Handy Handouts for Teachers

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Seven Teaching Strategies for Classroom Teachers of ELLs

 

 

1.Provide comprehensible input for ELLs. Language is not “soaked up.” The learner must understand the message that is conveyed. Comprehensible input is a hypothesis first proposed by Stephen Krashen. (Krashen, 1981) He purports that ELLs acquire language by hearing and understanding messages that are slightly above their current English language level. When newcomers are assigned to a mainstream classroom and spend most of their day in this environment it is especially critical for them to receive comprehensible input from their teachers and classmates. If that teacher provides information by lecturing in the front of a classroom, the English language learner will not be receiving this input. Teachers need to speak more slowly, use gestures and body language to get across the meaning to ELLs.

2.Make lessons visual. Use visual representations of new vocabulary and use graphs, maps, photographs, drawings and charts to introduce new vocabulary and concepts. Tell a story about information in the textbook using visuals. Create semantic and story maps, graphic organizers to teach students how to organize information.

3.Link new information to prior knowledge. Teachers need to consider what schema ELL students brings to the classroom and to link instruction to the students’ personal, cultural, and world experiences. Teachers also need to know what their students do not know. They must understand how culture impacts learning in their classroom.

4.Determine key concepts for the unit and define language and content objects for each lesson. Teachers write the key concept for a unit of study in student-friendly language and post it in the room. New learning should be tied to this concept. Additionally, teachers should begin each lesson by writing a content objective on the board. At the end of the lesson, students should be asked if the objective was met. Classroom teachers also need to set language objectives for the ELLs in their class. A language objective might be to learn new vocabulary, find the nouns in a lesson, or apply a grammar rule.

5.Modify vocabulary instruction for ELLs. English language learners require direct instruction of new vocabulary. Teachers should also provide practice in pronouncing new words. ELLs need much more exposure to new terms, words, idioms, and phrases than do English fluent peers. Teachers need to tie new vocabulary to prior learning and use visual to reinforce meaning. Content area teachers should teach new vocabulary words that occur in the text as well as those related to the subject matter. Word wall should be used at all grade levels.

6.Use cooperative learning strategies. Lecture style teaching excludes ELLs from the learning in a classroom We don’t want to relegate ELLs to the fringes of the classroom doing a separate lesson with a classroom aide or ESL teacher. Working in small groups is especially beneficial to ELLs who have an authentic reason to use academic vocabulary and real reasons to discuss key concepts. ELLs benefit from cooperative learning structures. Give students a job in a group. Monitor that they are participating.

7.Modify testing and homework for ELLs. Content area homework and assessments needs to be differentiated for ELLs. Teachers should allow alternative types of assessment: oral, drawings, physical response (e.g., act-it-out), and manipulatives as well as modification to the test. Homework and assessment should be directly linked to classroom instruction and students should be provided with study guides so that they know what to study. Remember that the ELLs in your class may not be able to take notes.

Writing Lesson Plans Using the Erin Condren Lesson Planner| Tina Bietler

5 Pieces of Advice for New Teachers

Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

 

The Benefits of Home Visits

Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.
— Paulo Freire (p. 72-73)

A home visit program can show that teachers, principals, and school staff are willing to "go more than halfway" to involve all parents in their children's education. These visits help teachers demonstrate their interest in students' families and they provide opportunities for teachers to understand their students better by seeing students in their home environments.
Home visits are not meant to replace parent-teacher conferences or to discuss children's progress. When done early, before any school problems might arise, home visits signal that teachers are eager to work with all families and avoid putting parents on the defensive. Teachers who have made home visits say they build stronger relationships with parents and their children and improve attendance and achievement. In this regard, Mary, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher who has been visiting the home of her students before the first day of school, writes:

…[H]ow I address my fear about the first day of school is to face it, as you suggest, I spend the week before the first day of school visiting my students' homes, meeting the students and their families. I can't wait for the first day of school, and so I go out and read the students in their neighborhoods, their homes, with their families. That way I know where my students are coming from, literally I know who their people are. I know the names their families call them. I know what they are proud of and what worries them, I begin to trust these families. My students and their families begin to trust me. (Nieto, 2009, p. 12)

Home visits are not a new concept. Head Start teachers have been using them for many years and in the last few years an increasing number of schools and districts have established successful home visit programs that have yielded many positive returns. Regardless of whether their schools have established a home visit program, many teachers of English language learners have been using home visits as a way to learn about their students and their home environments and to establish a much-needed connection with families and communities.
Several key components combine to create successful home visits: planning, arrival, departure, and post visit. These important aspects are explained below.

Planning

Prior to visiting students' homes, it is important to consider a few items. Remember that this might be an opportunity to help a parent such as Ms. Astorga feel more comfortable when visiting the school her children attend.

Este es mi cuarto año en los EE.UU. y sólo he ido a la escuela para matricular a mis hijos. No me siento a gusto en la escuela…tengo un poco de miedo de no hacer las cosas bien y de no entender lo que me dicen. Y mis hijos me dicen que mejor no vaya pues a lo mejor meto la pata.
This is my fourth year in the U.S. and I have only been to the school to register my kids. I don't feel at ease in the school—I am afraid of not doing the right thing or misunderstanding what they say. My kids tell me not to go because if I do I might make a mistake.
— Ms. Astorga, parent from Chile

Tips for success

• Determine the purpose(s) of the visit such as learning more about students and exploring ways that the school and teachers can better serve families.
• Schedule a home visit 7 to 10 days in advance.
• Communicate the purpose of your visit and approximately how long the visit will last (30 to 45 minutes).
• Follow up with a brief written note indicating the exact date and time of the meeting, preferably written in the family's home language.
• If possible, learn the names of family members.
• Learn a few words of the family's first language, even if they're only "hello" and "thank you." This shows you care enough to make an effort and may help break the ice.
• Ask another adult to accompany you to your first home visits, preferably someone who speaks the home language of the families.
• Consider that some parents may be familiar and comfortable with home visits, having experienced them in their countries of origin. Others may not be familiar or comfortable with the idea.
• If parents have difficulty scheduling a time to meet with you, it may be because some parents work 2 or more jobs.
• Begin making home visits prior to the start date of school. This may help lower the anxiety level of your students and will help you become aware of your students' English language proficiency levels.
• Know where you are going (that is, have a map or GPS device).
• Leave a schedule of home visits with the school staff.
• If possible, bring a small gift, such as a little bag of cookies, a children's book, or a notebook as a token of appreciation.
• If you will need the services of a translator/interpreter, consider asking fewer questions. Since questions and answers have to pass through the translator/interpreter, they will probably require twice the amount of time.

Arrival

Instantly when we rang the doorbell we were greeted by four bright smiling faces—dad, mom and Rocio and Laura (ages 8 and 10). Both parents came up to us and shook our hands, and the girls curtseyed and giggled in their beautiful fancy dresses. Though I was still a bit shy and awkward at first, my fears were dismissed as soon as I realized how kind and inviting the family truly was.
— Roxana, 3rd grade teacher

Tips for success

• Be on time.
• Dress appropriately — err on the side of formal attire.
• Be aware of and look for cultural expectations in the home. For example, in some cultures it is expected that people entering the home will remove their shoes and walk about the home in socks or in special footwear provided by the host.
• Introduce yourself and the adult accompanying you.
• Begin by establishing rapport through small talk.
• Conversation starters: "Tell me about your child." "What does your child like best about school?""What are schools like in _______ (country of origin)?" "Tell me about _______ (siblings or other family members)."
• While you are encouraged to do more listening than talking, you could also talk about your school's routines, classroom curricula, or teacher expectations among other topics.
• If you're nervous, remember, the family you are visiting is also probably nervous.
• Bear in mind that in many cultures, teachers are more highly respected than in the U.S. It is a significant event to host a teacher in families' homes.
• Don't be afraid to look foolish while trying to bridge the language gap. If necessary, try drawing pictures or acting out what you mean.
• During the conversation, maintain eye contact with the family even if you are speaking through a translator/interpreter.
• Avoid taking notes or recording the conversation when visiting the family. This can be perceived as rude or threatening.
• Avoid talking about negative things.
• While in a family's home, put on your anthropologist's lens. This means trying to view the host home from the perspective of those living there.
• Show respect and empathy.
• Smile. Be aware, however, that some Eastern European families may perceive smiling as a sign of insincerity. Observe the family and adjust your behavior accordingly.

Departure

I invited the family to come to the literacy night next week at the school and asked the dad if he would read a picture book in Spanish for the kids. He agreed. Wow, was I wrong in thinking that this family was not interested in the education of their kids!
— Geoffrey, 2nd Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Lay the groundwork for future events, such as parent teacher conferences, upcoming fairs, or literacy nights.
• Invite families to participate.
• Provide families with information on how to contact you, including your telephone number, email address, and classroom or office hours.
• Share information about community and school resources.

Post Visit

I learned tons from this visit. My "Russian" student is actually Ukrainian. The family moved from a part of the Ukraine where half the people speak Russian and half speak Ukrainian. Both parents grew up there, and both were educated in schools where a few classes were taught in Ukrainian.
— Katia, 6th Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Take a few moments away from students' homes to write down a quick summary of the visit.

What to do first: Creating a welcoming ELL classroom environment

Making textbook listenings manageable and fun

Despite the attempts of some textbooks to use more stimulating listening activities like jigsaw listenings, stories in episodes that end at suspenseful moments, comic dialogues etc, turning on a tape is still the most likely action to make some of your students either sleepy or panicky. As well as adapting drier listening texts to incorporate more fun textbook activities like those just mentioned, there are plenty of things you can do to make a listening text less boring and less difficult for your students. These can be divided into things they do:
1. Before listening
2. Before class
3. While listening
4. After listening

1. Before listening
A Sense of Anticipation
Any time the students spend anticipating and thinking about what they are going to hear can help them understand when they do finally hear it, for example tasks where they predict what is going to be said and then listen and check. Such pre-listening tasks can also be extended to them doing a whole roleplay or other long speaking task and then listening to a conversation in the same situation on the CD. As words and expressions come up that they need to communicate, these stages can also often be a good natural time to pre-teach things that they will need to understand when they are listening.
Pre-teach everything
Although textbooks usually limit the language they go through before listening to vocabulary (vocabulary pre-teaching), you can pre-teach any knowledge that a native speaker is likely to know and the students not, and will therefore make understanding difficult or impossible. As well as other language stuff like the meaning of grammatical structures they have never come across before or the changes in pronunciation of words in fast natural speech, this can also include cultural knowledge such as place names, personal names, or what the usual replies to certain phrases are or what people usually say in certain settings or situations. When pre-teaching vocabulary, you will also need to make sure you drill and analyze the pronunciation, then maybe get them to use the vocabulary in communication so that they know it properly before they listen.
One minute of help
As well as the general difficulties of listening to a tape with no visual prompts etc, students can also have problems listening to specific texts due to variations in accent, speed of speech, background noise, number of speakers, length of speaking turn etc. This can be dealt with by letting them listen and read a short part at the beginning of the text before they go on and listen to the whole thing.
To make sure they are really listening to that short extract, you will need to give them one easy task to listen for, e.g. "How does the man feel?" This can then lead onto the first easy general understanding task for the first time students listen to the whole text, e.g. "Why does he feel that way?"
One easy question for you
The secret to designing an easy and useful task for the first time students listen all the way through are:
a) Make sure the question(s) can be answered from several different parts of the text, e.g. "Do they mainly agree with each other or mainly disagree with each other?" rather than "Do they agree or disagree at the end?", so that if they miss parts of what is said it doesn\'t stop them doing the task, and so that people who understand the beginning of the text perfectly still have a reason to listen through to the end to check their answer.
b) Have as few questions as possible for them to answer, preferably just one
c) Make sure they understand the question, e.g. by discussing what the answers could be before they listen
d) Do the first task with books closed, to stop them becoming distracted
e) Write the task they need to do up on the board, so they can\'t forget what it is
As well as a single general comprehension task, another easy thing students can do the first time they listen is just to pick out particular language, e.g. "Are the future forms used all ‘going to\' or all ‘will\'?" or "Count how many times they say ‘we\'"

2. Before class
Students can also be given time to prepare for a listening before the class, e.g. being given the list of pre-teach vocabulary to learn or write the phonemic symbols for, writing out a dialogue similar to the one they are going to hear, or being told to listen to a previous textbook task again or something available on the internet because it is similar to what they are going to listen to in class next week.

3. While listening
Active response
One way of simplifying the listening and make it more fun is to give the students a simpler and more active way of responding rather than just scribbling down answers, e.g. responding physically by sticking up their hand as soon as they hear something the class had predicted, slapping a card with the answer written on it, holding up a question mark if they hear a question, making the facial expression of the feeling of the person they are listening to etc. At a later stage, students could also act out (mime) the dialogue as they listen to it. Giving the students control of the stereo can also have the same effect of waking them up and getting them involved.
Slow down and let me think
Some cassette recorders have a speed control that you can use to slow down the speech a little, either when students listen to the whole text a second or third time or just for a short section that they are not catching.
If you don\'t have this speed function, pausing the tape can also help- even when you are not asking them to do anything special in that time but just letting them think. One time that it is well worth pausing the tape is after the first of a list of comprehension questions is answered on the tape, to make sure everyone understands the task and has not lost concentration during the introductionary part of the listening.

4. After listening
As well as any grammar or vocabulary work in the book that the listening leads onto, to make sure the students find listening to a similar text the next time you will need to spend some time making sure they analyze their difficulties and practice the language that comes up.
Analysis
Especially with listenings that students found difficult but will need to be able to understand (e.g. exam listenings for IELTS or TOEIC students, lectures for students who are going to study abroad) it is worth asking students why they found it difficult and giving them some self-study tips on where to find English language listening sources of the right type and level, and what to do when they are listening to them. This can then prepare the students for any further language work you do in class.
Ways of analyzing a listening text include writing the sounds you are focusing on (e.g. schwa for unstressed grammar words) in phonemic symbols on the tapescript as you listen, drawing loops between words when the sounds are linked together, putting brackets around sounds that are not pronounced or are hardly pronounced, and marking the sentence stresses or word stresses.
Practice
You will then want to make sure the students remember the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and functional language points in the listening. Although it is worth mainly concentrating on language they will actually need to produce, some drilling of linking sounds, for example, can be worthwhile if it will help them understand fast natural speech next time.
Practice activities that are interactive and fun include students testing each other\'s memory of the text, either the facts or elements of language such as the prepositions. If it is a dialogue, they can also read out the dialogue in pairs then cover it up line by line from the bottom and practice until it is all remembered. To make sure they use the right rhythm while they do pairwork tasks like this, you can first do shadow reading, where half of the class take each part and speak along exactly in time with the cassette, finishing with the cassette fading out and back in again to see if they have remained in time. Students can then be given roleplay cards to improvise similar conversations in pairs.

Conclusion
While most of the tasks above are useable with all kinds of listenings, before choosing which one you will need to analyze the text and the tasks in your textbook and decide what the students are likely to find difficult. One way of analyzing this is to first think about what problems students might have if they read the text, and then think about what problems will be added when they listen to it. Tasks like those above can then be used to limit and deal with those difficulties as they come up- as well as, of course, making the class fun!