Group items tagged

Week 9 (Bonnie Brady, Malkie Horovitz, Katie Tress) This article is about how English Language Learners learn a second language and describes the importance of five different aspects of reading instruction and how they relate to ELL students. The article explains each of the five aspects of reading instruction, why it is important, challenges that ELL students may face when trying to read in a second language, and discusses strategies to help them succeed.

Academic language is a meta-language that helps learners acquire the 50,000 words that they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar and genres within fields.

Week 7: Margarita Lugo and Erika Eason This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This article focuses on the "multiple intelligence theory" and its application for foreign language teachers and their classrooms as a way to actively and authentically engage students in learning in all subject areas (however, this article does emphasize foreign language). This theory says that content can be taught in a variety of ways and recommends that teachers should design lessons, projects, homework, and assessments while thinking of students' learning preferences and styles. Specifically, the article goes through Gardner's theory and illustrates how it can be applied to Spanish classroom. Our SMART goal is that "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments". This article can help me achieve this goal by giving me new insight on differentiating instruction and assessments for my SPED students who struggle in one or more areas of communication. References: Anders, L., & Willen, W. (2005/2006). Differentiating instruction in the Spanish as a foreign language course using multiple intelligence theory. International Journal of Learning, 12(6), 9-14. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. (Accession No. 25089780)

This article describes the incorporation of web conferencing in a foreign language classroom with the purpose of improving listening and speaking skills. Although the number of students in the study is small, the authors provide very specific recommendations for the implementation of this technology in the classroom. This technology allows students more time to practice and interact with their L2 since the conferencing can be done outside of the classroom.

This article proves that teachers and students can benefit from the integration of technology in a foreign language classroom. As a world language teacher, I wanted to find an article that offers tools/ideas that could help me bridge the gap between the output and the input in world language class.

Having teachers experience "a day in the life of an ELL" can be powerful professional development-and at one school it's reportedly helped close the achievement gap. ELL 'Shadowing' Brings Instructional Gaps to Light, Liana Heitin (2011) Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/08/24/ell_shadowing.html Retrieved on 10/19/15 Great article with a fresh new idea!!!! This article tells the tale of "A teacher or administrator follows an English-language learner to several classes." I have "shadowed" in a classroom before, usually to observe the teacher. But the purpose of this shadowing is to look specifically at the student's use of academic language. Statistics show "English-language learners spend less than 2 percent of the school day improving their academic oral language." That number is completely unacceptable. I think we as teachers could all benefit from "shadowing" students. It does not have to just be ELL students we shadow. Reviewing data and becoming educated about the students who struggle would help with the shadowing process. Maybe we could start with shadowing the students who aren't improving in order to better understand why they are behind.

Chapter 6 of this book by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele focuses on Total Participation Techniques that move. Of particular interest to my data team is the section of this chapter on Bounce Cards. This strategy can help all students feel confident and comfortable participating in a group discussion. I think it can be especially helpful to world language teachers looking to encourage students to discuss academic topics in the target language. (Week 9)

I have been exhausting this website for resources since I first discovered her through Twitter. I apologize that it's another language resource, but she has great activities for all different levels of proficiency and languages. The presentation and units with resources are aligned with ACTFL standards.

Dimension: Depth of Knowledge Rating: 3 This article is a good example of how to collaborate and learn from peer to peer. I like this exercise because it would allow students to apply words to topics for understanding what is necessary to build an essay. This could be used for group#4 action plan and a good tool to support my team's SMART Goal achievement for improving their writing proficiency for the 5th grade students because it focus on decreasing their English language barriers so they are able to reach their WIDA exiting level of 4.4. With practice students will be able to remember what they are learning so that they are able to break the text and understand what they mean in order to write. Scaffolding would be a good way to get to the bottom of improving in the English language.

Great video! It directly addresses many issues ESL/ELL teachers have in reaching their students, and in helping them make sense of complex texts (like the one mentioned here from 'The Washington Post') and other readings. (Again, as I often mention, if you have taken 'reading literacy' courses for your state teaching certification, you know that newspapers like 'The Post' are designed for students with grade 12+ reading ability.) For ESL/ELL learners, this is especially difficult. In the school featured here, 27% are ESL learners in a "blended" classroom in a Portland, Maine middle school. It appears that the social studies teacher and the ESL support teacher work effectively in tandem, helping students to be "close readers," and focusing on students themselves as those responsible for their own learning. The teachers use excellent ESL/FL strategies such as "pacing and pausing," "reading aloud," "sharing with partners," and so forth. ESL/ELL learners work together with their mainstream counterparts, and the process seems to work quite well. I like their approach ('Reading, Thinking, Talking, Writing') here. With proper teacher guidance, this puts the burden on the students to come up with their own interpretations of the text/s they are reading. From the 'Planning and Protocol Rubric': hitting '4s' on most dimensions, except for perhaps 'Technology Integration' (not entirely evident). Otherwise, students are expected to perform at a very high level. My SMART Learning Goal: After three weeks of targeted instruction--and in concert with the content-area teacher--75% or more of our students will score at least one point higher on their ESOL RELA and ESOL math assessments. Targeted instruction, based on the requirements of the 'Action Plan Tracking Sheet,' closely hews to what is going on in this video.

I found this video to help with the dimension of 'Rigor and Relevance.' It explores the practice of 'language dives', something I was previously unfamiliar with. This video deals with them in the primary setting, but I think it could be easily adapted to secondary education, and can especially have a place in the music classroom. I do believe implementing these strategies could help me achieve my SMART goal of 100% passing rate on state and county standardized tests among my target SLO group.

This paper discusses the importance of vocabulary instruction and instructional strategies in order to support vocabulary learning across all grade levels and content areas. Using direct and intentional vocabulary development in the educational setting provides students with the tools and language skills necessary to progress and thrive. This focus is instrumental in narrowing achievement gaps between students, and is particularly beneficial for ESOL students. As a language teacher, it was an excellent reminder of the need to continue vocabulary focus across all skill levels. The lower levels are very vocabulary-centric, but the higher levels become less vocabulary-focused and more communicative in nature. However, there are always more words to know and as concepts and themes of study become more sophisticated, so too becomes the language and word level. Various strategies must be employed, both emanating from the teacher's intentional instruction and students' independent work. This paper has concrete and specific instructional strategies that teachers of all content areas and across all age levels can employ.

I found this paper particularly interesting because it highlighted that when teachers explicitly teach vocabulary to students, it results in not only the increased retention of words learned, but of increased comprehension skills as well.

This website is a collection of many science and social studies related math problems. Users connect math to issues like sports, natural disasters, and ancient civilizations, and "hunt" for math answers among various resources. There are lots of opportunities for language-development in the process, too, and its accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.

As a language teacher, I found this article to be relatable because it discusses the ways in which teachers can close the achievement gap with students whose first language is not English. The article discusses achievement gaps and ways to combat them for ELL students.

It is no longer assumed that productive language competence naturally develops from receptive language competence. Now the noticing and the focused output hypotheses are considered in order to arrive at solutions for addressing the gap between receptive and productive competence.

This is a very interesting study that shows us that the way we have been taught to learn English influences the way teachers teach English. The study analyzes the stories of four English teachers. I chose this article because I believe that at times, the way we give instructions in the class is informed by the way we received past instructions or would like to receive instructions in the present.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

I like to use this dictionary and the dictionary of "student-friendly" definitions. Never think that you have to reinvent the wheel Merriam-Webster already did for you. Look for links to the English-Language Learners Dictionary and the Kids' Dictionary in the m-w.com standard entries for "student-friendly" definitions.

Amazing site of free lessons created by experts geared toward the Common Core State Standards in Math, Social Studies, and English Language Arts

Amazing site of free lessons created by experts geared toward the Common Core State Standards in Math, Social Studies, and English Language Arts