Week 10

Learning Task and Assignment #1 Watch the video and answer the following questions 

Teaching English Language Learners

Workshop 6. Teaching English Language Learners
Changing classroom demographics call for a range or teaching strategies. In this session, literacy expert Robert Jiménez discusses strategies teachers can use to create a successful learning environment for all students, while supporting English language learners. Classroom examples illustrate the research.

(http://www.learner.org/workshops/teachreading35/session6/index.html)

Segment 1: Where do I start?

1.    How can teachers' expectations of ELLs affect students' learning and performance?

Some teachers believe that ELL students are not going to perform well and they are going to fall behind. Teachers need to be positive and change their view on ELL students. Teachers have to believe that every child is capable of being successful.

2.    How can you use what you already know about literacy instruction and your English language learners to enhance their learning?

Teachers should use their knowledge and experience that they all ready know and enhance all their students to learn. Teachers should have the same expectations for all their students no matter what their students backgrounds are. Teachers should apply the same principals to teach ELL  students as they do to their English-speaking students.

Segment 2: How can I build on what English language learners bring to the classroom?

1.    Think about your ELLs. What ideas from the video might be useful in your classroom?

I would use the group sharing in my classroom. I really liked the idea of the students having “show-in-tell.” It allowed them to tell stories and share their lives with the entire class.  

2.    How can you ensure that ELLs and their English-speaking peers have equal access to the curriculum?

To ensure that ELLS and their English-speaking peers have equal access to the curriculum is for the teacher to have the same expectations for all students. The teacher has to apply the same principals to all students equally.

3.    How can you support students in maintaining their first language?

In the video the teacher told a student that she is special for knowing two languages. I think this is a great way to support her student in maintain their first language. I think that it is very important for teachers to tell their students that it is great that they know two languages. To teach their students to have pride for whom they are and where they came from.

Segment 3: How can the classroom context support ELLs?

1.    How can you use multicultural literature to support ELLs in your curriculum?

Teachers can build libraries in their classrooms. Fill the libraries with books that students want to look at and want to read. Make sure they include books that are bilingual and fill the classroom with many culturally authentic materials as possible. So the students can make connections with the materials and their everyday lives.

2.    How does your classroom reflect the nature of the community itself as well as materials written by the students?

Teachers should include the community itself into the classroom because these are the students everyday lives. This allows the students to make connections with their everyday lives to school and what they are learning.

3.    How can you group students so that they use their native language to support their language and literacy development?

Students that are grouped with their peers that share the same background give students confidence and comfort. They can relate to one another, because they understand what it is like learning a new language. Working with someone who has shared the same experiences builds self confidence and comfort.

Segment 4: What are some strategies for teaching ELLs?

1.    What aspects of reading development are most critical to address when instructing ELLs?

Some aspects of reading development are most critical to address when instructing ELL are reading comprehension, drawing conclusions and interferences. It is important that students understand how to link and comprehend what they are reading and how it relates to them. Teachers can choose topics that are easy for ELL students to relate to.

2.    How can modeling oral reading support ELLs?

Modeling oral reading can help support ELL students because the pressure is off them. They can focus more on comprehending than trying to read and comprehend at the same time. It allows them to practice comprehending by visualizing, and hearing the new vocabulary words as they follow along.

3.    What strategies can you use to teach students how to figure out and remember unknown words?

One strategy that you could teach your students to figure out a word, is to look at the words around it and use them to figure out the word (context clues). What information do you all ready have in the text that could help you figure out that word. Then put the word into a sentence and see how it sounds. Also, teachers should write down the new vocabulary words that they are introducing to the students so they can refer back to these words. This will help to remember the words, because the students can refer back to them and remember them. Spoken words tend to be forgotten quickly.

4.    What are some strategies you might use to encourage students' to maintain their native language as they develop literacy in English?

One thing I would do is constantly tell the students that it is a great thing to know two languages and have them practice their native language as much as they can. I could have them compare and translate the new vocabulary (English words) into their native language weekly. But most importantly I would tell them over and over that they are unique and special to have the ability to speak two languages. 


Assignment #2 
Video 

http://screencast.com/t/q7mURjsNcqP