A Course for Teaching English Language Learners 2nd Edition

The varying background experiences that ELs bring to a reading task.

Young learner (K-3) whose beginning literacy instruction is in their primary language. Young learners (K-3) 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.

Differentiated instructional model.

That children learn to engage in higher-level thinking by learning first how to communicate.

They 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.

A curriculum designed to empower students must be trans-formative in nature and help students 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.

The idea that speaking and listening must precede literacy.

Reading and writing.

ELs need environments that help them to meet the social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic demands of learning.

Older students can write response comments to their peers' oral presentations, share notes from class lectures with a group, or create group research reports.

Progress in English language development

That language-minority children who arrive at school with no proficiency in English but speaking a language for which there are instructional guides, learning materials, and locally available proficient teachers 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.

Negative transfer

Helps them recognize 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.

Phonological awareness, sensorimotor skills, auditory skills, common features of writing systems, comprehension strategies, study skills, habits and attitudes, the structure of language, knowledge about the reading process, direct linguistic content, and metalinguistic awareness.

The ability to distinguish units of speech and a key factor that distinguishes good from poor readers.

Knowledge about the structural properties of language, including sounds, words, grammar, and functions, the ability to use language as a tool, and to step outside of the use of language to think about the language itself.

The explicit attention to transfer, both in teacher attitude(welcoming dual-language use, understanding code-switching, providing support for literacy in multiple language, and honoring primary language) and in specific strategies.

Beginning, early intermediate, intermediate, early advanced, and advanced.

Listening comprehension- responds to simple directions and questions using physical actions. Reading comprehension- responds orally to stories read aloud by answering factual comprehension questions using one or two-word responses.

Differentiated instruction that develop students at two CELDT 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.

Many do not see their families reading or writing.

Graphophonics- knowledge of sound/symbol relationships. Syntax- word order and grammar. Semantics- meaning

Drawing on their prior knowledge of the world to connect the printed word with its semiotic meaning. Recognizing a set of sight words that are not phonetically predictable. 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.

Beginning left to right. Return sweep. Word by word pointing. Concept of a letter, word, sentence. Concept of first and last part in words and sentences. Letter order in words. Upper and lower case.

The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words.

Auditory skill

The understanding that the smallest elements of meaning contained in words play a role in word recognition.

Words that do not conform to phonetic rules- about 10% of English written words.

The understanding that letters represent sounds and that the sounds of letters are combined to form words.

They do not meet the learner's need to acquire an understanding of the functional aspects of literacy. Literacy is forced to emerge in a unnatural way and in an artificial form. A focus on form without a functional context makes learning abstract, meaningless, and difficult. Literacy becomes a boring chore.

The importance for developing readers to become fully competent and fluent.

That if a reader has to devote sizable attention to decoding/ insufficient attention will be available for that constructive, critical reading comprehension.

A familiar grouping of words, especially words that habitually appear together and thereby convey meaning by association.

Brainstorming and K-W-L

K-W-L draws from their interest and curiosity.

Films, texts, field trips, visual aids, and graphic organizers.

Teachers can model how they monitor a sequence of events, identify foreshadowing and flashbacks, visualize a setting , analyze and recognize irony and symbols.

Gap summary, character diary, What's missing, and story mapping.

Before reading- visual and kinesthetic prompts: pictures, art, movies, physical objects relating to the reading selection that students identify and discuss. During reading- read-along tapes: tapes encourage slower readers, allow absent students to catch up, and provide auditory input for students. After reading- character review: Specific students become a character and provide background for other students' questions about the reading.

Before reading- anticipation/reaction guides: a short list of statements to which students agree or disagree. During reading- image/theme development: Charts, graphs, pictures, and symbols can trace the development of images, ideas, and themes. After reading- critic: "journalists" write review 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.

Before reading- selected read-aloud: passages that pique students' interest in the selection. During reading- visual summaries: groups of students create chapter reviews, character analysis, or problem-solutions on overhead transparencies. After reading- 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 a mock television show and devise various formats that include ideas from a literature studied.

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.

Direct reading-thinking activity is a teacher-guided activity that leads students through the prediction process until they are able to do it on their own. Material must be broken up into small chunks first by the teacher and the prediction, reading, and clarification stages must be processed separately for each chunk.

Advantage: Effective with low-ability readers. Disadvantages: Does not appear to encourage voluntary reading. May encourage overreliance on teacher for direction. Highly teacher-directed.

Students are involved in oral language experiences that develop their need and desire to write. Theis stage helps to generate, incubate, explore, test, and integrate ideas.

The planning or prewriting stage, the writing stage, and the feedback/editing stage.

Quickly capturing ideas.

By providing a visual representation of words they may need to draw on while writing.

A kind of diary in which a pair of students write back and forth to each other.

Ideas- Is message clear?; Do I know enough about the topic? Organization- Does the paper have good beginning? Are things told in logical order? Conventions- Are there paragraphs? Are the words spelled correctly? Voice- Does the writing sound like me?

It is not editing and should include feedback about the content, point of view, and tone of the work.

A process in which attention is paid to the communication of meaning and the learner is guided toward self-correction.

Proof-reading that focuses on only a few types of errors at one time.

Play performance, bound book for circulation, poem read aloud, essay posting, video making, class newspaper.

Digital writing involves networks, collaboration, and shared bvisions of how knowledge is made and distributed differently in digital space. It is not just writing using technology instead of paper and pencil, bit rather is about designs of meaning that may employ aural, spatial, and gestural modalities as well as visual. The audience is potentially vast, and the information offered is obtained from an ever-expanding multiplicity of sources.

It states that there are two independent ways in which we develop our linguistic skills: Acquisition and learning. According to Krashen acquisition is more important that learning. It claimed that second-language syntax was acquired in the same order as that of the L1, but it is not clear if the same internal brain mechanisms are involved.

A traditional technique of foreign-language teaching is based on explicit instruction in the grammatical analysis of the target language and translation of sentences from the native language into the target language and vice versa. Drawbacks to this direction instruction include limited independent language acquisition, minimal access to the target language and culture, and little social interaction with target-language speakers.

Determiners are used to identify things in further detail. They are modifying words that determine the kind of reference a noun or noun group has. Determiners include: Articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, your, and their). The choice of the proper article or determiner to precede a noun or noun phrase is usually not a problem for writers who have grown up speaking English, nor is it a serious problem for non-native writers whose first language is a romance language such as Spanish. For other writers, though, this can be a considerable obstacle on the way to their mastery of English. In fact, some students from eastern European countries- where their native language has either no articles or an altogether different system of choosing articles and determiners- find that these "little words" can create problems long after every other aspect of English has been mastered.

Intensifiers are adverbs that enhance or add force to verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In English, they come before the words they modify. Examples: quite, really, very, a little, pretty, brand, fairly, extremely, and absolutely.

A modal is a type of auxiliary (helping) verb that is used to express: ability, possibility, permission or obligation. Modal phrases (also called semi-modals) are used to express the same things as modals, but are a combination of auxiliary verbs and the preposition 'to'. The modals in English are: can, could, may, might, shall, should, must, will, and would. Semi-modals include: be able to, be going to, be supposed to, had better, have to, have got to, ought to, and used to.

A phrasal verb is a combination of words (a verb + a preposition or verb + adverb) that when used together, usually take on a different meaning to that of the original verb. When we use phrasal verbs, we use them like normal verbs in a sentence, regardless if it's a regular or irregular verb. Examples are: abide by, back away, clamp down on, and ease off.

Feedback

Low as long as participants are understandable; grammar instruction tends to invite right/wrong correction; and oral presentations produce feedback on clarity, organization, and audibility.

The modality of language. Examples: written, oral and computer-mediated.

Positive

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.

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 interest and successful.

Error correction focuses on learner self-correction, balanced by targeted teacher feedback. Emphasis is equaled across grammatical, strategic, sociolinguistic, and discourse functions.

It is best to apply error correction and formative assessment following the teaching of each specific modality (listening/speaking, reading, and writing) because assessment is such an important part of the contemporary emphasis on learning.

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 (I 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.

Content-Based Instruction

ELD educators, in collaboration with content teachers, organize learning objectives around academic subjects to prepare students to master grade-level curricula.

The ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. Such ability includes three principal cognitive components: General literacy skills, content-specific literacy skills, and prior knowledge of content. (McKenna and Robinson 1990)

Content literacy is focused on skills and content knowledge is focused on facts.

Language proficiency, cognitive strategies, and study skills.

Collaborative model- the ELD teacher co-teaches the content course. Adjunct model- the language teacher assists in content teaching by providing additional contact and support.

Collaborative model

It can sometimes lead instructors of other disciplines to believe that ELD is not a content domain in its own right.

Directed reading activity: Advantages-flexible, purposeful. Disadvantages-may be too teacher-directed. Directed reading-thinking activity: Advantages-emphasized the reading/thinking connection, encourages students to set own purposes. Disadvantage-not well suited to new or unfamiliar material. K-W-L: Advantages- activates prior knowledge, establishes group purposes. Disadvantages- not well suited to unfamiliar material. Explicit teaching: Advantage- permits clear-cut, sequential planning. Disadvantages- may encourage overreliance on teacher for direction and literacy activities may be avoided when planning. Listen-Read-Discuss: Advantage- effective with low-ability readers. Disadvantages- does not appear to encourage voluntary reading, may encourage overreliance on teacher for direction, highly teacher directed.

The communication process where individuals with no formal training such as children of immigrant families linguistically mediate for two or more parties with one usually being the adults of the family.

Funds of knowledge is defined by researchers Luis Moll, Cathy Amanti Deborah Neff, and Norma Gonzales(2001) as "to refer to the historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of KnowledgeStorm and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being." When teachers shed their role of teacher and expert and, instead, take on a new role as learner, they can come to know their students and the families of their students in new and distinct ways. Information that teachers learn about their students in this process is considered the student's funds of knowledge.