Quintessential to language acquisition is grammar, reading,
writing and speaking. The conversation
goes on in terms of how often to correct students, to implicitly or explicitly
teach grammar and structures, different lessons all together for ELL’s
etc. With careful planning and an
understanding of students needs, desires and abilities we can ensure all
students can participate and are held to a high standard. Explicitly teaching grammar and vocabulary
has proven to have positive outcomes for ELL’s, giving them the foundation to
take these pieces into different contexts and exploring how they change or can
be changed to meet need.
I chose this piece for this section because it best describes
the unit as a whole; literacy development, culturally appropriate, barriers to
learning, vocabulary, grammar, and forms of teaching. Starting at page 221 the document outlines
strategies and different methods of delivery that have, at a time, been proven
to be beneficial for ELL’s including task-based learning, explicit and implicit
teaching. The article is quick to
highlight the need for more, long term, studies to be conducted in order to
come up with a more resolute or definitive answer in terms of best approaches,
it wades through each type of learning and teaching with both positives and
negatives, reporting using factual evidence. According to Norris and Ortega (2000), it was
found that lessons that included an explicit instruction on the rule
explanation as part of the lesson resulted in higher level achievement compared
to implicit instruction that had neither the rule or the directions included in
the lesson. This serves as a strong
argument for the theory of scaffolding lessons, ensuring that content is
measured and approachable for all learners as they traverse their way through
the lesson, adding more focused and explicit content as they go. The guided learning approach too as a strong
merit as it relates to building grammatical structure, drilling timelessly to
ensure both comprehension and extension from single verb sentences has proven have
beneficial results.
The focus on vocabulary development and each individual part
of literacy helps students build meaningful understanding in each area and then
with scaffolded activities are able to integrate each lesson into one or two
tasks. This piece has really cemented the
necessity of scaffolding among all components of literacy, modelling and of
course practice. When ELL’s are given
the opportunity to build upon prior knowledge, practice endlessly well beyond
comfort, using this newly acquired asset/skill in a new way to learn new
content and again to practice over and over, they are set to succeed. We provide the platform and the scaffold for
them to climb and allow them to climb at their own pace with guidance and
correction.
Did I…
Strategy
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YES
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NO
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1. Explain orally and visually the steps in the writing
process?
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2. Model good writing skills and strategies and expect
students to contribute to my writing by allowing them to orally add to it or
add to it through written expression (in any language)?
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3. Define and explain all vocabulary associated with their
current level of writing (L2)?
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4. Explain and give opportunity to rapid write?
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5. Allow for students to seek support through the writing
process from a peer, caring adult, teacher, etc. ?
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6. Provide graphic organizers for the writing assignment?
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7. Conference/Check in frequently with students to assure
writing is flourishing and showing improvement?
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8. Expect students to have a purpose and predict prior to
writing?
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9. Have entry and exit cards to promote differentiated
instruction?
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10. Provide rich feedback in which expects students to
reflect (metacognition)?
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This checklist serves as a great start to teaching ELL’s
writing. When starting out it can often
be difficult to grasp where and what to do when teaching new, challenging,
concepts to students learning a new language, so creating a checklist like this
one is a great way to plan and evaluate your delivery. Particularly the foci of this checklist isn’t
in strictly the physical, mental or emotional acts of writing but rather covers
all parts equally to ensure the student is well supported. As a educator we can plan our lessons around
something like this; are going to model our intended result for our
students? Will we ensure the lesson is
visual, verbal and kinesthetic such that all learning types have the
opportunity to engage? Are we going to
make sure the students have time to work independently, in pairs and with the
instructor for guided practice and further to build upon their work? These are great questions to be asking
yourself as you plan, but also to ask yourself as an assessment for learning
post lesson.