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When working with world language classes or English language learners, have you ever asked a question only to be answered with complete silence and blank stares? It's a common issue-nearly every teacher has struggled with encouraging students to speak in a language they're still learning.

A student may have a deep fear of making a mistake, or may be just plain shy, even in their native language. Whatever the reason, here is a list of a few fun activities to get your students to speak. This list is for more advanced students.

12 Ways to Get Language Learners Talking

1. Who's Telling the Truth? Have each student write three facts about themselves that nobody in the class knows on a piece of paper. Make sure each student includes their name on the top of the page. Collect the sheets of paper and bring three students to the front of the room. Read aloud one of the facts that is true for one of these three students.

All three claim that the fact is theirs, and the class then proceeds to question them in an attempt to determine who is telling the truth and who is lying. Each student is allowed to ask one question to one of the three students. After a round of questioning, the students guess who is telling the truth.

2. Variations on the game Taboo: For variation 1, create a PowerPoint presentation with a noun on each slide. Have one student come to the front of the room and sit with their back to the PowerPoint. The rest of the students take turns describing the words on the slides, and the student at the front has to guess them.

For variation 2, separate the students into groups of four or five. Place a pile of cards with random nouns in the center of each group. Have students take turns describing a noun for their group members to guess. The group member who guesses correctly keeps the card, so there's competition to see who has the most cards at the end of the game.

Variation 3 is for advanced speakers. Separate the class into two teams. Students are given a word to describe to their teammates, in addition to a list of words that they cannot use in their description. Each student should have two to three minutes to see how many words their teammates can guess.

3. Descriptive drawing activity: Pair up the students and give each student a picture, placing it face down so partners cannot see each other's cards. They must describe the picture for their partner to draw.

4. Comic strip descriptions: Give each student a portion of a comic strip. Without showing their pictures to one another, the students should attempt to describe their image, and put the comic strip into the correct order. After about 10 minutes, the students can guess the order, show one another their portion, and see if they were correct.

5. Secret word: Students are given a random topic and a random word that is unrelated to the topic. The students must hide the word in a speech about the topic-they're trying to make sure the other students can't guess the secret word. The other students listen carefully to the speech and attempt to guess the secret word.

6. Debates: Give each student a piece of paper with "agree" written on one side and "disagree" on the other side. Read aloud a controversial statement, and have each student hold up their paper showing the agree or disagree side depending on their opinion. Choose one student from each side to explain their position and participate in a short debate.

7. Impromptu speaking: Prepare a list of topics that students will be able to talk about. Split the class into two teams, and have each student choose a number-that's the order they will go in. Each student will respond to a statement without preparation. They must continue speaking for 45 seconds. As the student is speaking, the other team listens for moments of hesitation, grammatical mistakes, and vocabulary mistakes. If the other team can correctly identify an error, they get a point.

8. Desert island activity: Give each student a piece of paper and tell them to draw an item-any item. Collect the drawings and pass them out again; no student should receive their own drawing.

Next, tell the students that they've been stranded on a desert island, and only half of the class can survive and continue to inhabit the island. The only thing each student will have on the island is the item depicted in the drawing given to them, and their goal is to convince the class that they should survive based on that item.

9. Storytelling activity: Bring four students to the front of the classroom. Three of them should sit in a row, and one should stand behind them and act as a controller. Give the controller a stack of cards with nouns written on them.

The controller will hand a noun to one of the three students, who will start to tell a story. The student continues telling the story until the controller decides to hand another noun to another student, who will then take over the story.

10. Two Truths, One Lie: Each student should write three statements about themselves on a piece of paper. Two of them should be true, and one should be a lie. Students read their three statements, and their classmates question them to try to determine which statement is a lie.

11. True/false storytelling: Give each student a piece of paper with either "true" or "false" written on it. Each student should tell the class a story that is true or false, depending on which word they received, and the class must guess whether it's true. To add to the activity, you can allow the other students to question the student telling the story.

12. I Have Never...: All students in the class should start this activity holding five fingers in the air (you can use less fingers to do this more quickly). The student who goes first tells the class one thing that they have never done. The students who have done that activity should put a finger down, and tell the class a story about this activity. A student is out of the game when all of their fingers are down.

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12 Fun Speaking Games for Language Learners

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When working with world language classes or English language learners, have you ever asked a question only to be answered with complete silence and blank stares? It's a common issue-nearly every teacher has struggled with encouraging students to speak in a language they're still learning.

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"Everyone tells us we need to teach this way, but no one has shown us how. This shows us how!"

~ teacher at NSTA conference in 2014

"For the first time in over 20 years of teaching, I'm confident that my students understand this. They don't need to memorize formulas or math jingles. They really understand the math."

~ a seventh grade Algebra teacher

"When I do my walk-arounds, I see 100% engagement in high-level math discussion. That's never happened before, and it's exciting."

~ principal in a participating school

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"Everyone tells us we need to teach this way, but no one has shown us how. This shows us how!" ~ teacher at NSTA conference in 2014 "For the first time in over 20 years of teaching, I'm confident that my students understand this. They don't need to memorize formulas or math jingles.

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Improve the quality of class discussions by giving young kids a checklist of key things to look for when their peers talk.

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It's time for another Five For Friday!

Here are five highlights from my week.

1. My colleague showed me a neat guided reading strategy this week that I'm loving. It's called: "Say Something." I really like the strategy because you can see how the students are thinking about their texts and it gives them a tool to help them express more meaningful ideas about their reading. I didn't invent this, I just typed it up to tape to my tables. If you want the free file, click {HERE.}

1. I taped the "Say Something" pages to my guided reading table.

2. Each day, the students pick a box before they start warm up reading and they read through all of the questions in that box.

3. They warm up read while I do a running record.

4. When I'm done, I ask them to stop reading and put up their thumbs when they're ready to say something.

5. Then they turn to their neighbor and say something using a sentence starter from the box they pointed to at the beginning.

6. I listen and smile at their deep conversations!

2. We FINALLY had snowman snow this week! I've been waiting to have my daughter build a snowman since she was born and it finally happened! Look at the cuteness:

3. I Updated my Mystery Prizes: I stopped doing the scratch-off stickers and instead just used regular dollar store stickers. My students would always just peel off the scratch-off sticker anyway. I love the mystery prizes because they're free and easy and my students love them because they're exciting! Also, I told my students that some of the prizes are just a picture of my face under the sticker, so there's also an element of dread as well. (Cue evil laughter.)

4. Last week was the one year anniversary of my room burning down. It came and went without a hitch!

5. Last week I kept wondering as I looked at my beautiful classroom: if ME from the day before the fire traveled to my current classroom, would I even notice that things were different? I think I would. And here's why:

My classroom library is gorgeous. It is full of all new books that are engaging and sparkling and beautiful. My kids love the selection in their library. Here is a direct quote from one of my students. He was asked to reflect on his favorite thing about fixth grade so far for the upcoming conferences and this is what he said: " Well, let's start with how interesting and amazing the assigned books are! What's not to like about this wonderful classroom? Especially the small library in the class." This made my heart so happy! I worked exceedingly hard on making sure we had an awesome library and SOMEBODY NOTICED!! :)

I have lots of super-useful stuff and very little clutter. When you're a new teacher, you don't really know what will be the most helpful items to have in your room- so you buy what you think looks fun and interesting. I had the unique experience of being able to buy everything after gaining four years of experience.

My chairs. Are awesome. We got these chairs through a funded Donors Choose project and we love them!

Everything is just brighter and shinier, and newer! I teach in a portable classroom that had not been updated or refreshed in decades. Now my room is the brightest and newest in the building!

So in honor of the one-year anniversary of rebuilding my classroom, I would like to thank everyone again who bent over backwards to help me out.

I'd also like to have a giveaway to give back. Enter below to win a $20 gift card to one of the stores of your choice: Target, Scholastic Book Clubs, Amazon, Donors Choose, or another store of your choice! Enter below- the giveaway will end next Saturday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely week! Remember to hop over to Doodle Bug's teaching to check out other Five for Friday posts!

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GIVEAWAY, Say Something, Fire Anniversary

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It's time for another Five For Friday! Here are five highlights from my week. 1. My colleague showed me a neat guided reading strategy this week that I'm loving. It's called: "Say Something." I really like the strategy because you can see how the students are thinking about their texts and it gives them a tool to help them express more meaningful ideas about their reading.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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5 Pixar Short Films to Use in Secondary ELA — Bespoke ELA: Essay Writing Tips + Lesson Plans

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Pixar short films are a great way to target essential literary elements and techniques from characterization to theme to conflict to symbolism. These Pixar short films inspire class discussion and analysis, and students can then in turn write essays based upon these films. They are an excellent to

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This collection holds materials from the Education Alliance at Brown University. The Education Alliance was a reform support organization committed to advancing equitable educational opportunities that prepare all student populations to succeed in the 21st century. From 1975-2021, the Alliance partnered with schools, districts and state departments of education to apply research findings in developing solutions to educational challenges. Its mission was to enhance learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students and focused on district and school improvement with special attention to underperformance and issues of equity and diversity. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26300/7eez-dz04

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Brown Digital Repository | Collection | The Education ...

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This collection holds materials from the Education Alliance at Brown University. The Education Alliance was a reform support organization committed to advancing equitable educational opportunities that prepare all student populations to succeed in the 21st century. From 1975-2021, the Alliance partnered with schools, districts and state departments of education to apply research findings in developing solutions to educational challenges.

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There is no reading gene that is passed from one generation to the next. Each and every brain must be taught to read anew. Unlike hair or eye color, which are coded in DNA, reading is a complex, rule-based system that must be imposed on biological structures that were designed or evolved for other reasons (Wolf, 2007).

Although most children are born with the right structures, these structures don't inherently know how to read. They are hardwired to speak and listen; in other words, we were born to talk (Hulit, Howard, & Fahey, 2010). Reading and writing are optional accessories that are bolted onto a speaking and listening brain.

Listening and reading comprehension

Decades of research, not to mention personal experiences, confirm that listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension from early childhood through at least middle school. Based on their review of research, Stricht and James (1984) analyzed the gap between listening and reading comprehension by age of learner (see Figure 1). What is obvious from this figure is the fact that access to complex ideas, for many years of the learner's life, requires oral rather than written input.

Simply stated, children can listen to and talk about much more complex ideas than they can read (and probably write) about. In addition to the research, anyone who has ever read a bedtime story to a preschooler knows that listening comprehension is more sophisticated than reading comprehension. The proof comes from nights when you're tired and you skip a page while reading a bedtime story. That 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old's eyes pop open. You are accused of skipping some of the story, and the punishment is that now you must start over. Yes, in fact, the child is listening, understanding, and comparing the text with his or her expectations.

What is less obvious from personal experience is the persistence of this gap. According to Stricht and James (1984), the gap extends well into middle school. This gap has implications for high-quality instruction across the learner's elementary and middle school experience, and oral language development should not be considered solely the role and responsibility of early childhood educators.

Figure 1. Listening and Reading Comprehension by Age (Stricht & James,1984)

Speaking and listening and text complexity

In this time of great interest of increasing text complexity, the data represented in Figure 1 raised several question for us. Is it possible that one way to ensure that students read at increasingly sophisticated levels is to focus on increasing students' listening comprehension? In other words, if we pushed listening comprehension higher than identified in the previous research, would reading comprehension follow? If we did so, would it take longer to close the gap, or would the gap size remain, although at a higher level?

If we want to ensure that students read increasingly complex informational texts, it seems logical that students should be talking during their content area learning (e.g., Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991). Although there is significant attention to the Common Core reading and writing standards, we believe that teachers should also attend to the increased demands of the Speaking and Listening domain, especially Anchor Standard 1, which states that students should

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010, p. 22)

There is a lot to focus on in this standard. First, students should come prepared for the discussion and not simply be expected to work collaboratively with no preparation. Second, students are expected to interact effectively with a wide range of people, not just their friends and others they choose to interact with. Third, students are expected to build on each other's ideas, maintaining the conversation and continually building on the ideas of others in the discussion. And finally, they need to be able to do all of this while they express their ideas clearly and persuasively.

Anchor Standard 1 in the Speaking and Listening domain of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represents increased expectations for students, especially students in the primary grades. Figure 2 contains grade-level expectations for this standard. We have bolded words and phrases that did not appear in the previous grade to highlight the instructional components of each grade. For example, students in third grade are expected to "stay on topic," which is not an expectation in second grade. Analyzing the differences by grade level, known as vertical alignment, is critical if teachers are going to develop teaching points aligned with the CCSS. In addition, teachers need to ensure that students have opportunities to engage in speaking and listening regularly, which may require changes to the instructional environment.

Figure 2. CCR Speaking & Listening Anchor Standard 1

8th Grade Students

SL.8.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Kindergarten Students
SL.K.1
Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

SL.K.1A
Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).

SL.K.1B
Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.

Instructional ideas for speaking and listening

There are a number of ideas for ensuring that students across the grade span and in different content areas are able to practice their speaking and listening skills. Most importantly, teachers need to dedicate time every day for students to engage in collaborative conversations in which they use academic language with their peers. In fact, we recommend that about 50% of the instructional minutes devoted to content area learning be used for collaborative conversations with peers. This is based on the success that the students in Chula Vista, California, had when their teachers increased the amount of student-to-student interaction using academic language (Frey, Fisher, & Nelson, 2013). In addition to providing students an opportunity to expand their understanding of the content as they engage in peer-mediated instruction (e.g., Sperry, Neitzel, & Engelhardt-Wells, 2010), it provides teachers an excellent opportunity to work with small groups of students who need additional support to achieve their goals.

Some evidence-based speaking and listening instructional routines have been useful for students during content area instruction in the past:

Technology offers teachers new ways to engage students in speaking and listening tasks. Even very young children are learning to follow oral directions while using tablets. Some enhancing speaking and listening tasks can be used in elementary content area instruction:

Listening Gallery Walk in which students create a visual image, record themselves talking about the image, and then code it with a symbol that will allow others to access the digital file. One way to do this is with QR codes that can be printed and included in the image itself. Alternatively, students can use the Aurasma app. This is an augmented-reality application that allows users to create and post video to enhance a viewing experience. For example, some museums use Aurasma for their patrons to view additional content after pointing a smartphone or tablet at a display. In terms of classroom application, students can create their own videos and pair them with displayed work. For example, during their investigation of artists, students in Ms. Bledsoe's third-grade class narrated their original artwork that had been inspired by a specific artist. When a tablet enabled with Aurasma was pointed at one of the art pieces, the video that accompanied the art played. When students' parents visited for open house, they were able to see their children talking about their work and to learn more about the other students in the class.

Photo narratives in which students collect images and then record a narrative to accompany the images. For example, the first graders in Anthony Munoz's classroom planted seeds. Each day, they took a picture of the container in which their seed was planted. Mr. Munoz read aloud the text From Seed to Plant (Gibbons, 1993) several times as the plants grew. Mr. Munoz helped his students create a time lapse video using Quicktime, and the students recorded their narrative about the growth of the plant that accompanied the video.

Digital storytelling to create original narrative and informational pieces. The Storybird app provides access to thousands of illustrations and photographs to illustrate original pieces of writing. These are best when completed collaboratively in order to create lots of opportunities for students to engage in meaningful discussion with one another. The Voicethread website offers two-way communication between writers and readers. Like Storybird, students create a digital story using the Voicethread tools and their own illustrations. In addition, they dictate the text for each page. Subsequent listeners can either listen to the writer's own voice or read the dictated script. Importantly, readers can then pose questions and offer connections that are in turn viewed by other readers.

As part of their social studies curriculum, Davinia Thompson's second-grade students used Voicethread to develop a class digital book on people who make a difference in their community. Ms. Thompson compiled each student's contributions and uploaded them to the Voicethread website. Later in the centers, students viewed the class book and recorded their comments and questions. Ms. Thompson then had the entire class view the completed digital story, with their questions included, so the class could continue the conversation about the topic.

Talking in class

Regardless of the specific approach that a teacher takes, students simply must talk in class. We have to change the climate, expectations, and accountability for student-to-student interaction in classrooms everywhere. A day should not go by in which students silently try to learn content. Instead, there should be a hum of learning, with many voices engaged in discussions about the topics under investigation. Only then will we fully realize the literacy achievements of our students orally, digitally, and in print.

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning

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There is no reading gene that is passed from one generation to the next. Each and every brain must be taught to read anew. Unlike hair or eye color, which are coded in DNA, reading is a complex, rule-based system that must be imposed on biological structures that were designed or evolved for other reasons (Wolf, 2007).

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Young Children's Oral Language Development

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The development of oral language is one of the child's most natural – and impressive – accomplishments.

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Videos

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Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers.

How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

To lay a better foundation for this learning, we can do a few things: we can value oral language development, we can value communication of ideas over grammatical correctness, and we can value oral language as a powerful way to learn and remember content.

Here are three strategies to help develop oral language skills.

Strategy One: Adapt Activities to Include Authentic Talk

Adapting current activities to include more authentic, original, and extended discussions gives students opportunities to contribute more than one sentence to a conversation. Sometimes, we miss the opportunity to encourage language development. For example, many teachers use some form of a jigsaw activity, in which students get into expert groups, read a text, and answer questions or fill in charts. They then go to mixed home groups to share their information. Yet, often what happens is this: students just read aloud what another student has copied from a resource -- and opportunities for oral language development are lost.

To improve this strategy, you can have the experts engage in a discussion of what to put, in their own words, onto paper. Then, they can rehearse what they'll say - covering their papers to avoid reading aloud. Then in home groups, you can have each person glance at their notes, cover them again, and share with the group members, who listen and take notes. You can even ask students to try to speak in paragraphs, starting with a general claim or topic sentence, and then support it with evidence sentences. For example, in this video, notice how the talk evolves as students prepare their ideas for sharing.

Strategy Two: Use Activities that Develop Strong Language

Use activities that allow students to develop a "stronger and clearer" answer, as they talk to different partners successively in an activity. Instead of the all-too-common whole class discussion, with the teacher asking questions and a few students answering, ask a question and have students talk to three different partners. Or have students talk in different groups (see this 1-3-6 activity video).

A crucial aspect of this strategy is that students shouldn't say the same thing each time; rather, they need to build on the language and ideas of previous partner(s) to improve, expand, clarify, and support their evolving answer each time they share it.

Example Activities (from Zwiers, O'Hara, Pritchard, 2014):

Interview Grid: Students talk with one different partner each time, making their answers stronger and clearer each time, taking minimal, if any, notes on the chart. Note that this activity can also work using inner-outer conversation circles, such as the one in this Debrief Circles video.

Opinion Formation Cards: Students receive a quotation from the text (before it's read) that includes evidence for one side or the other of an issue. Students share their quotations and their evolving opinions, with reasons and evidence for them.

Opinion Continuum: Students share where they fall on the continuum of a two-sided issue and why. At the end, they share if they shifted at all along the continuum based on their conversations with partners.

Strategy Three: Use Strong Discussion Prompts

Try to use discussion prompts that foster evaluation in some way. Evaluation is usually needed for ranking, prioritizing, and choosing. For example, if you ask for evidence of a theme or a claim, many students just find the first three remotely evidence-y things they can, and stop there. But if you prompt students to rank the evidence from strongest to weakest, or to find the most influential cause of some war, you can often get deeper thinking and better conversation.

For instance, I was talking with a teacher who was asking this question, "How did the Civil War affect the families in the South?" I encouraged her to simply add "most affect" to force students to evaluate and discuss their opinions. When students evaluate, their ideas often differ. And if you allow them time to argue and negotiate the ideas, lots of learning can happen.

Jeff Zwiers is a senior researcher at Stanford University, working on the Understanding Language project and focusing on research and professional development projects that emphasize oral language development. His most recent book (co-authored with Susan O'Hara and Robert Pritchard) is Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Literacy. He can be reached at jzwiers@stanford.edu.
Understanding Language aims to heighten educator awareness of the critical role that language plays in the new Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and to improve education for English Language Learners.

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Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers. How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

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Speaking and listening Strategies

Speaking and listening are arguably some of the most important skills that students will need in the real world. Every relationship and job requires speaking and listening skills, however, I believe these standards are the most overlooked in the classroom.

As teachers, it's easy to think we are naturally including speaking and listening in our daily instruction. However, just providing opportunities for our students to speak and listen, does not make them any better at it. We need to teach with intention.

I feel speaking and listening should be at the heart of all academic lessons. The following strategies can help you intentionally incorporate speaking and listening skills and accountable talk into your daily instruction.

Rules of Conversation

I suggest beginning by teaching "Rules of Conversation" lessons. This helps establish norms and gives students agreements to refer to the rest of the year. As a class, create a "Looks Like/Sounds Like" T-Chart for both speaking and listening and ask student what respectful, active speaking and listening looks and sounds like. Spend time role-playing the behaviors. Post the anchor chart and refer to it constantly.

Next, teach students rules of conversation. Most kids need to be explicitly taught speaking and listening responsibilities and have time to practice and receive feedback to become productive members of conversations. Model these conversation stems and have pairs and small groups of students practice in front of the class. In primary grades, start with only 2 stems for Speaking and Listening. When students feel comfortable, add 2 stems for building.

Practice Discussion Strategies in the Classroom

Last, give students opportunities to practice the rules of conversation in pairs and small groups.

We all know getting students to have meaningful small group discussions can be challenging. It's likely your classroom has had issues with off topic conversations, arguing, or talkative students dominating the conversation while other students don't participate.

To address these issues, teach and master a few discussion strategies that will promote accountable talk and ensure ALL students participate and meet the Speaking and Listening Core Standards. ~Emily

Conversation Chips

Conversation chips are a great way to hold students accountable for discussion while at the same time limiting the amount each student can participate. It is an excellent strategy for every type of learner in your classroom. First, the teacher assigns students into small groups and provides a topic or text for them to discuss. Then each student gets 3 conversation chips. Students can only add to the discussion if they have a chip. Teacher can set an expectation that each student needs to contribute all chips to ensure all students are participating in the discussion. It is a perfect solution to get all students equally participating.

Conversation Stick

Another effective and engaging strategy is conversation sticks. This one is simple. Students can only talk if they are holding the conversation stick. Again, teachers can set expectations that each student needs to hold the stick so everyone equally participates.

Numbered Heads Together

With the Numbered Heads Together discussion strategy each group member gets a number (numbers included in download), then the teacher asks a question. The small group works together to think of an answer. Every student must know the answer because the teacher can call on any number for the answer. It is a great way to engage students and ensure participation.

Related posts:

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discussion strategies accountable talk  turn and talk

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Discussion Strategies and Accountable Talk in the Classroom

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Speaking and listening Strategies Speaking and listening are arguably some of the most important skills that students will need in the real world. Every relationship and job requires speaking and listening skills, however, I believe these standards are the most overlooked in the classroom. As teachers, it's easy to think we are naturally including speaking and...

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In many schools English learners are grouped by ability when they receive targeted instruction, but the Internationals Network model is quite different. Schools following this model are small and keep a laserlike focus on language development and access to postgraduate opportunities, which means they often don't offer as much choice as comprehensive high schools.

"It is easy for English learners to become marginalized or for their needs not to be taken into account," said SFIHS principal Julie Kessler. "We have the luxury of having designed our entire program around the needs of this group that is often forgotten about or underserved in schools where multiple priorities exist."

Teachers tailor instruction to many different academic levels, but they also need to reach students who speak many different languages. In any given year at SFIHS, students speak between 17-24 different languages, which teachers see as an asset to their teaching. Almost all work is done in groups that are carefully crafted by teachers.

"Where they sit in the classroom is super important," said Heather Heistand, an English teacher at SFIHS. "My goal with heterogeneous groups is to make sure that there is at least one speaker of a different language in each group."

She also tries to make sure every group has a leader, someone whose academic and language skills are strong enough to direct the group through the task. And she will often pair a lower-level English speaker with a higher-level English speaker who speaks the same native language. All the instruction and materials are in English, but teachers expect students to use their first languages to help one another make meaning, one of the many strategies they use to keep the level of thinking high.
WARMUP, ASSIGNING ROLES
One Wednesday morning in Heistand's senior English class, students started the class period by writing about why they agreed or disagreed with various statements like, "People should trust their leaders to make decisions for them." Heistand says she always gives students a chance to prewrite before sharing their answers verbally, so that those who are less comfortable with English have something to share.

After the writing exercise, students moved physically to different parts of the room based on their responses and shared their opinions with a partner. Heistand then called on representatives of each group to share out to the class. The warmup activity got students speaking in English with one another about topics relevant to their lives, another key element of the model.

Heistand then assigned students to groups she had carefully crafted to discuss passages from George Orwell's novel, "Animal Farm." They read the passage out loud, discussed what it meant, and used textual evidence to support claims they made in response to prompts.

Since participation is fundamental to language practice, teachers often assign roles for group work so that everyone is integral to success. For the "Animal Farm" activity there was a "reader," an "editor," a "discussion leader" and a "question asker." The reader is responsible for reading the text out loud; the editor helps make sure everyone knows what to write down; the discussion leader keeps the conversation moving and ensures everyone shares; and the question asker is the only one who can ask Heistand for help or clarification.

In one instance, a boy quickly grabbed the "reader" role at his table, but his tablemate told him in Spanish to let someone else try because he had read last time. The tablemate then turned to her group and repeated what she said in English, adding, "We need to practice reading, too."

Heistand wasn't surprised by this behavior. "They're actually used to holding each other accountable for the norms that we have in group discussions," she said. These are seniors, so they've had three years of experience with group work, sharing roles and making sure everyone has the chance to contribute. And, the school has a uniquely supportive culture in part because everyone is learning English and supporting one another through that difficult process.

"Every single kid in that room is a language learner," Kessler said. "And so if somebody is making a mistake with pronunciation or struggling with the word, everybody has been there." Educators here try to foster students' pride in their bilingualism and community around a shared experience of struggle. It's a safe space where students don't have to be shy about their accents. There's also very little direct instruction, in part because it wouldn't be accessible to many of the students.
LEARNING TOGETHER
The emphasis on collaborative group work and conversation with peers from different backgrounds can be hard for students at first. "I am from a place where I only have the same people and same religion," said Amel, a senior originally from Yemen. "It was really hard for me to know different people. I couldn't even understand why they think this way, and why they wear these clothes, and why they talk this language." She also said that at first it was confusing to try to focus on English while being surrounded by other languages like Spanish and Chinese in class and in the halls.

Amel said she worried about accidentally offending her classmates because she didn't know enough about other cultures to know when she was offending someone. She learned quickly to ask questions instead of making assumptions. Now she likes learning about her classmates' cultures and perspectives -- it's part of what keeps class interesting. And she thinks it will be an asset when she goes to college and meets people from diverse backgrounds.

The social process Amel described is actually a big part of the educational strategy at SFIHS. Educators are taking advantage of teens' desire to flirt and socialize to help them learn the language. "They are social creatures. They want to talk; they want to learn; they're curious," Kessler said. "If we create the most heterogeneous mix of kids that we possibly can and put them in situations where they are asked to speak English together, they learn English very quickly."

Many students came from educational systems that did not value collaboration -- all school work was done individually and group work was considered cheating. "At first it's very hard to collaborate with different kinds of people," said another student, Alan, who is from China. "But after you get used to it you will feel amazing, like you are working with the whole international." Alan admits he was shy about collaborating at first, but when his teachers told him teamwork was part of his grade he got over his reticence. Now he said he can see the benefits of both group work and individual work.

"You will be able to learn things by yourself very quick, but in teamwork you need to make sure that your teammate isn't left out," he said. "So in speed you might be getting a little bit slower, but in quality, teamwork is really much more higher because when you communicate with other people then you will understand different ideas, and you will also learn a deeper level of a certain topic."

Both Amel and Alan are also taking a college-level class at Community College of San Francisco, part of a program most seniors do if they have enough credits. The idea is for students to get exposed to college-level work, but with a cohort of peers and the support of their high school teachers. In the college classes instructors speak more quickly and the reading load is more burdensome, but students seem to like getting a taste of what to expect from the college experience.

Kessler said the college program is part of the school's mission to not just graduate students and help them apply to college, but to ensure that they get in and finish. She encourages students to go to colleges with other students from SFIHS so they can help one another. And, the school supports formal programming to follow up with graduates who are in college and may need a little extra support. It takes between four and seven years to really learn a language well, so it's no surprise that even after high school students are still catching up to their peers who grew up speaking English.

"I think about the demands that they're going to have to face in college," English teacher Heather Heistand said. "But again and again we come back to this idea that if we teach students how to learn and how to support each other in learning, they will have the skills to be successful once their language catches up with where their peers are from other schools."

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Why Group Work Could Be the Key to English Learner Success

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In many schools English learners are grouped by ability when they receive targeted instruction, but the Internationals Network model is quite different. Schools following this model are small and keep a laserlike focus on language development and access to postgraduate opportunities, which means they often don't offer as much choice as comprehensive high schools.

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Strategic Oral Language Development in ELD

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Strategic Oral Language Development in ELD

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The 15 minute forum today was led by Jo Grimwood - who is currently Head of Media Studies, but has just been appointed as Deputy Leader in English. The starting point for the discussion was the fact that teachers rarely leave students more than a second to respond to a question once posed. This doesn't really give them time to formulate much of a verbal response! So it's something that we all as teachers need to consider.
Why is oracy so important?
It helps students formulate their ideas into clear thought.

Accurate use of speech, helps improve accuracy in written work, especially grammar.

Finally, and very importantly, confident speakers are confident people - so it builds confidence.

Some simple strategies that can be tried out to develop oracy skills:

Students have to guess a word being described to them by their peers - however, there are certain words that can't be used in the description. So for example the word to guess could be ROMEO, but in getting the student to guess the word, students can't use the words JULIET, MONTAGUE & BANISHED.

This can be be easily applied to a wide of subjects and be differentiated by increasing the number of 'taboo' words.

A great way to get students thinking about issues and then having to present/ discuss their case orally. Again, this can be applied to a range of different subjects:

One example of how a debate was set up in a lesson was to pose the question, and then ask students to go different sides of the room if they agreed or disagreed with the motion. each side then prepared their case and presented it. After each side had presented their case, students then had the option of changing sides - giving reasons if they did. This could be repeated for a couple of rounds.

There are a number of websites that have some good, stock debate phrases that can be used to support students. An example is here

A simple, but highly effective strategy to get students thinking about extending their verbal responses to questions.

So, firstly pose a question. For example:

David Moyes will be a better manager for Manchester United than Jose Mourinho.

Hitler would have defeated Britain if he hadn't started attacking Russia.

Breathing and respiration are the same thing.

Mr Birling is to blame for Eva Smith's death

Then a very simple rule is introduced. Instead of being allowed to just answer 'yes' or 'no', they are only allowed to answer 'yes because.....' or 'no because.....'

This makes a huge difference to the quality of response you will get back.

Students talk for one minute about a chosen topic, without syaing um, er, repeating themselves or pausing. For example, topics could be:

Getting students to film themselves speaking is really useful, as it allows them to self-assess their speech and presentation skills - they also enjoy doing it. They could be filmed doing:
What can all teachers do, all of the time, to improve oracy?

Stick a post-it underneath 1-3 chairs before the lesson with a question or instruction on it.

At the right point in the lesson, ask students to check underneath their chairs.

The students with the post-it note has to answer the question verbally and pose a related question to the class.

The 'Developing Dialogue Toolkit' can also be downloaded - it contains a large number of oracy based teaching ideas - developing dialogue toolkit

Also, why not have a 'NO PENS DAY' at your school - where all lessons have to be taught throughout the day, in all subjects without any writing or drawing?

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The 15 minute forum today was led by Jo Grimwood - who is currently Head of Media Studies, but has just been appointed as Deputy Leader in English. The starting point for the discussion was the fact that teachers rarely leave students more than a second to respond to a question once posed.

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Start your English as a Second Language class with a Warm-Up Game

This site will help you incorporate lots of fun and excitement into your English as a foreign language classrooms. Teaching ESL has never been so exciting and your students will be learning English without even knowing it because they're having so much fun playing ESL games. A fun and interesting warm-up activity or game is the perfect start to your English as a Foreign Language Class.

By using a warm-up game, you can grab the student's attention and introduce whatever topic you're discussing that day. It works especially well to focus on the theme that you're using that day and incorporate a warm-up game along the same lines so that you can find out how much previous knowledge your students have. Start positive with a fun warm-up game or activity so that you can finish strong in your ESL Classroom.

Just a Minute ESL Warm-Up Game

SOS Review Game: a perfect ESL Activity for Adults

I'm sure you know the game S-O-S. If you get three "S's" in a row or three "O's" in a row you draw a line through it and get a point. I've adapted this game for my purposes.

I draw a grid on the board, usually 6x6. I give them numbers and letters to make it easier for the students to pick what box they want. Then, I divide the students up into teams of 4 or 5 and give them each a symbol (triangle, square, star, heart, etc). Then, I ask review questions, going from team to team. Simple, easy questions with a definite right or wrong answer are best to keep this game moving quickly. A correct answer gets them a square on the board. I do 6 or 7 rounds, and by this time the good teams will have 2 or 3 points. The top team gets a prize.

As a final note: this game gets boring after 20 minutes or so, so don't plan on playing this for an entire class. It works best as a warm-up review kind of game.

Get 40 classroom tried and tested ESL games and activities delivered straight to your inbox:
ESL Games and Activities

39 ESL Warm-Ups for Teenagers and Adults

The Alphabet ESL Game: an excellent choice for an ESL Warm-Up Game

This is a simple game you can play for a warm-up when your students already know a lot of the vocabulary about the topic. I put them in teams of 2 and they have to write the alphabet on a piece of paper. Then you can give them a topic. Today, mine was "Words to describe a city." Examples: B-Busy, E-Exciting.

Give them 3 or 4 minutes, collect the papers, check for the inappropriate answers, add up the points and you have a winner!

A Vocab Review Game for English as a Second Language Students

Write the vocab words on a flip chart of some sort. I use an old notebook and write one word/page. Divide the class up into teams. I find that 5-8 people/team works well. One student from the team comes and sits at the front of the class facing his or her teammates. I show one word at a time to the team but not the person sitting at the front. The team has to give hints about the word, in English only, using no body language. An example: EYE. Hints students give: 2, on face, I can see.

I do 2 or 3 rounds of 1 minute each and the goal is to get as many words as possible in that 1 minute. If the team uses body language or their native language, I discount that point. This game is very, very fun.

Describing Anything: an Interesting ESL Speaking Activity

A simple warm-up game that you can use to generate some interest in this topic that is often review for many students. Make up a handout with pictures or names of famous people (around 20 is good). Give some hints, such as, "He's American," "He's black," "He's a sport player," "He plays golf." By this time the students will have guessed Tiger Woods. They will then cross Tiger Woods off their list. Turn it over to the students and they will take turns describing the people to each other.

This game would also work for almost any topic (animals/food/clothes, etc)

Famous People from the Past: a fun activity for elementary students

Put the students in groups of 2-3-4. Have them pick 4 famous people, dead or alive that they'd like to invite to a party they are having. Then, they have to say the reason why they're inviting them. I do an example like this:

Person: Michael Jackson

Reason? He can play some dance music for us. Also, I want to know why he got so much plastic surgery.

Give them a few minutes, depending on the level. Then, I get the student to pick 1 or 2 of the people, depending on the size of the class and tell the rest of the class their answer.

I've gotten an interesting array of answers and the students are quite interested to hear what the other groups have to say.

Steal the Eraser: an excellent English language teaching game

Divide the students into 2 teams. Have 2 desks at the front of the class, facing each other, with an eraser in the middle of the 2 desks. One student from each team comes and sits in the hot seat. Rotate through so that all the students get a chance to play. You then ask a question of some sort. The first person that grabs the eraser can try to answer the question. My rule is that you can take the eraser whenever you want, but I"ll only say the question once. I then count 10 seconds down on my fingers. Their team can help them with the answer, but only in English. If correct, they get 1 point. If not, the other team gets a chance to answer the question.

This week in class, we're studying "When I _________, I ______/ I __________when I ________.

So, I would say something like, "When I feel happy, I _________." Or "I'm late for school when __________"

And of course, to make it even more exciting or if one team is behind by a lot of points, have a "Bonus Round," where the teams pick their best 3 players and each question is worth 2 or 3 points, or something like that.

A Warm-Up Game to review "P.P."

2 Truths and 1 Lie

Have your students write four "I've....." sentences. 3 are true, 1 is false. Then, if you have a small class (under 8), have the students read out their sentences and the other students guess which one is false. For more advanced (or just really small) classes, they can ask some questions to try to figure out the false one. Once the students guess (individually), they get a point for a correct guess. If you have a bigger class, put the students in groups of 5 or 6 and let them play together while you supervise.

Concentration Game for students who are learning English

I make up a number of sets of cards.

For example:

A

I feel sad when...

When I'm angry....

Who's your favorite actor?

What was the last movie you saw?

B

...I fail a test

....I hit something

Brad Pitt is some handsome! He's my favorite movie star.

I watched Harry Potter last week.

I make a number or these matching pairs, and write them up on a chart on my computer. Then, I cut them all out. I'll put the students in groups of 4 or 5 and they'll spread the papers out, on their desk face-down. And then it's just a memory game, with the first student picking 2 papers, seeing if they match and going from there. Simple, but fun. And it can work with any level, even with those that can barely read.

One of these things is not like the other ones

This is kind of an odd-one-out game that you can play to review vocab from the previous weeks. Just write up a few sets of vocab words on the board. I usually write 4 in one group, with one of them being the odd one out.

Example:

apple, carrot, orange, banana

The students have to write: carrot-it's a vegetable, not a fruit.

Need some dice for your ESL Warm-Up Game?

Playing a game where you need some dice, but you don't have enough sets for the whole class, or are just annoyed by the noise? You can buy some giant dice, or just make your own (kind of).

There are 2 things I do:

1. Make a grid pattern on a piece of paper. Put numbers (1-4, or 1-6, whatever!) on it in a random pattern. Then, to pick the number the students get their pencil, close their eyes and pick a square.

2. Get some of the new, small 10 won coins. Have the students throw them and see how they land. 2 heads is a 1, 1 head and 1 tail is a 2, and 2 tails is a 3. Makes sense?

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This site will help you incorporate lots of fun and excitement into your English as a foreign language classrooms. Teaching ESL has never been so exciting and your students will be learning English without even knowing it because they're having so much fun playing ESL games.

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A recent study out of Philadelphia tracked kindergartners who were learning English and found that four years later there were major discrepancies between which groups of students had mastered the language.

Students whose home language was Spanish were considerably less likely to reach proficiency than any other subgroup. And, on the extreme end, Spanish speakers were almost half as likely as Chinese speakers to cross the proficiency threshold.

The study, conducted by the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium, just looked at English learners who entered the district as kindergartners in 2008 and their progress through the end of third grade.

But this phenomenon isn't specific to Philadelphia. "I have never seen any study that has looked at this question and not found this trend," says Ilana Umansky, who studies English acquisition at the University of Oregon.

Earlier this year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a 415-page report on English learners. The report cited 12 studies - dating back to 2004 - that found this gap between Spanish-speaking English learners and other groups.

But to date, no research has been able to determine why.

So, we emailed or spoke with about two dozen researchers, teachers, and students to hear how they would explain this trend. Predictably, there's no consensus, but here are three basic theories.

Spanish saturation

There are nearly 150,000 Spanish speakers in Philadelphia, according to the American Community Survey. The numbers are even greater in New York City, where Jose Garcia arrived in 2012, at 11 years old, after emigrating from the Dominican Republic.

Garcia moved to the heavily Hispanic Washington Heights neighborhood in upper Manhattan. At home, he spoke Spanish. In school, classmates spoke Spanish. When he watched television, he often tuned into Spanish-language news.

"So it wasn't like a big challenge for me," Garcia says.

Eventually, Garcia moved to Philadelphia and weaned himself off Spanish media by watching American movies like The Fast and the Furious. But he considers his early months in New York wasted time, compounded by the fact that many of his friends didn't seem all that interested in learning English.

"They didn't wanna learn it as fast because they didn't need to use it," he says. "They were speaking Spanish already. So they had a way to communicate with each other."

But Nelson Flores, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, grew up in an area of Philadelphia with a lot of Spanish speakers, too, and he says that's not always the case. In fact, he doesn't think the Spanish-language achievement gap has much to do with language at all.

Family income and segregation

Flores contests the notion that Spanish speakers aren't learning English - at least in the way we typically understand language acquisition.

"We're not talking about the ability to communicate in English," Flores says. "We're talking about the ability to do grade-level content in English."

Flores believes a lot of the students who score below proficient in English can speak and comprehend the language with ease. Many of them, he says, can speak English better than Spanish.

So why aren't they testing well? Flores believes it's because Latino students are disproportionately living in isolated, high-poverty neighborhoods and learning in isolated, high-poverty schools.

High-poverty schools, Flores points out, tend to receive fewer resources and less-experienced teachers. Plus, these schools have to deal with the compound effect of having so many students who experience trauma, transience and other disadvantages.

It could be true that Spanish-speaking English learners in Philadelphia are generally poorer than, say, Vietnamese-speaking students, but it's unlikely family income totally accounts for the achievement gap.

It's no surprise that researchers studying this trend in the past have used income-based controls - such as whether a child qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Those researchers have still found Spanish speakers lagging.

Family background

If you look only at family income, you might assume many immigrant groups come from relatively similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

"Immigrants often look low-income because they're in transition," says Patricia Gandara, a UCLA professor who has studied this trend in California. "They may have been physicians in their home country, but now they're having to work as a cook."

Many of the proxies we use to measure poverty or disadvantage trace back to how much money a family makes. But in the case of immigrant groups, that may mask some crucial differences.

A 2009 analysis led by Hunter College professor Donald Hernandez found, for instance, large discrepancies in the relative education levels of many immigrant groups. Adult immigrants from East Asia and the Middle East were among the most likely to have a high school or college degree. Adult immigrants from Mexico and Central America were among the least likely to have made it to high school.

Researchers Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou came to similar conclusions when they compared Mexican and Chinese immigrants. They found that, relative to their parents, the children of Mexican immigrants progressed further educationally from one generation to the next. But the children of Chinese immigrants progressed further overall, in large part because their parents started many steps ahead.

The logic here is pretty simple: Parents who attended college are better able to help their children with homework or connect them to resources.

Tip of the iceberg

These were just three theories we heard when we asked about the language acquisition gap, not all of them.

For instance, many people pointed to societal biases against Hispanic students, arguing that teachers and administrators have lower expectations of them than Asian students because of deeply ingrained stereotypes.

Right now, it's hard to isolate the cause of this gulf between Philadelphia's Spanish-language English learners and everyone else. It's possible - maybe likely - that all of these theories have some shade of truth to them.

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Research Shows Spanish Speakers Take Longer To Learn English. Why?

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A recent study out of Philadelphia tracked kindergartners who were learning English and found that four years later there were major discrepancies between which groups of students had mastered the language. Students whose home language was Spanish were considerably less likely to reach proficiency than any other subgroup.

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Sentence frames have multiple purposes in supporting academic conversation. Watch a video that shows strategies for using them in the classroom. English Language Learners are empowered when using sentence frames.

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For the last few years I really wanted to adapt the concept of "clock partners" to the foreign language classroom, and I think I finally figured it out to relative *relative!* success last year. I'll share how I did it below, but first, let's review what clock partners are.

The way a "clock partners" activity works in most classrooms is you give students a sheet like this one:

You have students walk around the room and find a partner for each space on the clock. Kids write down each other's names in the proper place. They'll pick their best friends first, then slowly the activity forces them to pick someone they wouldn't normally work with (love this for classroom environment). When the activity is done, the kids keep their partner sheet in their notebook, and then throughout the year you get to avoid the whole "are we picking our partners or are you picking our partners" drama. The kids picked their partners at the beginning of the year; you get to assign which partner they use that day. You'll say something like "we're working with our 2 o'clock partners today," and the kids will move to whichever partner they picked for that "timeslot." Win win.

I loved this idea and tried it when we were learning about telling time. I planned to have kids walk around, ask each other some personal questions I wanted them to review, play with some time language, etc. I was pretty pumped to try it out, but (spoiler alert) it was a pretty epic lesson fail. There were too many time slots; kids freaked out that there were an odd number of students and they didn't have the right numbers; people kept confusing how to tell time in Spanish...Picture a bunch of kids wandering the room aimlessly, screaming out Spanish numbers in anguish, crumpling papers in frustration, and that's about how that lesson went. Back to the ole drawing board.

I was scarred from trying out clock partners, so the next year when the idea was mentioned during a Professional Development session, my grumpy face turned on and in my mind I was groaning "nooooo that activity is the worsttttt." It was like the instructor read my mind. She acknowledged the logistical difficulties of the clock partner concept and then delivered the revolutionary idea (to me anyway) that you don't actually have to use. a. clock. You can use something that has to do with your content. As a US history teacher, she used famous landmarks. Think "go to your White House partner today; go to your Supreme Court partner today." So it wasn't much of a leap when I wrote COUNTRY PARTNERS!!! with fifteen underlines and exclamation points in my notebook.

To get started, I created a partner sheet for each class that had six pictures of countries on it with different questions written below each country (you can check out a similar example here). These questions were designed to gather information about their partner - something along the lines of "¿Cómo se llama tu compañero colombiano? ¿Cuántos años tiene él/ella?¿ Qué le gusta hacer?" etc. Obviously you could vary the questions based on where they are proficiency wise, or you could make this an information gathering activity for each country "Con tu compañero, contesta las preguntas: ¿Cómo se llama la capital de Colombia? ¿Cómo es la bandera?" etc. Once you have the partner sheet prepped, the basic flow of the lesson is as follows:

Introduce the activity by asking if anyone has ever done clock partners before. Usually a few kids have, and you can get them to explain it to each other in teenager language. You might get a "you know, we did it in Mrs. Turner's class in 6th grade" and then a chorus of "ohh yeahhhh." From here, tell them we will be doing the Spanish version of clock partners, and we will be picking country partners. This is when you hand out the sheet.

Reiterate the expectations for using the target language during this activity. I did this as a very strict "Spanish-only" activity, which meant that they'd get a specific formative assessment grade for staying in the TL the whole time ( you can read more about that strategy here). Review the key language they need to ask and answer each question. Again, you can get the kids to volunteer to help you with that part; maybe have a few volunteers act out some examples.

Set up the logistics. This is the tricky part. You will recall the terrible, horrible lack of logistics planning I did when I tried clock partners for the first time. I'm sure there are classrooms out there where you can just wind them up and let them roam, and kids will magically answer all the questions and find every single partner they need. I had one 15-person class where that plan worked, and it was the most glorious amazing thing ever. For most classrooms, though, you need to do one of the following versions of crowd control:

Logistics Plan A: Give kids a designated amount of time to pick and work with each country partner, one at a time. For example, after a "Ahora busca tu compañero argentino," have them find someone, sit down next to that person, and take some time to write down the answers to the questions for that country partner. Inevitably, there will be a kid (or several) still standing up with that "I don't have a partner I don't have friends I hate school everything is the worst" look in their eye. That is okay! You're there to save them! Pair these kids up with each other, or send them to create a group of three with one of the kids you know they get along with. After 5-10 minutes, get them to say adiós, then move on to a different country partner and repeat the process. I usually play Latin music as a cue that it's time to switch. You might get some early finishers each round, but as long as they are staying in the TL, who cares.

Logisitcs Plan B: Give them some free reign to roam and find as many partners as possible for a designated amount of time. After this wandering conversational free-for-all, sit the whole class down and check for each partner. Give them a cue to stand up and find their "compañero colombiano," make sure everyone has one, pair them up if they don't, then have them switch and move to their "compañera mexicana" (or whatever partner you want to try next). I used Plan A with the kids I knew needed more structure, and Plan B with the kids who I knew were more eager to execute quickly.

Don't forget the absent kid! There's one in every crowd. In some classes, I was a stand-in for whomever was absent, and found a partner for them every round while I was monitoring TL use. In some classes the absent kids' friends demanded to commandeer the paper and get "good" partners for them. In some classes I asked for volunteers to handle the absent kids' partners. I would double check the absent kids' papers at the end of the activity to make sure they're covered.

Conclude the lesson by having the kids glue the piece of paper in their notebook or binder and remind them that they'll be using it throughout the year. It also helps to have the kids apply what they've done by directing them to get up and find one of the partners for whatever activity is next (pick one of the early partners so they'll be pumped to go move with their friends, or a later partner to get them to calm down, depending on the energy in the room). Then, you can get them rolling on whatever you have next, or on some sort of time-filler review game to end class (partner Kahoot! partner Quizlet live! partner exit ticket! partner work on your homework!).

Throughout the year kids will lose their sheets, but usually (hopefully) one of the partners held onto theirs and can remind their partner who they're with. To help with this issue, it's not a bad idea to do this activity again halfway through the year. By then, people may have new best friends, couples may have broken up, and half the class may have lost their partner sheets. It also gives you an opportunity to adapt the sheet and ask more advanced questions, use different countries, do a country focus (compañero de las Ramblas, compañero del Prado) or try a different cultural focus (compañero Frida Kahlo, compañero Salvador Dali). It's a great activity for classroom environment, with some sneaky target language practice and cultural exposure mixed in.

Have you ever tried clock partners before? What's your secret to making it work? If you come up with cool ways to apply this in your classroom, please share!

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For the last few years I really wanted to adapt the concept of "clock partners" to the foreign language classroom, and I think I finally figured it out to relative *relative!* success last year. I'll share how I did it below, but first, let's review what clock partners are.

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Is there evidence demonstrating that the time spent on developing background knowledge and oracy positively impacts student learning?

Research has long indicated that building background knowledge and developing oracy is beneficial for children. Strategies such as the KWL chart have been used in classrooms nationwide in attempts to activate and build students' background knowledge and oracy skills, and to peak their interest before reading a text. However, when strategies such as these are used with language learners and students with limited language skills, the results are not as beneficial as teachers had hoped them to be. What is the problem? The KWL chart is research-based, so why doesn't it work?

As it turns out, in order for a student to engage with a strategy such as a KWL chart, some prerequisite language, skills, and experiences are required. A student needs to have some level of understanding of the content or have had experiences with the topic, and have sufficient language skills to share how their understanding and experiences relate to the topic. If the student does not have the language or experience, they cannot participate in this activity successfully. Additionally, when strategies such as the KWL chart are used as the initial activity to build background knowledge, a lot of room is left for misconceptions to develop.

Consider, for example, a teacher using a KWL chart prior to reading a text about the rain forest. In this classroom, half of the students are language learners at varying levels of proficiency. Additionally, although all students in the classroom have had a variety of life experiences, the nearest rainforest is over 1,000 miles away. When this activity is used as the initial activity to activate background knowledge (whether whole group or small group), only some students are able to participate: those with previous knowledge of or experience with rainforests who also have the language to express their understanding of this topic.

The students that have heard about, read about, or visited a rainforest will be able to share some information to be placed on the "K" column of the chart. The students that think they know what a rainforest is might offer misinformation, such as "there were dangerous animals in the rainforest and that is why people burned them down. Rainforests don't exist any more." This inaccuracy has the potential to de-rail the classroom conversation and focus of the lesson if the teacher attempts to correct the statement. On the other hand, if the teacher does not pause to rectify the misconception, she risks the possibility of it solidifying in that student's mind (and in the mind of other students). At the same time, the language learners in the classroom (depending on their level of proficiency) are not able to add much, if anything at all, to the chart or the conversation due to limitations with expressive and receptive language, reducing the significance of this activity for them.

Does this mean that there isn't a place for the beloved KWL chart (and activities like it) in a classroom full of diverse learners? As it turns out, there is! There are just a few things that teachers need to do first in order to ensure that ALL students can participate meaningfully in the learning experience.

In order to ensure that activities such the KWL chart are meaningful to all students, academically enriching experiences and language scaffolds within a specific context have to be provided to the students. Building background knowledge is defined as the provision of activities and experiences to all students in a classroom to ensure students have the prerequisite knowledge of a topic in order to access the new knowledge that is to be obtained about that topic. The language scaffolds teachers provide contribute to the development of oracy, which is defined as the skills and strategies that are required in order to be able to engage with a literacy-based task.

Let's go back to our rainforest example. An initial activity to build oracy and background knowledge could be to have strategic student pairs look at printed pictures of a rain forest in a gallery walk. Sentence prompts such as "I see..." and "I wonder..." can be provided to students. The teacher can then engage students in a conversation about each picture using words students printed on the charts, and strategically incorporating new academic vocabulary with TPR (even if one of the students listed the academic vocabulary to be introduced on the chart). This ensures that all students are developing the vocabulary necessary to engage with the text. Another activity the teacher could use is Adapted Reader's Theatre, where the teacher engages students in helping to act out part of a story. For this activity, the students are silent while the teacher explains and acts out the story, but students join the teacher in the movements. As a follow up activity, strategic student pairs can use sentence prompts to engage in a sorting activity to pair the vocabulary word with a sentence and/or picture, or to put the important events from the story in chronological order.

After these experiences, it would be appropriate to introduce the KWL chart to this group of diverse students. At this point, all students have some working knowledge of what a rainforest is and have sufficient language to share this knowledge.

Academically enriching experiences and language building activities must come prior to rigorous learning in order to ensure that all students can access the content. It requires a shift in thinking about where the field trips, virtual tours, experiments, and other such activities are conducted within a unit. Rather than doing them after the learning has occurred, it is important to do them as a way to kick off a unit, to build excitement, background knowledge, and develop the oracy skills students need to be able learn. Additionally, building background knowledge and oracy is not a one-time thing, it is something that has to be developed continuously in order for students to continue accessing new concepts and ideas. This ensures that students have the foundation of knowledge they need in order to incorporate new information and expand that knowledge. While this shift will require more time to "cover" material, the depth at which all students will be able to interact with the information makes it worthwhile.

Next month, I will explain how Jenny, a self-contained teacher in a 50/50 Chinese-English Dual Language program has incorporated activities to build background knowledge and develop oracy into her teaching practice. I will also share some observations she has made about her students' ability to engage in literacy tasks now that she deliberately plans for building background knowledge and developing oracy. In the meantime, what strategies do you use in your classroom to ensure that all students have sufficient background knowledge and oracy skills to be able to engage in your lessons?

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Building Background Knowledge and Oracy: Why, When, and How? Part 1 of 2 | Teaching For Biliteracy

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Is there evidence demonstrating that the time spent on developing background knowledge and oracy positively impacts student learning? Research has long indicated that building background knowledge and developing oracy is beneficial for children. Strategies such as the KWL chart have been used in classrooms nationwide in attempts to activate and build students' background knowledge and oracy skills, and to peak their interest before reading a text.

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To succeed in school and beyond, children need to build a robust vocabulary. Kids learn a lot from the adults in their lives and there are many ways you can help your child learn new words. We reached out to Parent Toolkit expert and University of Michigan Education Professor Nell Duke for some tips you can use at home to expand your child's vocabulary.

"Goldilocks Principle"

Try not to overdo it. Professor Nell Duke recommends applying the "Goldilocks Principle" when trying to teach your child new words: not too many words at one time and not too few. A rule of thumb is to choose five unfamiliar new words for your child to learn each week. See how often everyone in the family can use those words in everyday conversation.

Multiple Exposure

Typically, a child needs to hear a new word 4 to 12 times before it is added to his vocabulary. When you introduce your child to a new word, try to keep a mental note of it and work to use it again in your conversations with your child. It is also important to use the word in a variety of different contexts, wherever it applies. Don't be afraid to throw in a word that you had focused on previously as well. Repeated exposure is one of the best ways to master new vocabulary words.
RELATED: Check out our academic growth charts to see if your child is on track to college and career readiness.
Not Black or White

Many people see learning new vocabulary as a very black or white issue; either you know the word or you don't. However, expanding one's vocabulary really exists on a sliding scale. There are words that you have heard before but you don't actually know the definition. There are words that you understand when other people say them but you would never use yourself in daily conversation. Then there are words that you regularly use in the course of your daily life. Kids go through this as well as they develop their vocabulary. Try not to restrict yourself to only using words that your child knows, and don't stress if your child doesn't use the same word you do to refer to an object or item. For example, instead of calling a helmet a "helmet," your child may call it a "hat." After a while, though, she will begin to understand the subtle difference between the two and start referring to it as a "helmet."

Make Words Concrete

As you are teaching your child new words, it is important to help visualize them. For nouns, show your child a picture of it by searching online, or showing a picture in a book or magazine. If it is an adjective, find things that can be described using the word. For example, if you come across "scratchy," point out the scratchiness of sand paper or a man's chin. With verbs, try acting out the word with your child. Children love moving around as you explore the words "prance" or "prowl."

See It, Say It, Write It

In order for your child to actually learn a new vocabulary word, he needs to be able to read it, say it, and write it. If your child comes across a word in a book and asks you how to pronounce it, encourage him to repeat the word out loud after you say it. Similarly, if your child hears a new word in the course of conversation that is unfamiliar, spell the word out for him and have him write it down on a piece of paper so that he can see the word.

Read Daily

Books are the number one way to expose kids to a richer vocabulary. As often as possible, read books with your child. When she comes to a word that she doesn't know, give your child a quick kid-friendly definition and continue reading. It's important not to have a big pause about the fact that she didn't know the word. When you finish reading the story, go back to the word again and ask her if she remembers how to say it.

Ditch the Dictionary

Despite popular belief, dictionaries aren't that great at helping kids with vocab since some definitions include words that may be unfamiliar to your child. Professor Duke recommends taking the time to figure out the definition with your child by using context clues, or the other words around it. Short on time? Give your child a kid-friendly version of the same word instead of having them look it up in the dictionary.

Show How You Learn New Words

When you come across a word that you don't know, point it out to your child. Describe to him how you were able to determine its meaning by using context clues. By explaining this process out loud, you will help show your child what he can do when he comes across an unfamiliar word. Highlight the fact that you still learn new words as well.

New Words Are Everywhere

Help your child build her vocabulary by taking her to new places and exposing her to different ideas. Visit your local zoo or the nearest museum and have your child describe the various animals and exhibits that she sees. Take your child along with you as you run off to the bank, the grocery store, or the post office, and see what new words you can discover.

Words with Multiple Meanings

Kids are often challenged by words that have multiple meanings. English is full of these types of words, such as "days" and "daze." It is important for parents to be aware that kids will need help in this area. In fact, you might think that a child understands a joke that relies on word play because of their laughter, but actually most children aren't able to understand these types of riddles until at least the third grade. To help your child understand the different uses for the same word, ask him to explain the word's meaning. For example, if he uses the word "bat," ask if he meant the dark creature that flies at night or the wooden stick used in baseball.

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How to Help Your Child Build a Strong Vocabulary

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To succeed in school and beyond, children need to build a robust vocabulary. Kids learn a lot from the adults in their lives and there are many ways you can help your child learn new words. We reached out to Parent Toolkit expert and University of Michigan Education Professor Nell Duke for some tips you can use at home to expand your child's vocabulary.

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I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. -- Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
Let's face it -- everyone has something to say some time or another. ESL learners are no different. As a teacher of either online English or classroom ESL instruction, it is important to make your students feel comfortable speaking. They may feel embarrassed about their inability to speak English fluently. Or perhaps they are just shy. As an instructor, you need to ask yourself how you are impacting the learning environment:

Are the students afraid to make mistakes?

Is your instruction on their level?

Do you state clear instructions with examples?

Do your lessons incorporate exciting material and ways to teach?

Are your students motivated and interested to learn?

After you ask yourself these questions and alter your teaching based on honest self-evaluation, you can incorporate more ways to encourage your students to learn English.

1. Build Fluency

The most important thing to remember is that your students need to be speaking English as much as possible. The more they practice, the better they speak. The better they speak, the more confidence they will gain. And this cycle will continue to build fluency. Don't make the grammar lessons the focal point of your instruction. Don't do too much teacher talk and lengthy explanations. Choral responses where the students recite the same "response" -- whether it be a word, phrase, sentence or dialogue -- are an effective tool to build vocabulary skills that lead to comprehension. This method helps to build success for all learners. So get your students to talk, and keep them talking!

2. Focus on Individual Needs

With the current educational journals consumed with such topics as Differentiated Education, Meeting the Needs of All Learners, Maximizing the Disconnect Between the Real World and the Classroom, etc., it is important that you, too, focus on each student. Choose those skills that are the most important for him or her, and tailor your instruction accordingly. While Student A may be struggling with learning the alphabet and initial sounds, Student B might be reading at a fourth-grade level. I'm sure you get the point. Challenge all of your students with material at their own level to ensure language progress. My own teaching mantra is, "All learners can learn if we but know how to teach them." The onus is on you as a teacher. That is the unique skill you have to offer.

3. Provide High-Interest Engagement

We all learn more when we are engaged. Think of times when learning was the most enjoyable for you. Try to emulate those teaching styles. Was it how the teacher interacted with the class and how you were treated with respect, fairness, patience and acceptance? Maybe the teacher planned lessons that involved more than just passive learning. Perhaps there were learning activities with movement, which allowed for maintaining the students' attention levels and increasing their classroom participation. Did you have a creative teacher who used a variety of materials like flashcards, games, magazine and newspaper articles, pictures, photos, fieldtrips, projects, technology, role plays, guest speakers, simulations or question-and-answer sessions? Did they mix it up when it came to working individually and in small groups or whole-class instruction? Did they allow choice in student learning and ask for input as far as needs and interests?

4. Model

How you talk in your lessons, when both focusing on instruction and relating with your students, will increase their language ability. Speak slowly and clearly so that the ESL student will understand. Choose words that are easier for them to grasp. Use visuals whenever possible so that students can also read the directions at the same time. Teaching with two or more modalities heightens understanding and learning. Offer repetition and review until your students have mastery. Always be positive toward them, and continue to praise them for speaking to encourage more speaking. Develop a strong, open and caring relationship toward each of your students, and in turn they will strive to be the best students possible. I guarantee you will have a more successful classroom of ESL students.

5. Allow Time

Learning a language is developmental. There are endless factors in acquiring a language, so it is important that you put this in perspective. When you talk to a student, allow wait time for the response. When they struggle with a certain skill or concept, help them over this hurdle. Everyone learns in different ways, and once you embrace this idea, you and your students will be more apt to enjoy the learning process together.

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Five Tips for Getting the ESL Student Talking | Edutopia

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I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. -- Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares Let's face it -- everyone has something to say some time or another. ESL learners are no different.

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Accountable discussion empowers students to draw up arguments based on evidence. Students learn how to respect the views of their peers while strengthening their communication skills. They get practice in being good conversationalists, participating in conversations in a polite manner.

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Top 25+ best Accountable talk ideas on Pinterest | Accountable talk stems, Math sentence starters and Accountable talk posters

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Find and save ideas about Accountable talk on Pinterest. | See more ideas about Accountable talk stems, Math sentence starters and Accountable talk posters.

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California English Learners grade level booklet download