Domain 1: Effective Practice for Teaching Language
Effective teachers of CLD students must understand their linguistic background, culture and English language learning processes when planning instruction. Learning environments that support language acquisition, literacy development and content area achievement provide opportunities for increased academic success in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Planning and preparation for effective instruction involves building on CLD students backgrounds and experiences, scaffolding skills and concepts and appropriate strategies to engage all students.
Teachers that have an awareness of BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) can recognize
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Effective classrooms that are welcoming, emotionally safe and affirming reduce a student’s affective filter and promote a supportive learning environment. One strategy to lower a student’s affective filter is to tap into their prior knowledge. An effective teacher that makes connections with their CLD students backgrounds, experiences, interests and strengths can boost their self-confidence and provide an encouraging academic setting.
Standard 1.a. Describing Language
Effective teaching lessons should incorporate strategies that move CLD students from the known to the unknown to promote development of conceptual understanding, vocabulary knowledge and proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening. One strategy that provided my CLD students an opportunity to use their own background knowledge from what is known to making sense with the unknown was the Linking Language Strategy. This built a bridge between the specific content being taught to elicit connections, activating existing knowledge and vocabulary.
Standard 1.b. Language Acquisition and
Explain how understanding specific English language learners' needs guided the choice of instructional strategies to support the content and language learning.
If your students are English learners, learn a few key phrases in their native languages to model that it is acceptable to struggle with pronunciation and language learning.
Literacy: Marina is currently setting and working towards learning goals in reading and writing. In reading, Marina is beginning to read word by word and is encouraged to work on using reading strategies to help develop confidence when reading. She would benefit from reading books with repetitive sentence patterns. Marina is in a group for literacy that focuses on letter recognition and sounds, which will help support her in reading and writing. With support, she is able to communicate her ideas by using sentence starters such as I like_____ or I feel_____. Marina is beginning to gain confidence in her writing and often has beginning and ending sounds in her words. She is encouraged to continue to work on sounding out her words by using the strategy of ‘stretchy snake’. She is also encouraged to work on her spacing and organization when writing in her journal. She would benefit from skipping lines and starting at the left side of the page.
School board members across the country want to better serve the students who are English language learners. Because countless English language learner students spend part of their academic day in a regular classroom, the general education teachers need to be trained to understand instructional strategies and techniques to aid in advancing this population of students (Stover, 2015). Consequently, it would also be beneficial for school board members to support the bilingual and English Language Learner Specialist in training all teachers in the district on ways to better serve this population.
The author suggests screening native language and English language and literacy development from early education through the transition process, and then in English when students are prepared to leave and are no longer getting reading instruction in the native language. The author states that a team method to problem solving that considers many of these issues may ease the progress of a proper instructional plan. Plans and instructional routines such as repetitive language, rapid pacing, modeling, time to practice, and discuss school employees do not delay literacy instruction until student’s English oral skills are well-developed, but instead support Students benefit when school employees are focused on meeting student’s educational needs rather than on finding an outside source to explain the educational needs. Instructors, including the ones in special education, are worried that they do not have the knowledge and skills to properly teach English language learners. The author states how these teachers are scared that their lack of knowledge of the student 's native language makes them unable of providing valuable education. That 's why, it is important that teachers are provided with the resources required to support them in this process.
She also notes the difference between academia language also known as CALPS: cognitive academic language proficiency and meaningful language - BICS: basic interpersonal communication skills. She mentions how academic language requires more comprehension of the language than interpersonal language; which is more informal and contextual. She also illustrates the importance of treating students for who they are going to become, not the by the fact that they are struggling. A methodology that is represented throughout the book that illustrates the ways teachers can accommodate their language learning students is with scaffolding. Scaffolding is a variety of instructional techniques that are used to assist students to move towards a better understanding of the content and towards independence when it comes to their learning processes. The teacher provides a form of temporary support that will assist the students reach increased levels of understanding and skills acquisition that would not be achievable without aid. All in all, this book will be great for all K-12 teachers and professors; but, I did not review this book because I already did a book review for this book in a different course and it would not widen my prospects of learning more about special
Selecting materials relevant to ELL’s experience or culture; strategically using students’ first languages to make the content delivered in a second language more comprehensible teaching word learning strategies that build on first language knowledge such as using cognates; and frequently using partner talk to give low-English-proficient students more opportunities to talk with more English-proficient
teachers of ELLs and more importantly, higher outcomes for ELLs (p. 9). De Jong and Harper (2005) consider instruction that takes concern to, “explicit attention in linguistic and cultural needs of ELLs is lacking in most teacher preparation programs” (p. 101).
In conclusion, instruction lesson takes time and planning to meet the needs of English language learners. The effectiveness of the strategies used in the classroom can make a difference in meeting the challenge of teaching the ELLs.
For students to thrive in the classroom, I must ensure that they have a positive space they can come to and feel comfortable. If students don’t feel safe in their classroom then learning will not happen. I must build a caring and supportive space for children so they can succeed and feel loved. This will help develop a sense of belonging to a school. I have to remember that it is not my classroom, it is the students! It is imperative that the students, parents, and coworkers in my school feel they can come to me for anything, especially as one of their
The challenges an English language learner (ELL/ESL) struggles with, such as “how one flips from one language to another ultimately determines an English language learner’s success,” existed before the Common Core (Vilson). Other educators, like Lori Musso, have been working on implementing the Common Core for ELL students. Musso is with the San Mateo County Office of Education and has explained that the standards for ELL, and the standards for the general curriculum, have been merged into the same standards as their peers (Avendano). The executive director at Stanford University’s Understanding Language initiative, Martha Castellón, works to improve the education of ELL under the new Common Core. “We know what needs to be done in terms of educating ELLs, to give them the language skills they need to be successful under the [Common Core],” says Castellón, but she realizes that there’s a shortage in resources for the ELL instructors
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) refers to a student’s ability to understand basic conversational English, sometimes called social language. Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) refers to a student’s ability to effectively understand and use the more advanced and complex language necessary for success in academic endeavors, sometimes referred to as academic language.
Within this paper we will take a brief look at the Language Acquisition Principles and how they work on the behalf of ELL students. We will see how these principles can be applied within our own learning environment. There is much information from Walqui article that gives a brief overview of ELL students and how things looked in the past for these students. Now that times has change we will see how educators can make the requirements for ELL students better and more effective for teacher and students. Hopefully, as we look at ways of changing learning for our ELL students we must remember that every student learns differently. Even if you follow the principles from
English learners (ELs) struggle with content literacy task because the “academic language of texts is not the language of conversational speech” Vacca et al. (2014, P.77). Every content area has a specific language. ELs find it difficult because they are not familiar with the academic language in that content area. For example, an English learner in first grade might have difficulties understanding his peers in a reading group excises because of the content language but, when they go outside to play, they communicate fluently because this English learner has mastered the playground language. Teachers can make content more accessible to students by using a variety of instructional strategies or aids to assist students with English language problems in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Interactive, cooperative activities, pictures, relevant media etc. are some of the shelter instructional strategies which teachers can use to make content accessible to students (p.82).
I believe a successful learning experience is engaging and valued by the students. I believe students’ will value what they are learning if they believe what they’re learning is relevant. Relevance is important to teaching and learning because it is directly related to student engagement and motivation (Frymier & Schulman, 1995; Martin & Dowson, 2009). Marsh (2008), states a positive classroom environment provides a sense of security, community, belonging and identity (Marsh, 2008). Based on my experience as a practicing teacher, I have found establishing clear expectations within the classroom assist in maintaining control and discipline, to create a safe learning environment (Fatt Hee, 1996). I believe within all classrooms, students’ diversity should be valued. This creates a discrimination free environment and ensures students feel safe and included (Philips, 2010). According to Stanford & Parkay (2007) students are more engaged in class when learning experiences are satisfying, challenging and friendly.