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1) How can I use the Dramatic Arts to teach English language skills, with specific reference, to an English Language Learner at the Secondary level?

2) How can I use the Dramatic Arts and culturally diverse material in order to ensure all students feel represented in a respectful manner,for the educational benefit of all students?

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World Stories Website

Animal origin Stories from around the world

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Sonia Schreiber Weitz
Rita Joe
Joy Harjo
Warsan Shire

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Scaffolding (pre-reading and post-reading)

Breaking things into smaller tasks

Frequent feedback

Focus on Assessment FOR Learning

Reflection Journals (not focused on Academic language)

Variety of dramatic techniques to convey meaning.

Resource here.

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Example lesson activities and assessment strategies for Secondary ELLs in drama.

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Example lesson activities and assessment strategies for Secondary ELLs in drama.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. What strategies does Ms. Ellis use to promote English language development?

2. How does Ms. Ellis use the completed posters as a teaching tool?

3. What can you learn from Ms. Ellis about assessment?

Teachers

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High school teacher Catherine Ellis teaches English Language Learners about language through drama. Students begin by playing a drama game called Fill in the Gaps, where they work together to create frozen scenes. Groups create a poster to illustrate one element of movement.

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2.5.1 School boards will implement programs and services that will enable English language learners to continue their education while learning English.

2.8.2 When learning expectations are modified for English language learners, evaluation will be based on the documented modified expectations. This will be noted on the report card and explained to parents.

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Drama Games that promote trust, inclusiveness, and convey meaning and language through body:

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Drama Games that promote trust, inclusiveness, and convey meaning and language through body:

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1) Trust Circles
Instructions: Students stand in a circle. Turn off the classroom lights to add to the atmosphere. One person is the 'walker' - they must close their eyes. The walker is passed to other people in the circle (they are forced to walk blindly and trust their classmates as they guide them). To make the game more challenging, add more walkers.

2) Pantomime: What Are you Doing?Instructions: Have students stand in a circle. Explain what pantomime is, and give a demonstration. For this game the person to your left is going to ask you, “What are you doing?”, and you are going to say “I am ….” (the action that you pantomime, is NOT the thing you have told the person you are doing). For example, “What are you doing?”... (person pantomiming is brushing their hair but they say...) “I am playing golf”. Now the person who asked, “what are you doing” has to pantomime playing golf. Then the person next to them will ask them “what are you doing”, and even though they are playing golf, they will say something different ie: I am knitting, thus, the person who asked them “what are you doing” must now pantomime knitting, and so on, until you repeatedly go around the circle.

3)The Hitchhiker
Instructions: Set up four chairs in front of the class. Two will be the front seat of the car, and two are the back seat. Put three volunteers in the car. Ask them to drive for a few minutes, and then spot another volunteer “hitchhiking,” and pick him or her up. When the new person gets in the car, they choose a feeling–happy, sad, tired, angry, whatever they like–and act in that way. The other students in the car should pick up and act out the feeling too. So if the person who gets in the car is acting tired, for example, the driver might start slumping in her seat, slapping her face to help herself stay awake, etc. Repeat and add more Hitchhikers to the car.

Resources: FluentU, and DramaSource!

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Drama Activities that convey meaning and language through body: 

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Drama Activities that convey meaning and language through body: 

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1)Pantomime: Story, Movement, Music
2)Picture Book Tableau

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Culturally Diverse Resources: First Nations Art: Bruce K Beardy

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Hillyard, Susan. Teaching English Through Drama: Creative activities for inclusive ELT classes, May 2016.

Maley, Alan and Kiss, Tamas. Creativity and English Language Teaching: From Inspiration to Implementation,2018.

Moovendhan,Dr. M. Teaching English Through Drama, International Conference on Professional English, February 2012.

O'Neill, Cecily and Lambert, Alan. Drama structures : a practical handbook for teachers, Cheltenham,Stanley Thornes, 1990.

Wessels, Charlyn. "Drama", Resource Books for Teachers, Oxford university press 1987.

Zyoud, Munther. Using Drama Activities and Techniques to Foster Teaching English as a Foreign Language: a Theoretical Perspective, 2010.

Facing History and Ourselves

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I lost my talk

The talk you took away.

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:

I speak like you

I think like you

I create like you

The scrambled ballad, about my word.

Two ways I talk

Both ways I say,

Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

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Praise the rain, the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food-—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

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Please note that this poem includes language and topics that require special consideration from the teacher and students. We believe that the best way to prepare to encounter these topics is to create a class contract outlining guidelines for a respectful, reflective classroom discussion. Teachers should read Addressing Dehumanizing Language from History and plan how they approach the "N" word when reading and discussing Shire's poem. Finally, "Home" alludes to the sexual violence that some refugees face on their journeys. It is important that teachers preview the materials, know their students, and build in time and space for individual reflection in journals so that students can respond emotionally to what they are reading and learning.
Warsan Shire was born in Kenya to Somali parents and lives in London. She is a poet, writer, editor and teacher. In 2013-2014, she was the Young Poet Laureate for London. Shire wrote "Conversations about home (at a deportation centre)" in 2009, a piece inspired by a visit she made to the abandoned Somali Embassy in Rome which some young refugees had turned into their home. In an interview, she told the reporter that "The night before she visited, a young Somali had jumped to his death off the roof." The encounter, she says, opened her eyes to the harsh reality of living as an undocumented refugee in Europe: "I wrote the poem for them, for my family and for anyone who has experienced or lived around grief and trauma in that way." This poem became the basis for "Home," printed below. "Home" has been shared widely across the media and has been read in a range of public spaces, including London's Trafalgar Square. Commentators have noted that "Home" has touched a nerve among people, that it has offered a way to give voice to refugees and to provide some authentic understanding of the crisis.
Home
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you

breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

In an interview after she won the Brunel University African Poetry Prize, Warsan Shire was asked to talk about her sense of commitment to substance and urgent subject matter in her work. In response, Shire said:

I'm from Somalia where there has been a war going on for my entire life. I grew up with a lot of horror in the backdrop - a lot of terrible things that have happened to people who are really close to me, and to my country, and to my parents; so it's in the home and it's even in you, it's on your skin and it's in your memories and your childhood. And my relatives and my friends and my mother's friends have experienced things that you can't imagine, and they've put on this jacket of resiliency and a dark humour. But you don't know what they've been victims of, or what they've done to other people. Them being able to tell me, and then me writing it, it's cathartic, being able to share their stories, even if it is something really terrible, something really tragic. Sometimes I'm telling other people's stories to remove stigma and taboo, so that they don't have to feel ashamed; sometimes you use yourself as an example.

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British-Somali poet Warsan Shire gives voice to the experiences of refugees in this poem about "home."

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How can I use themed images to create tableauxs or vocal collages with associated words and feelings of the main theme of the piece?

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Sonia Schreiber Weitz performs her poem Icicles

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Sonia Schreiber Weitz performs her poem Icicles

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Sonia Weitz Remembers the Holocaust and Recites her Poem Icicles

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Sonia Schreiber Weitz, Holocaust survivor, remembers the brutality of Bergen-Belsen.

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no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

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New Research Question: In this course I have learned that the curriculum needs to be modified in regard to ELLS needs, but I wanted to know if ELLS should also be marked with separate rubrics?

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Assessment is a critical part of being an educator and I want to ensure that all my students are assessed fairly.

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Research: English as a Second Language and English Literacy Development: A Resource Guide 

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Research: English as a Second Language and English Literacy Development: A Resource Guide 

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According to this resource guide, rubrics were adapted in order to meet the language profile needs of ELLS. “The rubrics provide criteria for assessing the performance of ESL and ELD students in relation to the modified expectations.”

Adjusting rubrics to meet the modified curriculum expectations makes sense to me, however, this is an elementary resource and I am a Secondary teacher. Traditionally, secondary teachers try to make as few modifications to the curriculum as possible, and place more of an emphasis on accommodations that will help students achieve success – this is due to the content heavy nature of subjects and the general graduation requirements and expectations of Ontario.

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Research: Using Appropriate Modifications  

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Research: Using Appropriate Modifications  

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This video furthered my understand in regard to content focused courses. “In most content classrooms, the content assessment will be more important then the language assessment, however, if you have spent time planning and teaching language objectives then you might consider including those in your assessment.” This is relevant to my practice because it means the expectations of content come first, however, if I have spent a significant time teaching subject-specific language than I could provide a rubric alteration here, in regard to assessing based on the expectations of an ELLS Step Continua rather than the curriculum.

With a teachable like drama, not much language output is required for assessment success, there are many ways to show language and communication in my course, that still align with the curriculum expectations.

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This Course

Video Transcript

In this course, you will learn how to design assessments around the needs of your ELL students and their language level. You will learn how to incorporate language and content requirements for both formative and summative assessment types. You will learn to assess your ELL students through the use of project and task-based assignments. You will learn to use and modify rubrics to align to and measure student achievement of your language and content learning objectives. The course will also briefly cover strategies for supporting ELL students during standardized testing. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: * Conceptualize theories of authentic assessment as they apply to second language learners * Design formative assessment types incorporating language and content objectives * Design summative assessment types incorporating language and content objectives * Incorporate project and task-based assignments as assessment tools for ELLs * Design rubrics that align to language and content objectives for your ELL(s) * Apply the use of rubrics, both language and content, to the work of your ELL(s). * Support your ELL(s) as they participate in standardized testing

View Syllabus

Alternative Assessments with the ELL in Mind

Welcome to week 3 of the course! This module will give you an opportunity to take a look at some of the ways that you can create and modify the assessments you use in your class. By the end of this module, you will be able to: use alternative assessment formats to best assess your ELL, create modified assessments to allow for content assessment of ELLs at any language level, use visual assessments for basic-level ELLs, apply a variety of support strategies for assessment, and assign appropriate grades for modified assessment. Let's get started!

Claire McLaughlin

Senior International Educator

Ellen Manos

Senior International Educator

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Using Appropriate Modifications - Alternative Assessments with the ELL in Mind | Coursera

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Video created by Arizona State University for the course "Assessing Achievement with the ELL in Mind". Welcome to week 3 of the course! This module will give you an opportunity to take a look at some of the ways that you can create and modify the ...

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How this research changed my knowledge of teaching ELLS: 

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How this research changed my knowledge of teaching ELLS: 

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Essentially, I learned that creating a separate Rubric for ELL assessment is not necessary but can be beneficial to the student. Depending on the subject and assessment (whether it is content focused, or language focused) is the first step in making the decision of creating an alternate rubric. Traditionally language focused assessment will require a modified rubric, whereas content assessment should not. A content focused rubric should already take the needs of an ELL learner into account. The next step is to identify which elements of an assignment might need a modification. You must determine how dependent an assessment is on language, and which type of language (BICS or CALP). Once Identified, you use an appropriate modification, like allowing an oral response instead of written (if this was the case, a rubric might have to be altered to focus on oral rather than written criteria). Overall, altering a rubric is not necessary, but should be considered if an assignment is being drastically modified for the needs of an ELL.

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Vocal Collage: Voice and Movement Final Summative

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Vocal Collage: Voice and Movement Final Summative Poems