their interest and curiosity. After listing everything they know about a topic, students then tell the teacher what they would like to learn. The chart is kept up throughout the duration of the unit, and students refer to it from time to time. When the unit is completed, they return to the chart and talk about what they have learned. By starting each topic or unit with an activity that actively engages students in reviewing their own experiences relevant to the topic, the teacher gains valuable insights. During Reading "Through" activities help students as they work with the text. Reading aloud is a useful strategy that gives the students an opportunity to hear a proficient reader, to get a sense of the format and story line, and to listen to the teacher "think-aloud" about the reading. In the think-aloud, teachers can model how they monitor a sequence of events, identify foreshadowing and flashbacks, visualize a setting, analyze character and motive, comprehend mood and theme, and recognize irony and symbols. Teachers may find that English-language literature does not elicit the same responses from English learners as from native-English speakers. By selecting materials judiciously, slowing the pace slightly, portioning work into manageable chunks, and increasing the depth of each lesson, the teacher can ensure that English learners have a fulfilling experience with literature. Students can perform the actual reading through a variety of methods. Table 7.3 offers some reading methods for in-class use across a variety of grade levels. Table 7.3 In-Class Reading Methods for English Learners Source: Hadaway, Vardell, Young, 2002 Method Page and paragraph Equal portions Silent support Choral reading Radio reading Repeated reading Interactive read-aloud Echo reading Cloze reading Description Teacher or fluent reader reads a page and then English learner reads a paragraph; finally, group discusses what has been read. Students work in pairs and each reads aloud the same amount of text. lents silently in and can ask each other for help with difficult word Passage is divided into sections, and various parts of the audience read various sections. One student reads while others close their books and listen. After reading, the reader can question each student about what was read. Students read silently book that has been read aloud, or independently reread books of their choice. Students can join in on repetitious parts or take parts of a dialogue. For rhythmic text, students echo or repeat lines. When reading Big Books, teacher covers certain words and students try to guess word in context.
Nonprint media support To sustain students' interest in a longer work of literature, class time can be used to review the narrative to date and discuss students' understanding of the assigned reading. A preview of the next reading can feature interesting aspects of the new passage. In Literature in the Language Classroom, Collie and Slater (1988) suggested ways a teacher can structure literature homework: Gap summary. A technique in which the teacher provides an almost-complete and simply phrased description of the main points of the section assigned for home reading. Gaps are usually key words or expressions that only a reading of the passage can reveal. Character diary. An ongoing record of what each character is feeling that helps students step within the character. What's missing. An exercise encouraging students to make inferences about missing aspects of the story: What were the characters like at school? What were their favorite subjects? Did they have friends? Were they close to their parents? • Story mapping. A way for students to use a graphic organizer to follow the events in the plot. Younger students can chart "What Happens Next." Older students can explore categories such as Characters, Intent, Opposition, and Resolution. After Reading "Beyond" activities are designed to extend the students' appreciation of literature, usually in another medium. Poems can be written and shared with other classes or parents at a Poetry Night. Reviews of literature works can be written for the school or classroom newspaper. Letters to authors or to pen pals encourage students to express their reactions to certain pieces of literature. • Students can be movie critics and view the film representation of a text studied in class, comparing the differences and discussing the pros and cons of the two media. • Favorite parts of selections can be rewritten as a play and enacted for other classes. Using reminder sheets, students in pairs can restate to each other various parts of what they have read (cued retelling). Students can plan a mock television show-for example, a game show-in which a host asks contestants to answer questions or to act as characters • • Students can follow along with a taped version of the book. or objects in the story. Box 7.2 Strategies by ELD Level of Student for Use Before, During, and After Reading Stage of the Reading Process Before Reading During Reading After Reading Beginning Visual and kinesthetic prompts: Pictures, art, movies, physical objects relating to the reading selection that students identify and discuss. Read-along tapes: Tapes encourage slower readers, allow absent students to catch up, and provide auditory input for students. Character review: Specific students become a character and provide Early Intermediate/Intermediate Students' ELD Level Anticipation/reaction guides: A short list of statements to which students agree or disagree. Image/theme development: Charts, graphs, pictures, and symbols can trace the development of images, ideas, and themes. Critic: "Journalists" write reviews of literature works for the school or classroom newspaper or act as movie critics and review the film version of a text studied in Early Advanced/Advanced Selected read-alouds: Passages that pique students' interest in the selection. Visual summaries: Groups of students create chapter reviews, character analyses, or problem-solutions on overhead transparencies. Genre switch: Favorite parts of selections can be rewritten as a play and enacted for other classes as a way to encourage other students to read that piece of literature; students can plan
background for other students' questions about the reading. To sustain interest in reading, one instructor started an English as a second language (ESL) book club (ESL Meet), with special bookmarks and regular meeting times at which students presented book reviews or recommended books to one another. About six to ten students attended the meetings, with about twenty-five to thirty active club members (Suresh, 2003). Developing Reading Comprehension Comprehension is the key to meaning. Readers generally form some initial hypothesis about the content or main idea of a book or a reading passage based on their expectations, previous knowledge of genre, or other clues such as the title or first sentence. Reading further, the reader modifies the initial prediction. Getting the gist of a reading passage is the most important skill a reader can develop, because getting the main idea makes further reading more purposeful, facilitates recall, and helps to make sense of the supporting details. Teaching of Reading Matched to Proficiency Levels Teaching reading to English learners implies that reading activities can be matched to the language-proficiency level of the student. Different strategies are useful for various proficiency levels. As shown in the box, these separate beginning from intermediate and advanced levels. Best Practice Reading Strategies for Students at Different Levels of Proficiency Beginner: Anticipating/predicting, skimming, scanning, extracting specific information, contextual guessing, prereading activities, simple fill-in- the-blanks Intermediate/Advanced: Comprehension checks, guessing from context, clue searching, making inferences, scrambled stories, extracting specific information, skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, note taking/outlining, passage completion, understanding idioms, learning discourse structures, comprehending linking words. class. They can then compare the differences and draw conclusions about the pros and cons of the different media. Strategies When Comprehension Fails Too often, students do not know what to do when they cannot comprehend a text. Table 7.4 presents several strategies that are useful when comprehension fails. Strategy Table 7.4 Strategies That Readers Can Use When Comprehension Fails Source: (1) Barr & Johnson, 1997; (2) Raphael, 1986 (3) Gamrel & Bales, 1986 (4) Palinscar & Brown, 1984; (5) Lipton & Hubble, 1997; (6) Suid & Lincoln, 1992 Rereading: Text-based answers "Right there" answers a mock television show and devise various formats that include ideas from the literature studied. For example, a game show host can ask contestants to answer questions or to act as characters or objects in the story. "Think and search" answers Rereading: Reader- based answers Description Text-based means one can skim the text and find the answer. (1) Answer easily found in the book. (2) Reader needs to put together different parts of the reading to obtain a solution. (2) Reader based means the reader must infer the answer: Look for clues from text. (1)
"Author and you" answer "On my own" answers Visual imagery Think-aloud Suspending judgment Reciprocal teaching Mine, yours, and ours Summary pairs Shrinking stories Simply put Solution lies in a combination of what is in the story plus the reader's experience. (2) Answer comes from one's own experience. (2) Before rereading, students discuss what pictures come to mind. Younger children can draw these pictures, and older children can use verbal description. Ask students to form mental images while rereading. (3) Students self-monitor comprehension by asking, "Does this make sense?" as they read. What question can they ask that will help them focus on what they need for it to make sense? (1) Read ahead when a new concept is not well explained, seeking information to develop clarity. (1) Students predict, summarize, ask questions, and suspend judgment, using these techniques with one another. (4) Students make individual summaries and compare with a partner, then write a joint paragraph outlining their similarities and differences. (5) Students read aloud to each other and summarize what they have read. (5) Students write their own versions of a passage in twenty-five words or less. (6) Students rewrite a selection so that students two or three years younger might understand it. (6) Each of these strategies can be developed using a variety of reading selections. When introducing a new comprehension strategy, the teacher explains when the strategy is useful, models the process, and then gives the students guided practice. Text Genres Readers must become familiar with the features, structures, and rhetorical devices of different types of texts, such as narrative, descriptive, and analytic. For example, a government document presents a formal, official point of view, whereas a personal or family story conveys the subject from a different, more intimate perspective. Even samples from the same type of content-storytelling, for example-feature various genres, such as folktales, myths, legends, and autobiographies. Scientific writing includes varied genres-peer-reviewed academic journals, "high-brow" general magazines (e.g., Nature), popular magazines (e.g., Wired), science fiction, and even comic books. Students need to be taught text processing techniques (how to take notes, how to reread text for answers to study questions, how to read charts and picture captions) and then be able to recall the information they read. Multicultural literature helps students see life from a variety of points of view, compare cultures on different aspects of life, and view their own culture represented in the curriculum. Anthologies of multicultural literature provide a wealth of materials, some grouped thematically (see Harris, 1997). Multicultural Voices in Contemporary Literature (Day, 1994) presents thirty-nine authors and illustrators from twenty different cultures. A follow-up book, Latina and Latino Voices in Literature for Children and Teenagers (Day, 1997), has biographies of thirty-eight authors, with synopses of their work, as well as an extensive list of resources for books in English on Latino themes. Day (2003) is a follow-up extending the Latina and Latino themes. Grade-Level-Appropriate Texts Several sources are available that suggest age-level-appropriate reading material. Public libraries have detailed reference books that list thousands of children's books, including the Caldecott and Newbery Medal books. Sometimes a school will send out a list of recommended books to every family. At one school, fourth graders prepared their own list of books and duplicated it for every child in the school. Generally speaking, children respect the teacher's recommendations, but if a recommended book is not grade-level appropriate, the young reader may become discouraged. Students read at grade level for schooling purposes, but they might also read below grade level for entertainment and above grade level with assistance. Many classrooms have "leveled" books so that frustration can be allayed. However, mentoring is essential to help students grow. A school librarian is a useful source of recommendations to students with specific interests. This frees readers from the confines of the exactly leveled book so they can explore books that may be beyond their current level, but contain content that excites them and piques their curiosity. Critical Thinking An important aspect of schooling in a democracy is the ability to think for oneself-to analyze ideas, separate fact from opinion, support opinions from reading,
make inferences, and solve problems. Critical thinking can create self-understanding because a person might approach significant issues in life differently with the acquisition of analytic skills. Thinking skills are an important part of reading comprehension. Distinguishing fact and opinion, identifying cause and effect, using a text to draw conclusions and make inferences, and evaluating the credibility of text are among the skills incorporated into high-quality reading lessons. The four-volume set Critical Thinking Handbook (grades K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and high school) presents lesson plans that have been remodeled to include critical thinking. The Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University provides a wealth of resources for examining and promoting critical thinking. Creative Thinking and Risk-Taking Creativity is a part of cognition and should not be confined to music and art classes. During problem solving and project-based learning, for example, once the requirements of a problem or project have been surveyed and the goals determined, creative thinking can be applied to generate possible solutions. Creative thinking can be used in every reading lesson to generate alternatives and to expand the point of view of reading comprehension: What if the main character were female rather than male? What if the book were set in the seventeenth century rather than in the modern era? What if the setting were Thailand rather than the United States? Can we imagine a different outcome? This focus opens the door to a fertile terrain, the imaginary, a world in which possibilities are unlimited and constraints of reality do not pinch. In addition, use of the imaginary can stimulate scholars to explore other cultures and other times in history, as well as nonhuman worlds, such as in science fiction, myths, or animal tales. The genre of brain puzzles is also mentally stimulating. Books of such puzzles can be found at major bookstores and are fun to use to keep young brains alert. Both critical and creative thinking are integral parts of the human mind that enrich any part of the curriculum. Thinking is the key to the creation of meaning, during which children learn to react not just in response to the immediate, real world before them, but also in accord with their internal world, the world of ideas. Channeling the power of thought is an important part of language education in the context of cognitive development. Language Experience Approach A language development activity that encourages students to respond to events in their own words is the language experience approach (LEA). As a student tells a story or relates an event, the teacher writes it down and reads it back so that students can eventually read the text for themselves. Because the students are providing their own phrases and sentences, they find the text relevant and interesting and generally have little trouble reading it. The importance of LEA in developing the language of English learners cannot be overemphasized. By having students express themselves orally, LEA connects them to their own experiences and activities. LEA reinforces the notion that sounds can be transcribed into specific symbols and that those symbols can then be used to re-create the ideas expressed. LEA provides texts for specific lessons on vocabulary, grammar, writing conventions, structure, and more. Classroom Glimpse Using LEA After Reading Sixth-grade teacher Laura Bowen tells how she used LEA to help reinforce key concepts after her students read about the Qin dynasty. After finishing the lesson on the Qin dynasty, I had my class brainstorm key ideas. I wrote their points on the board and then asked them to tell a story about a fictional family of three living during that era. The only restriction was that they had to keep in mind the key points. Their story follows: Chang, Li, and their son, Wei, lived during the Qin dynasty. Li was excited because Chang was able to buy the family some land. A few days later, Chang was taken by the emperor to go build the Great Wall. Li and Wei were sad. They did not like the emperor, because he had strict laws and punishments. Chang died on the long walk to the Great Wall. Li and Wei grew crops so they could survive. They hoped a new and better emperor would come and overthrow the mean one. After the class finished their story, they read it aloud many times. This experience helped them to personalize history.
Developing Literary Response and Analysis Skills Students of literature need to acquire a set of literary response skills to fully appreciate fiction, nonfiction, and other creative work. Literary criticism consists of analysis of plot, character, theme, and creative language use. These skills are described and levels provided in the ELD and ELA frameworks. To help develop a community of readers and encourage students to understand the richness of the literacy experience, teachers engage them in literature response groups. After having read a piece of literature, the teacher and a small group meet to discuss the piece. Each student is given an opportunity to express ideas about the story before a general discussion begins. The teacher listens and, after each student has had a turn, opens the discussion with a thought-provoking question. As points are made, the teacher guides the students to deeper understandings by, for example, asking them to support their point with words from the text and asking what words or devices the author used to invoke a mood, establish a setting, describe character, move the plot along, and so on. Classroom Glimpse A Literature Response Group Teacher Christina Dotts describes how literature response groups worked in her second-grade classroom. The students had read Tomi dePaola's Now One Foot, Now the Other (1981). In planning this lesson, I was a bit apprehensive about the students' overall reaction to this type of discussion. However, I found that they enjoyed discussing the story in a more intimate setting as opposed to a whole-class discussion. These second graders were indeed up to the challenge of using higher-order thinking skills. One of my objectives was for the students to verbalize their thoughts and convey meaning. They needed practice in doing so. I discovered my students had definite ideas about major issues-illness, hospitals, family members, working, being responsible, and being good friends. Their concerns were very important in their lives, and this piece of literature and forum for discussion provided an opportunity for them to talk about these concerns. Students felt proud to lead discussions and exercise their leadership skills. When Reading Intervention Is Needed When English learners are struggling with literacy that is delivered using "regular" classroom instruction (including provision of high-quality ELD), many schools have adopted a "response to instruction" (RTI) model, a multilevel system with instructional interventions that increase in intensity (Freidman, 2010). If students do not succeed in the regular classroom ("Tier I"), they move to a secondary level of intervention that may feature small-group tutoring for 20-40 minutes at a time, three or four times per week, using packaged, perhaps scripted RTI lessons that are provided by the teacher, classroom teaching assistants, or literacy volunteers (Tier II). Students who are not successful at this level may receive a tertiary program (Tier III) involving more intensive one-on-one strategies or even referral for special education screening. Thus RTI affords teachers a standard way to intervene in reading problems, using a standard set of materials and assessments to monitor progress. Although the use of the RTI model is widespread, research is scanty on the use of RTI with English learners, or the use of RTI in classrooms where ELD is integrated-does this result in inclusive instruction with too many systems deployed simultaneously? Does incorporating structured interventions in reading result in more or fewer English learners being referred for special education? Fuchs, Fuchs, and Strecker (2010) discuss issues of RTI and inclusion, but not with ELD services as part of the mix.
Secondary-Level Content Reading Reading in the content areas in high school was addressed according to specific disciplines in Chapter 50. There are also fundamental generic reading adaptations that teachers of English learners can make in their planning and instruction (see Box 7.3 L). Box 7.3 Generic Reading Adaptations for English Learners at the Secondary Level . . . Use read-alouds. Create a print-rich environment. Accommodate students' interests and backgrounds. Read, read, read. Employ systematic, varied strategies for recognizing words. Offer a variety of reading methods to raise interest. Integrate language activities. Activate students' prior knowledge. Provide authentic purpose, materials, and audiences in the development of oracy and literacy. • Construct, examine, and extend meaning. Furnish explicit instruction of what, when, and why. Present opportunities for students to take control of the reading process. Despite the success of approaches based on social constructionism, a generation of students is being taught how to read through a series of controlled, behaviorally based lessons. Such programs as Reading Mastery, Open Court, and Direct Instruction employ teacher-centered methods in step-by-step curricula that follow highly structured, interactive scripts. Reading Mastery requires students to be grouped in precisely measured skill levels, and Open Court expects teachers to follow an exact script verbatim day by day to reinforce skills. Only time will tell if the students taught in this manner learn to read both for academics and for enjoyment. Groves makes the point that middle-class gifted students are not taught in such a prescriptive manner. It may be that being taught to read in this didactic manner is yet another social-class marker in the United States. Best Practice An Unconventional Assignment The following instructions for an open-ended assignment can be adapted to a variety of units: You have read a complex work of literature in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. To show what you have learned through your engagement with this play, create an interpretive text in any form of your choice: collage, painting, poetry, music, drama, sculpture, performance art, or other textual form. Furthermore, you may use different forms within forms-that is, you can include a gravestone with an epitaph, a haiku, a song, an encyclopedia entry, a movie review, and so on, keeping in mind that it should in some way depict your understanding of the play's characters, Roman history, or how some aspects of the play have helped you to lear something about yourself and your world. You may produce this individually or with a group of five or less. You will have two class periods to work on it, with the rest of the preparation taking place outside of class. You must prepare a three- to five-minute presentation of your text to the class in which you explain its significance and your understanding of the play. Writing and the English Learner Hand in hand with reading goes writing, no longer considered an activity that can be postponed until English learners speak fluently. Writing in English is not only a key to academic success but also an outlet for self-expression. Although much has been written about the writing process, it is more accurate to use the term writing processes. Most writers do not simply draft, revise, edit, and publish. Instead, the process is recursive, with much traveling back and forth from drafting to redrafting, from editing to redrafting, from revising to redrafting, and so forth. Many teachers teach a five-step writing process, but in reality, in a classroom with a rich learning environment, students are in various stages simultaneously. teachers honor the reality of the learning process, rather than try to impose a lockstep system, they help students to stay engaged throughout the struggle to "write down" and clarify thinking. Preparing Generation 1.5 for College Writing Students who are still in the process of acquiring English are entering colleges and universities at an unprecedented rate. The good news is that English learners are being encouraged to pursue higher education. The bad news is that few are ready to perform college-level work. In the California State University system of twenty-two campuses, for example, more than 40 percent of entering freshmen each year are considered not ready for college-level work. Why are so many students unprepared for college-especially for college-level writing? Many first-year college students are Generation 1.5 students, U.S.-educated English-language learners who immigrated to the United States while they were in elementary or high school or who were born in the United States but grew up speaking a language other than English at home. These students are diverse in terms of their prior educational experience, native- and English-language proficiency, language dominance, and academic literacy. They have learning needs that differ from other English learners and can benefit from targeted intervention in academic writing and other skills. Students' prior academic work and social situations may hamper their ability to participate in discourse at the university level. To become insiders in the world of academic culture, students must learn to write essays that express their personal values, experiences, knowledge, and questions. In this way, students can discover an "enlarging horizon that every discourse can open to [their] view" and "gradually enter the community of 'knowers' while retaining their own voice"
(Spellmeyer, 1989, p. 274). If high schools do not teach this kind of writing, students enter high education without this set of skills. How can K-12 do a better job with English learners? Writing as a Social Construction Writing is no longer seen as a lone pursuit of the individual. A sociocultural approach to writing holds that individuals engage in literacy for specific purposes, in specific contexts, and as participants in specific communities. Writers learn from one another as they take part in the larger community. The motivation for many students to improve their writing is not so much internal or intrinsic, but rather lies embedded in the social context in which the writing takes place. Rodby (1999) described case studies of ELD students who were more or less able to draw on multiple and overlapping systems of support from work, home, church, clubs, peer interactions, faculty, and social/cultural systems to revise their writing in a pre-first-year English class. These students are examples of the way their social contexts influenced their literacy behavior, which in turn influenced their academic potential. Therefore, interventions to improve their writing must be sensitive to context and culture. Stages of Writing Development for Young English Learners Writing behavior on the part of children who are native speakers of English reflects a series of developmental stages, starting with scribbling and drawing. Then, at the prephonemic stage, the writer uses real letters, but the meaning stands for whole ideas. Moving on to the early phonemic stage, the writer uses letters- usually consonants-to stand for words, and at the letter-naming stage, vowels may accompany the consonants in an attempt to approximate phonemic sequences. As the writer goes through a transitional phase in moving toward conventional spelling, the child uses "invented" or "temporary" spelling to convey meaning. If children are held to correct spelling, they write much less (Hadaway, Vardell, & Young, 2002). The actual spelling that children write is a fascinating indicator of their thinking and their emotions, as well as their progress in learning conventional forms. Kress (2000) looked at one child's form, dided ("died"), and speculates that the child is struggling with overregularization of past tense, while another child, Emily, prints the upper case E with four horizontal strokes, perhaps an indication that this letter carries extra signification as the first letter of her name. Emergent spelling, whether it stems from first- or second-language acquisition, is a rich source of knowledge about intellectual and interlanguage development. Beginning English learners usually enter English in the transitional phase; that is, they generally catch on to the sound-symbol principle of the alphabet, even if their own language is nonalphabetic. The more similar their home language alphabet is to the English alphabet, the more easily their writing skills will transfer to English. Word banks can be a rich source of vocabulary building; students can collect words on index cards to alphabetize, classify, or illustrate them. Beginning students can engage in interactive journal writing with their teacher, or complete simple frame sentences such as "I like because" They can copy words and sentences, or they can make their own books by copying and illustrating simple books (Hadaway et al., 2002). Intermediate English learners increase their vocabulary as they attempt more complex sentences while writing. They can try their hand at various genres of personal and expressive writing, such as letter writing, as well as various types of academic writing such as note taking, short essays, and lists. Exercises in sentence combining help English learners extend the length and variety of their writing. Students at this level of English acquisition are struggling with the correct forms of plural nouns, pronouns, verb tenses, and subject-verb agreement. Many errors appear at the sentence level, such as the correct use of adverb and adjective phrases and clauses, sentence fragments and run-on constructions, and collocation errors (inaccurate verb + preposition combinations). Advanced English learners write responses to many academic assignments, such as personal or literary essays and written work on worksheets, laboratory manuals, and test questions. Their writing may feature many of the issues with which native speakers struggle, such as topic focus, parallel sentence structure, and paragraph cohesion. The Importance of Writing in the Native Language Some teachers discourage the use of a student's native language when writing, in the mistaken belief that drawing on their first language is a sign of interference with English. However, this is an example of the powerful difference between first and final drafts; one would hope that the unique voice of the writer is preserved in the polished version if the outcome is to be totally in English. However, Fu (2009) makes a persuasive case for the usefulness of code-switching when English learners write: Code-switching is not only a necessary transitional state, but a useful strategy in promoting the growth of their English writing. When ELLS try to write in English, their thinking is often blocked due to their limited vocabulary. Code-switching can serve as a borrowing strategy by using the native language to fill in the English words they don't know, so they can continue their thinking process. (p. 49) Many writers code-switch to express their emotions and identify. As one writer explains,
With two ways to say everything I'm hardly at a disadvantage. How I speak Spanish and English is a reflection of the culture I live every day. And unless there's something wrong with my almost bilingual and very bicultural life, then there's nothing wrong with combining the two languages I grew up with. Yo hablaré en dos idioms as long as I can think in two. (Figueroa, 2004, p. 286) However, the term "code-switching" connotes to many bilingual educators a failure to master one language or the other; hence the negative connotation to many of the term "Spanglish." Replacing this negative connotation with the term "translanguaging" (see Chapter 6) removes the stigma of combining languages, with the understanding that allowing bilingual individuals to use their full linguistic repertoire when learning is helpful, and promote biliteracy in the fullest sense. Handwriting in English The era has passed when handwriting was neglected. All students, but particularly English learners with primary languages that are nonalphabetic, need to learn the basics of letter formation, letter size and proportion, spacing, slant, alignment, and line quality (Barbe, Wasylyk, Hackney, & Braun, 1984). Letters are best learned when sorted by shape, with the line letters first (I, t, i, L, T, I, E, F, H), followed by angle (k, v, w, x, y, z, A, K, M, N, V, W, X, Y, Z); circle/line (o, a, b, d, p, q, O, Q); open circle (c, e, C, G); line/half-circle (B, D, P, R); curved (h, m, n, u, U); partial curve (f, r, j, g, J); and S-curve (s, S). TPR can be used to link physical actions with demonstrated commands to orient students to the forms of letters (Boyd-Batstone, 2006). Writing Genres and Prompts Almost all writing can be divided into narrative and expository genres. Both of these modes rely on description using visual images and observations to make details come alive for the reader. Writing Narrative Prose Fiction is a "narrative or story about imaginary events, characters, and setting, made to seem real through description" (Houston, 2004, p. 130). Narratives usually proceed in a sequential recounting of events called the plot. Writers can create fiction out of personal experience; events presented in true-to-life form are considered biography or autobiography. Narratives of place are also personal in quality, evoking the writer's experience of detail and mood. Prompts are questions or opening sentences of an essay given to writers to provoke content. How many college admission prompts are versions of "Describe an experience that shows one of your important personal qualities"? What narrative prompts have in common is evocation of personal experience. What makes a narrative outstanding is the unique response to a prompt. This quality of uniqueness argues for prompts that are not too prescriptive but leave room for an imaginative response. Contemporary writing does not hold the narrative to a strictly linear plot but meshes time with memory in more fluid ways. Consider, for example, the mystery called forth by lan Frazier's opening sentence to his essay entitled "Hungry Minds; Tales from a Chelsea Soup Kitchen" (2008). With this opening, the mind of the reader races ahead to uncover more information: The Church of the Holy Apostles, at the comer of Twenty-eighth Street and Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, is a church only two-sevenths of the time. Writing Expository Prose Structured formats are more common in writing that persuades, describes a process, presents two sides of an issue, or explains cause and effect (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). To follow the argument, the reader must have a carefully sequenced set of facts and background information, tied together with attention to sequence and logic connectors. The short research paper is an example of this genre. Although narrative writing depends on chronological prepositions, conjunctions, and transition words (at first, after that, later on), expository essays require more logical phrases (as a result, for instance, in that case, because of). Even small words such as then and thus have distinct meanings, making the job of the writing teacher one of clarifying students' thinking as well as improving their prose styling. The Writing Workshop In the workshop environment, students are free to talk with one another as they write. English learners can draw on other students, not just the teacher, as a resource, and can in turn use their own experiences to enrich their writing and that of their peers. The teacher's role, then, becomes that of facilitator and listener. Writing can be fun if students write collaboratively. Students can brainstorm and share ideas and then write these ideas in a list form that resembles poetry. One useful convention is the phrase "I used to but now." Once the story is completed, it can be copied onto a chart and used for reading practice. This is a version of the language experience approach that connects students to their own experiences and activities by having them express themselves orally.
Students may enjoy writing buddy journals, a kind of diary in which a pair of students write back and forth to each other. The teacher models this by suggesting sample topics and perhaps putting a daily journal entry on the board: "Today I feel excited about the field trip. I got up extra early to find something to pack in my lunch!" (The buddy journals are not as private as a teacher-student dialogue journal might be, because every two weeks or so the students change buddies, and the new buddies have access to previous entries.) The process approach to writing involves several stages: the planning or prewriting stage, the writing stage, and the feedback/editing stage. The Writing Process: Prewriting During prewriting, students are involved in oral language experiences that develop their need and desire to write. These activities may include talking and listening about shared experiences, reading literature, brainstorming, or creating role-playing or other fantasy activities. Mind mapping encourages students to generate and organize their ideas graphically on chart paper or on the chalkboard. Some classes may use Inspiration, a computer program that facilitates idea generation. The prewriting phase helps to generate, incubate, explore, test, and integrate ideas. Most writers find it often helps to talk about a topic, bouncing ideas off others, benefiting from the questions others ask as they shape and explore ideas. Not only does this help students build a representation of the topic about which they are writing, but also the challenges, prompts, and questions from collaborators help to fashion a working representation of the assignment or task. Some writers experience prolonged silent periods, whereas others report heightened emotional states or sudden bursts of productivity. The best writing springs from creative sources within the person. The most profound education reaches deep into the individual, and in reaching deeply, evokes a range of emotional reactions: distraction, preoccupation, restlessness, excitability, or even gloom and despondency. Teachers who respect passion sympathize with its companion emotions. In fact, evoking emotions is a key to writing as well as other learning (see Bucholtz, Casillas, & Lee, 2018). The alternative? Apathy. The Writing Process: Drafting The drafting stage involves quickly capturing ideas. There may be several false starts, changes of mind, and search for more ideas. Writers do the best they can in spelling, vocabulary, and syntax, without a concern for accuracy. This is followed by revision. Students share and discuss the content and clarity of their writing, drawing on the teacher as a resource for advice and support. This helps students to expand their thinking and communicate more expressively before editing perfects the form and grammar. A word wall or word bank is useful for English learners, providing a visual representation of words they may need to draw on while writing. For example, a pictorial word wall for a unit on fairy tales might include matched pictures and the printed words queen, king, castle, crown, and other words that a writer might need to use. This helps English learners to be more fluent as they draft their ideas. Self-Correction and Revision Writers face similar problems as they draft. Gregory and Kuzmich (2005) suggest that the following components can be used for student self-assessment: Ideas: Is my message clear? Do I know enough about my topic? Did I try hard to make it interesting? Organization: Does the paper have a good beginning? Are things told in a logical order? Does the paper end well? Conventions: Are there paragraphs? Are words spelled correctly? Did I use appropriate capitalization and punctuation? Volce: Does the writing sound like me? Are the thoughts clear to the reader? Will the reader be interested? Feedback Through Peer Response and Writing Conferences Students can give one another feedback through formal "sharing" meetings, organized by the teacher, in which students read their work and ask peers for comments; or they can be informal, student-initiated interactions. Peer response can be more valuable than teacher feedback in helping writers analyze their own drafts. To be useful, peer responding must be modeled and taught as part of the writing process from the beginning so that students are aware of writing for their peers as well as for the teacher. One way to shape peer response is to provide students with peer review sheet that is specifically designed for the writing prompt or the evaluation criteria for the final paper. These might include the following: Is the title specific, related to the central idea? Does the introductory paragraph preview the entire paper? Is the thesis clearly stated? Does it tie the ideas together? Are paragraphs logically organized? Are claims supported by evidence? Is there a clear differentiation between writer's ideas and those of other authors? Is there a concluding paragraph discussing the significance of the ideas?
Is there appropriate grammar and usage? Peer response to writing is not editing. It should include feedback about the content, point of view, and tone of the work. This helps students focus on the communicative content of the writing and draws them together in a more respectful sharing of the messages they intend. Individual writing conferences with the teacher are interviews in which the teacher listens to each student talk about the work in progress, commenting and asking questions to help the student organize and focus the writing. This questioning also helps the teacher understand the student's topic and focus. Ideally, the tone of the conference makes it clear that the writer is in charge. The writer speaks first to set the agenda and communicate the intended meaning. The teacher may then query specific sections ("What is the main point of this part?") and offer suggestions as alternatives. The Writing Process: Editing After the message is intact, editing takes place to "fix up" errors or mistakes in usage and spelling. Students who learn to self-edit can examine their own writing critically and improve it. The teacher's proofreading is beneficial only if the students can use it to improve their own writing. If a perfected version is not necessary, students may archive their rough drafts in a portfolio, without rewriting. If, however, the writing is published or publicly shared, and students are to achieve the pride of authorship, accuracy in such areas as spelling is more warranted. Error Correction In the early stages of writing English, fluency is a much more vital goal than accuracy. With English learners, the teacher must consider the level of their general language proficiency before decisions about error correction can be made. With younger children and newcomers, one should encourage expression of ideas without correcting grammar. Writers should be rewarded for their courage in trying new formats and more complicated sentence syntax, with encouragement for risk-taking. Error correction is a process in which attention is paid to the communication of meaning and the learner is guided toward self-correction. Proofreading marks should be simple and consistent. Moreover, teachers may wish to use restrictive correcting, a focus on only a few types of errors at one time. Some instructors set certain standards of submission before accepting a paper, such as requiring that a word-processed paper be electronically spellchecked. Each instructor of writing sets his or her own level of importance to what Houston (2004) called the "cosmetic" aspects of writing-the level of error correction that creates "optimum readability" (Houston, 2004, p. 227). When the emphasis is on ideas, the first draft may actually be more important than the final version. The reverse may be true when student writing is displayed on PTA Night. Publishing Ways of publishing can vary: A play is performed, a story is bound into a book for circulation in the class library, a poem is read aloud, an essay is posted on a bulletin board, a video is made of a student reading aloud, or a class newspaper is circulated to the community. Desktop publishing software has made more readily accessible the look of professional typesetting and layout, usually using a simple page layout computer program combined with a word processor. When printed, the class newspaper can circulate to the school and community. Issues with ESL Writing Selecting a topic can sometimes be a concern for English learners. Not all writers find a topic of a personal nature, such as childhood experiences, particularly fruitful for generating ideas. Being familiar with a topic is no guarantee of writing ease. Just because a topic is popular with native English speakers is no guarantee that the topic will enable English learners. Establishing a tone may be difficult for English learners, especially at the young adult level. Tones to avoid are flippancy (disrespectful levity), sarcasm (contemptuous remarks), sentimentality (shallow feeling), self-righteousness (taking on a special claim to virtue), belligerence (trying to bully the reader into agreement), and apology ("poor little me") (Packer, 2006). Issues of plagiarism may be difficult to convey. Students may feel pressure to help others by letting them copy, they may have different "rules" about using others' work in their own cultures, or they may simply work together in a way that results in identical copies of student work. At a deeper level, however, plagiarism may occur because English learners feel coerced into writing in English, either due to social, academic, or economic demands on their lives, or to feeling a lack of ownership over English. The best solution to the problem of plagiarism is to give students support and accurate feedback at various stages in their writing, offering specific guidelines and training in using "textual borrowing" strategies (Bloch, 2001, p. 246). The use of dictionaries and the library are two areas in which English learners may need guidance and direction. Many students rely on bilingual dictionaries, which in their brevity do not always supply accurate translations. Teaching dictionary skills explicitly can be of great help to students; especially those whose first language is non alphabetic. International students sometimes rely on pocket translating devices, which do not always supply accurate translations. English learners may not be familiar with the use of a library, especially if such resources are not available in their native culture. Students more familiar with libraries may simply need special training about the library's features, such as the electronic card catalog. In other cases, students who may have come to rely on the libraries within their own families, if they are among the elite, or who may never have had occasion to use a library will require more help in learning to navigate its resources. Table 7.5 summarizes adaptations in writing for English learners.
Table 7.5 Adaptations in Writing for English Learners Writing Strategies Write. Write. Write. Invite authentic writing. Offer examples of good writing. Model writing as a process. Schedule writing conferences. Teach students "how to write." Allow time to learn supportive skills. Provide clear criteria for evaluation. Include contextual instruction in grammar. Use the inquiry method. Involve students in the evaluation process. Description Develop writing portfolios. Provide students with a wide variety of opportunities to write and share their writing. Write in all subject areas. Encourage students to use and practice writing across the curriculum. Set up tasks that have real purpose and real audiences. Furnish access to a variety of written materials and examples of good writing. Make the expression of thoughts and ideas the primary goal, with correctness of form secondary. Writing is developmental and takes time; steps in writing are made visible and practiced. Confer individually with students on a regular basis to enhance students' self-assessment of their own writing skills and their understanding of the processes. Present explicit instruction, often in the form of mini-lessons, demonstrating what students are expected to do in their writing. Reinforce writing skills such as prewriting, planning, drafting, revising, and editing on a daily basis; establish a routine for these behaviors and encourage students to use their own strategies, move naturally between states, and work at their own pace. Foster independence and responsibility by providing criteria (e.g., rubrics, exemplars) students can use to evaluate their own writing. Grammar is taught within the context of writing, not in isolation, and also emphasizes strategies consistent with individual learner needs. Create structured assignments based on inquiry to help students produce writing that expands strategy use, accommodates a variety of purposes and audiences, and addresses increasingly complex topics. Establish portfolios to monitor and evaluate students' writing abilities in different genres and to provide students with greater responsibility for their progress as writers through self-assessment of their own work. Students are held accountable for their own growth and employ multiple measures to assess literacy skills. Writing in the Age of the Internet Writing in an Internet-based environment requires a change in assumptions and procedures from writing in the past. According to Knobel and Lankshear (2006), a different approach is needed, one that "inevitably involves networks, collaboration, and shared visions of how knowledge is made and distributed differently in digital space" (p. 80). In other words, digital writing is not just writing using technology instead of paper and pencil, but rather is about designs of meaning that may employ aural, spatial, and gestural modalities as well as visual. Digital writing differs from traditional writing in other respects too; the audience is potentially vast, and the information offered is obtained from an ever-expanding multiplicity of sources. Writers must access, organize, and process more information than ever before, in multiple new forms of visual and vocally enhanced communication, including blogs, YouTube videos, wikis, and webinars, to name but a few. For example, bloggers use cyberspace to "reflect on their own ideas, comment on other blogs, and synthesize their readings from other sources... utilizing the full capacity of blogs as a literacy practice, not just replicating traditional practices in an online space" (Hicks, 2009, p. 16).
Classroom Glimpse A Class Wiki on Censorship In a high-school-level lesson plan regarding activity about censorship, Sara Beauchamps-Hicks designed a wiki page that encompasses a number of tasks: Students visit various websites, view multimedia on the topic, discuss what they have found, and add content to their group's wiki. Classroom groups use Google Docs to create a shared text that all group members can edit. Beauchamps-Hicks guides students through the research process, encouraging them to develop new ideas about censorship. Her goal is for students to grow as digital writers who produce their own texts rather than just consume information. "The Role of Grammar Following Chomsky's lead, linguists envision grammar as a set of rules that human beings unconsciously know and use. They believe that human beings, once exposed to the language(s) of their environment, have an innate ability to understand and produce sentences they have never before heard, because the mind has the capacity to internalize and construct language rules that help native speakers determine whether a group of words forms a sentence in their language. If application of the rules of sentence formation is largely unconscious, what role does explicit teaching of grammar play? There are two ways to think about this. First, linguists are not clear on how first- and SLA of grammar differ. Krashen's acquisition hypothesis (see Chapter 3 ) claimed that second-language syntax was acquired in the same order as that of the first language, but it is not clear if the same internal brain mechanisms are involved. Moreover, if SLA follows different brain pathways (and in most people's subjective experience, this is true, learning a second language is more difficult than learning the first, which is why more people are not bilingual), then there is a role for explicit teaching of grammar. However, when deciding if, and how much, explicit grammar to teach, and how much accuracy to demand in students' writing, teachers must pose three important questions: What is the goal of grammar instruction? How much time should be allocated for it? How can it be made interesting to students at any age? Grammar has a larger role to play in SLA if the learner intends to achieve advanced proficiency, or if a highly structured environment fits the learners' cognitive style. One might argue that the older and more disciplined the learner, the larger a role explicit instruction in grammar could play. In answer to the last question, grammar -even grammar drills-can be presented in a format that is entertaining (use a search engine to find "grammar games"). Benefits of Explicit Instruction of Language SLA, as a domain of learning, is difficult. To attain linguistic and cultural proficiency requires precise control of meaning, careful attunement to intonation, and mastery of behavioral subtlety. Explicit instruction usually means direct instruction (with goals, activities, and assessment strictly determined by the teacher or other authorities) combined with precise error correction or other overt feedback. The earliest type of language teaching was grammar-translation pedagogy, in which the instructor explained the meaning of vocabulary words and the structure of sentences, and students' access to the target language was limited to a carefully controlled curriculum. The strengths of this methodology are that those skilled in traditional school behaviors-memorization and rote learning-receive good grades. Moreover, the explaining and translating involve the first language-little of this instruction takes place directly in the target language. Therefore, students are more likely to find the explanations and translations comprehensible. Drawbacks to this direct instruction include limited independent language acquisition, minimal access to the target language and culture, and little social
interaction with target-language speakers. Speaking and listening-the foundations of the brain's acquisition of language-are restricted, and oral proficiency is seldom achieved. Grammar-focused lessons that are not communicatively based can also be boring, cumbersome, and difficult for students. Explicit teaching may be required when some basic feature of English is so illogical or dissimilar to the first language that it is not easily understood, even in context. Aspects of English grammar that may offer exceptional challenge to English learners include use of word order, determiners (this, that, these, those, a, an, the), prepositions (in, on, at, by, for, from, of), auxiliaries (do, be, have), conjunctions (but, so, however, therefore, though, although), interrogatives, intensifiers (some, any, few, more, too), and distinctions among modal verbs (can, could, would, should, may, might, must). Phrasal verbs (look over, pick up) also present considerable difficulty to Spanish speakers learning communicative English. Classroom Glimpse Explicit Feedback During Reading Tutoring The following exchange during the tutoring of reading shows explicit teaching of the sound-symbol connection in English: Pedro: Miscle? Tutor: /mus/... Pedro: /muskl/ Tutor: Muscle has what is called silent /c/; you see it but you don't pronounce it. Muscle without /c/ sounds like/musl/. Pedro: Muscle. The Role of Feedback in Explicit Teaching Feedback is essential to the knowledge and performance of any new skill, usually involving explicit error correction, but it can also mean indirect hints. A teacher's job is to understand the conditions under which feedback works best. For example, a teacher needs to know that students benefit from the time teachers spend providing extensive responses on writing. But what is known about feedback in language learning? Under what conditions are the different forms effective for particular learners? The answers to such questions would enable teachers to predict which responses are likely to work best. Feedback is integrated differently into different types of practice. For example, communicative activities are usually low in feedback as long as participants are understandable; grammar instruction tends to invite right/wrong correction; and oral presentations produce feedback on clarity, organization, and audibility. Modality of language (e.g., written, oral, computer-mediated) influences the type of feedback-people are usually more anxious about feedback on their oral performances than on their written products, and most people are not at all upset about feedback received during computerized tutoring. Although research on feedback is still underway, some general principles are well known, such as the idea that highly anxious learners need positive as well as corrective feedback. To date, there has been scarce research on the characteristics of learners that enable them to learn from feedback. This is a promising avenue for further investigation. Whatever research is carried out on this subject should be combined with formative assessment, as feedback can be considered a kind of formative assessment. Best Practice Error Correction Guidelines Systematic errors, such as Chinese learners' omissions of past-tense declensions in verbs ("Yesterday he drinks"), are a window into the learner's thinking. A thoughtful awareness of error is the best teacher. The more language is produced, the more errors are made, the more learning can occur. The goal is to have the learner produce as much language as possible and create awareness about errors. At the beginning ELD level, learners need to listen to and look at language but not be required to produce it in public, where errors are an embarrassment. Individual or paired practice is useful, including high-interest activities with lots of visuals, controlled vocabulary, and simple sentence structures. At the early intermediate and intermediate levels, high-interest activities in which errors do not impede the communication of meaning are useful. Tasks are
structured to accomplish focused growth in measurable ways, balanced by language activities in which the learner is interested and successful. At the early advanced and advanced levels, error correction focuses on learner self-correction, balanced by targeted teacher feedback. Emphasis is equal across grammatical, strategic, sociolinguistic, and discourse functions. Because assessment is such an important part of the contemporary emphasis on learning, error correction and formative assessment as feedback are featured in the discussions that follow on the teaching of each specific modality (listening/speaking, reading, and writing). The Supplemental Role of Implicit Learning In addition to explicit instruction, implicit learning has a role in SLA. By providing grammar in context in an implicit manner, we can expose students to substantial doses of grammar study without alienating them from the learning of English. One can teach short grammar-based sessions, immediately followed by additional function-based lessons in which the new grammar or structure is applied in context, and trust that the brain will absorb the grammar point while communication takes place. Current studies have combined explicit and implicit instruction under the term focus-on-form approach. Gascoigne (2002) discussed the arguments for and against explicit teaching of grammar and suggested the use of such methods as boldfacing target grammar forms in a text, raising the learner's consciousness about forms through various noticing activities, and careful choice of activities that involve correcting language forms. Teaching Grammar Teachers are often uncertain about what features of grammar to include in language teaching. Savage, Bitterlin, and Price (2010) propose several key principles of grammar teaching: Grammar teaching needs to be connected closely to social functions of language-the language that people need to function in their daily lives. The focus should be on forms that are used routinely and are necessary to convey meaning. The verb tenses of present, past, and future, for example, are essential for people to establish conversation, whereas other tenses like the past perfect (/had eaten before I left) are less common and therefore less important. Grammar instruction in an academic context is most useful for success in school. Error correction that takes place indirectly, in the context of school assignments, is easier for the learner to accept and does not threaten one's self-confidence as might overt oral grammar correction. Grammar is taught explicitly by using a grammar book that presents systematic reference and explains grammar points with a suitable degree of accuracy. ELD classroom materials are beginning to include grammar books as an integral part of the curriculum. A focus on correct usage and sentence structure-including spelling, capitalization, and punctuation-is important for English learners, although this should not be taken to the extreme. Often, mainstream teachers base their estimation of students' academic potential on a few key features of written production-namely, the look of writing, such as legible handwriting, correct spelling of basic words, and well-formed sentences. Therefore, as students write-for purposes of critical thinking, reaction to literature, or project-based learning-some products of their writing should be taken to the final, corrected draft stage. Working with Syntax Awareness of sentence structure can be enhanced by having students work creatively with sentences. They can expand sentences by adding details to a simple sentence ("I went home for lunch" becomes "I skipped home with my mama's tortilla at the tip of my tongue"). They can link sentences by taking an element from a simple sentence and using it to create an image-rich subsequent sentence ("My cat brought me a lizard in her mouth." [The idea = something about the lizard] "I couldn't tell if that lizard was dead or just pretending"). They can rearrange sentences by moving internal phrases to the opening slot ("Lisa drives her tricycle out front to meet Papa when he comes home from work"/"When Papa comes home from work..."). Working with Parts of Speech Students who are familiar with parts of speech can make better use of dictionaries to improve their writing. Table 7.6 displays commonly used terms. For a more explicit definition of these terms one might consult a grammar book.
Table 7.6 Parts of Speech Part of Speech noun noun phrase (often composed of article, adjective, and noun) pronoun adjective verb verb phrase (verb plus auxiliary, verb plus adverb or adverb phrase) adverb adverbial phrase preposition determiner conjunction Example concrete (if countable, can form plurals): apple, apples abstract (often takes no plural): happiness and, but the long road personal (/, you) interrogative (who, which) relative (whomever) helpful, charming dynamic: jump, seem stative: am, are auxiliary: have been (helping) have been running running away from home slowly at work along the highway on, under, beside (definite article) the (indefinite article) a possessive (his, our) demonstrative (that, this) quantifier (some, any) Writing for Grammar Writing tasks can incorporate correct usage. One example is a tongue-in-cheek book that students produced about points of interest in the surrounding neighborhoods, The Homegirls' Guide to South Seventh Street. Key stores, names of streets, and even car brands were correctly capitalized. For a class meal, another group collected recipes from home that featured the imperative form of the verb ("Slice cucumbers thinly"). Thus, correct usage and grammar can be an integral part of learning activities. Correct usage such as punctuation, capitalization, and paragraph structure is emphasized in the context of composition, allowing grammar to be taught in an integrated way, which includes a special focus on difficult features when necessary.
Content-Based English-Language Development Content literacy is the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. In content-based instruction (CBI) ELD classrooms, ELD educators, in collaboration with content teachers, organize learning objectives around academic subjects to prepare students to master grade- level curricula. This is a supplement to the students' English class. Content literacy is more than "having knowledge in a particular discipline; it represents skills needed to acquire knowledge of content and make it easier for the student to read and write in the discipline. This literacy is content specific; an individual who can read and write about science may not be able to do so in mathematics. However, being able to think clearly, understand key concepts, and express oneself are cognitive skills that do generalize across disciplines, so efforts to promote content literacy in one subject can positively affect learning in other subjects. CBI-ELD classes develop not only language proficiency but also content knowledge, cognitive strategies, and study skills. Teachers familiarize students with the difference in the style and structure of texts and the type of vocabulary featured in the particular discipline. Reference might be made background knowledge restricted to that content area, along with abstract, specialized, and difficult vocabulary. Collaboration and Reciprocity Content-based instruction can be of great benefit if content instructors and language teachers work together to provide comprehensible input to the learner, as well as to design tasks that are both understandable and important. Systematic, planned instruction must present vocabulary, concepts, and structures that are required for mastery of the content. Whether an adjunct model-having the language teacher assist in content teaching by providing additional contact and support -or a collaborative model-with the ELD teacher coteaching the content course-is chosen, providing English instruction coupled with content-specific instruction increases the likelihood of academic success. Is the collaboration between ELD and content instructors reciprocal? If ELD teachers teach content, then the content teachers should also include language- development objectives along with content objectives. If this is not the case, then content-based ELD unfortunately positions ELD teachers as adjunct content instructors, which leads instructors of other disciplines to believe that ELD is not a content domain in its own right. This tends to undermine the professional status of ELD. The collaboration with content instructors should be two-way, with both types of classes having language and content objectives. CBI-ELD: Lesson Planning In CBI-ELD, the content to be taught, general instructional goals, and time available for instruction are negotiated with the content teacher. One important factor in the success of CBI-ELD is the ELD teacher's past experiences in teaching similar content or ability to transfer knowledge gained from teaching similar concepts in other disciplines. Five types of reading lesson plans are commonly used in content-based ESL (McKenna & Robinson, 1997). Table 7.7 describes the five lesson types in detail. Table 7.7 Types of Reading Lesson Plans in ELD Content-Based Instruction Source: McKenna & Robinson, 1997 Lesson Plan Type Directed Reading Activity Advantages: Flexible, purposeful Disadvantage: May be too teacher-directed Directed Reading-Thinking Activity Advantages: Directions to Teacher Establish readiness for reading, relating to students' prior knowledge and preteaching vocabulary or specialized skills (maps or charts, etc.). Set purposes for reading (analyze goals and communicate these goals to students). Arrange for students to read silently. Discuss the reading. Extend students' understanding by using supplementary materials or by assigning a writing task. Help students set purposes for reading; check students' prior knowledge, preteaching concepts if necessary; encourage students to predict content using cues. Facilitate reasoning as students read.
Emphasizes the reading-thinking connection Encourages students to set own purposes Disadvantage: Not well suited to new or unfamiliar material K-W-L (What do I Know, What do I Wonder about, What have I Learned). Advantages: Activates prior knowledge Establishes group purposes Disadvantage: Not well suited to unfamiliar material Explicit Teaching Advantage: Permits clear-cut, sequential planning Disadvantages: May encourage overreliance on teacher for direction Literacy activities may be avoided when planning Listen-Read-Discuss Advantage: Effective with low-ability readers Disadvantages: . Does not appear to encourage voluntary reading 7 May encourage overreliance on teacher for direction Highly teacher-directed Help students test their predictions, locating and discussing bases for conclusions. Brainstorm with students to elicit prior knowledge of the topic, then discuss, grouping ideas into subtopics. Select subtopics of interest based on what they need to know; have students write out their interests. Assess what was learned by the reading. Create readiness by a positive introduction and by communicating objectives clearly. Teach concepts directly, checking for understanding, reteaching if needed. Provide opportunities for guided and independent practice. Present complete text through lecture and demonstration. Give students a chance to read the material silently. Conduct a discussion of the selection.
Literacy in the Cyber Age Internet tools can extend literacy activities into the "real" world and provide English learners with opportunities to practice reading and writing from their own homes or from local libraries. Students can work individually or with others to create blog entries or comment on others' work, to share information or chat on social networking sites, to "surf" the Net for content relating to their hobbies or interests, or just to practice reading and writing anonymously in cyberspace. Literacy takes on a whole new meaning when each user can access, consume, develop, edit, and share-whether during class or beyond the school day. Today's students grew up in a technology-enhanced learning environment; even in low-income schools, buying tablet computers has become a "fix-all" way to raise reading levels, interest students in the curriculum, and sustain engagement. To tie together school and after-school efforts, students are often sent home with learning games on mobile devices to drill vocabulary, reinforce what they have learned in the classroom, or provide virtual platforms that offer knowledge mixed with entertainment (edutainment). Every day, students swim in a dynamic surf of peer texts, social media interaction, YouTube downloads, Instagram posts, and streaming content that promises instant gratification. How can schools compete? Researchers are beginning to discover that the personalized learning offered by mobile devices is not always as effective as is touted; students may be distracted by other input when using their mobile phone to learn. Chen and Yan (2018) found that mobile-phone multitasking-especially with social media-has a negative impact on reading speed, reading comprehension, and lecture recall. Despite the point of view of many that multitasking is a virtue, students are often no better than adults at doing cognitively demanding tasks while multitasking. Adults may need to tear themselves away from their own mobile phones to restrict their children's screen time or to support the concentration needed to get homework finished. Possibilities for Alternative Literacies Although much has been made of the role of technology in new forms of literacy, Jiménez (2003) explored an "ecologies of literacy" perspective in asking the question "What forms of literacy serve the English learner community?" He pointed to "syncretic literacy" practices, in which students fuse their in-school and out- of-school literacies to create usable forms of literacy for their daily lives. Students who must serve as language brokers for their families in navigating rental/lease agreements, income tax forms, and telephone/utility bills in English must address their own and their families' short- and long-term goals using a combination of native-language and English oracy and literacy skills. González, Moll, and Amanti (2005) employed the term "funds of knowledge" to capture the information access and language skills that communities use and need if they are to survive and prosper into subsequent generations. Fisher and Frey (2009) caution that the digital age has brought speed at the expense of thoughtfulness. This is a thought-provoking coda to a chapter on reading. and writing for English learners. The new literacies of the digital world allow people to locate, create, and disseminate information at breathtaking speed. Yet this accelerated pace can come at a cost to critical literacy. As it becomes increasingly easier to post to a blog, add to a wiki space, or upload a video, the temporal speed that naturally occurred with slower modes has vanished. And with it, lingering over ideas and taking on other viewpoints have evaporated as well. (pp. 137-138). Although many forms of literacy delivery are changing from print to electronic media, the importance of reading proficiency in the lives of English learners has not changed. Television and the Internet deliver a wide variety of entertainment to the home, tempting many young people from the rigors of homework; yet the individual must learn to marshal books, study materials, media literacy, and other forms of information in the service of academic achievement. Teachers who teach study skills and other literacy strategies systematically can help English learners to read and write across a variety of genres using a variety of media. The forms of media may change dramatically in the years ahead; the need for literacy-including biliteracy-will remain as the greatest challenge facing English learners.