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English Language Learners

Teachers can guide English language learners in using a variety of Google tools to make lessons more equitable and accessible.

English language learners (ELLs) in secondary grades are exposed to many texts, daily, across subjects. To learn the content, they need translations and scaffolds that help them understand the ideas in the texts. However, with the shortage of ESL teachers, ELLs are usually provided with language support only once or twice a day. One of the best things educators can do is to equip ELLs with strategies that help them independently comprehend any text across all subjects. Google is one underappreciated way to support English learners.

ELL Comprehension Tasks

Before teaching ELLs reading strategies, it's important to explain the challenges they might face so they can become aware of their learning needs and develop metacognition skills that will empower them to become independent learners and problem solvers. This also destigmatizes their learning process, emphasizing that reading comprehension is related not to innate intelligence but rather to a complex web of skills that are tied to language acquisition.

We can also point out that students might not fully comprehend a text even when it's translated into their native language, if the words or information is new to them. With this understanding, we can share the following helpful strategies.

Translating Using Google

ELLs can translate the text into their first language using the Google Translate Chrome extension when reading digitally. This extension is pinned to the toolbar in Chrome. When clicked, it translates the whole page into the chosen language.

If ELLs are reading print, they can translate using Google Lens. In my class, students use their phones to open Google Lens and capture the page they want translated. In seconds, Google Lens translates it. If your ELLs are not allowed to use phones, try to provide a digital copy of the text to ensure accessibility.

Building Background Information on The Topic

I recommend having students search for the topic in their native language, first. They should use the prompt "Background information on _____" in the search engine and include the name of the topic in the space provided. To make the learning experience more engaging, they can click the video icon in the tools tab to watch videos related to the topic. For instance, when my students were reading a text about Malala Yousafzai, they googled "Background information about Malala" in Arabic. After that, they clicked the video icon in the tools bar and chose a video to watch. They told me that the text was much more comprehensible after watching the video, as they now had a better idea of what it was about.

Understanding Unfamiliar Keywords Using Google

Students can use Google Search to look up the meanings of unfamiliar keywords. When searching for the meanings of words, students should use the prompt "definition of _____" to search words so they can get Google definitions, which are provided by the Oxford Dictionary.

When teaching students this strategy, emphasize looking up only keywords because it will save them time rather than looking up all unfamiliar words. Explain that keywords are the most repeated words in a text; if these words are missing, readers will not be able to understand what the text is about.

Additionally, when students are looking up these keywords, encourage them to read Google's first definition, because it is usually the most accurate and provides examples and synonyms of the word.

After they look up the word, they can click the Google Translate extension icon to translate the page. To reinforce their understanding of the words, they can also click the Google Images tab, scroll through the images, and look at images that represent the word. However, it is important to note with students that sometimes Google does not have images of words because of their abstract nature.

Integrating All Strategies

When ninth-through-12th-grade ELL students in a social studies class were exploring the text " Egypt, the Kingdom of Kush, and Mesopotamia," they applied all three strategies by, first, using the Google Translate extension to translate the text into their first language (Arabic). After the student read in Arabic, one mentioned that he had never heard of Mesopotamia or the land of Kush, and since the whole text was about it, he felt that he needed some background information about these places.

The student opened a Google search and used the prompt "background information about Kingdom of Kush." He wrote this in Arabic so that he could obtain search results in Arabic. Then, he clicked the video tab and watched a video about it.

The student noticed that the word "irrigation" was mentioned multiple times throughout the text. He searched, in Arabic, "definition of irrigation." Then he read the definition in Arabic. After that, he clicked an image and saw images of what this word represented. Finally, he reread the whole text again with all the new knowledge that he had about the text.

Enhancing Comprehension

I've created a video sharing even more about my experience using these Google tools and strategies to support English learners. We practiced these strategies multiple times until students were able to use them independently. They felt much more confident in the classroom, especially about their content learning. Although these strategies require direct instruction and practice, once mastered, they become powerful tools for helping ELLs to comprehend any text.

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Using Google Tools to Support Newcomer ELLs

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Teachers can guide English language learners in using a variety of Google tools to make lessons more equitable and accessible.

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Generative AI can make educational content and instruction more accessible, helping teachers meet a breadth of student needs.

Stuart Kinlough / Ikon Images

Universal Design for Learning (UDL), an essential framework for enhancing accessibility, helps teachers design inclusive instruction. The framework supports students' accessing content in varied formats, expressing understanding using multiple modalities, and engaging with high-interest content-all of which enhance equity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging technology that can help educators create a more UDL-friendly environment. Though many teachers are skeptical about students' use of generative AI, instead of viewing it as a quick answer generator, we can teach students about ethical use by helping them view it as a research assistant, brainstorming collaborator, and tutor. Student- and teacher-facing AI tools can enhance engagement, representation, and expression in the classroom. Below, I showcase two such tools and how I use them with students in my English classes, though many others are rapidly evolving.

Using AI for UDL

SchoolAI is one such tool that enables students to access information in a variety of ways and allows teachers to customize AI chatbots (called spaces) for specific learning opportunities. For example, using the historical chatbot generator, teachers can ask students to interact with a chatbot that assumes the role of an author or historical figure available, and teachers can also create their own.

Instructionally, when students interact with a chatbot, they not only acquire information but also learn how to engage in effective conversations with AI. Asking and refining probing questions is a future-forward skill.

My students choose how they synthesize the information they learn from AI; some employ a note-taking method, others use graphic organizers. Every student's chat is unique and yields different outcomes that make for compelling collaborative conversations among peers. Post-chat, I guide students to fact-check and examine information for biases before drawing conclusions from AI interactions. This step is essential for building capacity as students learn how to utilize AI responsibly, and there are helpful frameworks for students working to evaluate the information they glean.

Enhancing Individualized Learning

Equitable, personalized learning is the ultimate goal of UDL. SchoolAI is UDL-friendly, because it has an embedded text-to-speech function that allows students to hear AI conversations read aloud. Additionally, an embedded speech-to-text tool enables students to respond verbally instead of in writing. This multimodality means every student is able to participate, even those for whom reading or writing is challenging, which facilitates inclusive learning and deepens engagement.

Though SchoolAI offers different types of chatbot-based spaces to customize, perhaps the most exciting for UDL is the Sidekick-a personalized tutor that you can tailor for specific content or processes. When my students are writing narratives, I create a Sidekick that can assist them in the writing process by offering concrete suggestions and clarifying concepts (such as figurative language or how to write dialogue correctly). I also limit the type of assistance that my Sidekick will provide, such as prohibiting it from helping students "too much." That way, the AI is not allowed to write for students and can only give them concrete examples that are unrelated to the plot of the narrative they were crafting.

Leveraging Teacher-Facing AI Tools

MagicSchool is a teacher-facing platform that includes more than 60 AI tools created specifically for educators. One essential aspect of UDL is ensuring that students can easily understand instructions and success criteria. To do this, I use MagicSchool to generate clearer, more concise directions for tasks, as well as exemplars and non-exemplars.

A UDL environment also offers more than one pathway through which students can access content. To fulfill this goal, I use MagicSchool to generate multiple explanations for concepts, to generate questions in response to YouTube videos, and to level text so I can provide students the opportunity to read "just right" material no matter their current grade level. These uses are especially beneficial for accommodating students with specialized instructional needs, as well as students for whom English is a second language.

To increase engagement, I also use AI to convert traditional content into other formats. For example, when teaching the myth of Hades and Persephone, I used MagicSchool to generate several other versions of the text, including a rap battle and breaking news brief. Students choose which representation they want to read, and everyone discusses the theme and showcases their understanding.

To help brainstorm varied modalities for student expression, I utilized the MagicSchool choice board generator to come up with ideas to populate my favorite choice board template. MagicSchool's group work generator was also useful for brainstorming collaborative activities, because some of the most effective UDL-friendly classrooms allow students to choose how they like to learn and create. Students who prefer to work with others are able to gravitate toward team tasks, while students who prefer to work alone are able to select an independent option.

Enhancing Inclusivity

An inclusive classroom is full of choice, allowing students to self-select instructional materials and options to demonstrate mastery. With so few hours in the day and so many considerations involved in planning, leveraging AI tools can optimize teacher workflows and provide focused assistance.

Whether adapting existing lessons to be more UDL-friendly or crafting an entirely new unit, AI places truly personalized learning within greater reach than ever before.

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Using AI to Enhance Universal Design for Learning

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Generative AI can make educational content and instruction more accessible, helping teachers meet a breadth of student needs.

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The Pros

Advocates of the flipped classroom point to its potential as a time-shifting tool. Jac de Haan, author of the blog Technology with Intention articulates this well:

". . . the focus of flipped teaching is different from other examples in that the technology itself is simply a tool for flexible communication that allows educators to differentiate instruction to meet individual student needs and spend more time in the classroom focused on collaboration and higher-order thinking."

And Cons

Critics of the flipped classroom argue that online instruction puts students that lack Internet access at a disadvantage. Moreover, whether delivered in class or via instructional videos, lecture is still a poor mode of information transfer. This argument is outlined very well in Harvard Physics professor Eric Mazur's talk Confessions of a Converted Lecturer.

Flipped Classroom in Perspective

Personally, I feel the current flipped classroom hype is blown way out of proportion. The flipped classroom is a simple concept that needs no title. Good teaching, regardless of discipline, should always limit passive transfer of knowledge in class, and promote learning environments built on the tenants of inquiry, collaboration and critical thinking. We, as educators, must strive to guide students through perplexing situations, and more importantly, work with one another to develop the pedagogical skills to do so. Keeping this in mind, good teaching comes in many forms, and the flipped-classroom mentality can be one of many solutions for educators.

As an instructor of Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry, I find myself torn in two directions. The science teacher in me is deeply committed to the process of inquiry, and arming my students with the skills needed to construct and test their own ideas. The AP teacher in me fears sending my students off to their examination in May having covered only a portion of all the content required. Given this tension, I have found merging aspects of inquiry learning and video-based instruction helps me address both needs. My blog at CyclesOfLearning.com has a more detailed explanation of how I use this method in my AP Chemistry class. Here's a blog post by Jackie Gerstein that clearly places flipped instruction in the context of an inquiry learning cycle.

Reflection

If, like me, you are interested in using aspects of the flipped classroom to address an issue in your practice, I encourage you to reflect on the following steps first:

Step 1: Identify your current or desired teaching style.

Step 2: Ask yourself this question: Given my style, do I currently use class time to teach any low level, procedural, algorithmic concepts?

Step 3: If yes, begin by creating opportunities for students to obtain this information outside of the classroom. ( More info on creating annotated and narrated instructional videos).

Step 4: Include a system that encourages reflection and synthesis of homework-based instruction (Click here and here for ways to make instructional videos more interactive and reflective).

Hopefully the above steps are a helpful. As we are all aware, teaching can be a very powerful, and often very personal act, where the right way is as diverse as the students we are blessed to work with. Parker Palmer reflects on this notion:

"Good teaching cannot be reduced to one technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher."

On this note, I would like to share a personal story that I feel provides a metaphor for why the flipped classroom is a technique that works well for me. On May 25th of this year I underwent a fairly complicated open-heart surgery to correct an aneurysm of my thoracic aorta that was found randomly at a routine check up. The surgery went well, and five months later, minus a long scar down the center of my chest, I rarely think of the physical struggle that was the summer of 2011.

Throughout the process, I was very impressed with the confidence and knowledge my thoracic surgeon embodied. Then one day, it hit me: My surgeon had a teacher! He learned to how to perform my surgery in school! An instructor taught him how to do something, something very, very important, in a very effective way! As a teacher myself, I have a hunch my surgeon didn't learn how to repair my aorta by passively taking in information through a textbook or lecture. Rather, I'm certain his confidence and skill was cultivated through hours of inquiry, trial and error, with strong mentors by his side the whole way. In short, I'm sure he learned by doing, not observing.

We must strive to be facilitators, mentors and guides for our students, as if what we are preparing them for, much like my surgeon, will one day change lives. Any teaching methodology that amplifies this role is a step in the right direction.

Are you using various elements of flipped instruction in your practice? If so, how are you using it to foster student inquiry?

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Every morning, the show includes school, local, and national news presented by two anchors, who have also interviewed such special guests as the Cat in the Hat (a.k.a. Brenda Richards, a retired Forest Lake teacher dressed as Dr. Seuss's mischievous character) and Lucas McFadden, former host of a popular show on local television station WIS (and current anchor with the local CN2 News). In September 2006, McFadden guest cohosted Forest Lake Today with the students when it was featured on NBC's Today Show.

Each day, a puppet of the school's eagle mascot delivers the lunch menu, while the weather reporter retrieves the most up-to-date data from a weather station that sits atop the school building, relaying the day's forecast on a magnetic board. All the while, two student members of the technical team are behind the scenes, manipulating the video and mixing the sound.

A Magnet Pulls Students In

Columbia, the state capital and home to the University of South Carolina and the U.S. Army's largest initial-entry training center, attracts families of varying socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds; the school's 580 students in grades preK-5 include children from 15 countries who speak 13 languages. By integrating technology into the classroom, maintaining an affiliation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and promoting project learning, Forest Lake accommodates the various learning styles of such a wide-ranging student body, developing strong literacy and strengthening students' science, technology, math, geography, and even engineering skills.

Principal Kappy Cannon, along with curriculum resource teacher Marian Scullion (a former Forest Lake teacher), believes that although the school's technology tools offer a new twist on old ideas, the true attraction of this magnet school lies in the way it incorporates technology into every aspect of teaching through innovative instructional strategies.

The school's tech team even includes fourth and fifth graders who help make sure all the technological equipment is in working order for each class. "Technology is just a tool," says Cannon. "The teachers in this building could teach with a stick, a rock, and a paper bag. Good teaching all comes down to the relationship between a teacher and child."

No Subject Left Behind

One of Forest Lake's most prized programs comes from its status as a NASA Explorer School. Like the more than 50 other such schools in the United States, it has a three-year partnership with the national space program that enables students to draw from NASA's resources and collaborate with its members to study technology, science, engineering, and mathematics -- and to encourage kids to investigate careers in these fields.

"When we became a NASA school, we reworked our major teaching units to ensure that science and NASA were included," notes technology specialist Paulette Williams.

Beyond the classroom, Forest Lake sponsors four NASA Family Nights during the school year so parents can experience and participate in the types of investigations their children are conducting. During one recent Family Night, students demonstrated motion and force by building rockets and cars to see which one could move the fastest and by constructing wind socks to learn about the strength of wind. "As with our magnet program," says Williams, "every child, teacher, staff member, and family takes part in the NASA Explorer program."

Back on terra firma, each classroom has a prominently labeled Tech Zone, a circular station of six to eight networked computers used to do research, create Microsoft PowerPoint or Photo Story presentations, and provide remedial instruction. Students also use Microsoft Movie Maker and PowerPoint for digital storytelling.

A vital component of the reading curriculum is Scholastic Reading Counts!, a software program used to monitor and inspire independent reading. With a computer-to-student ratio that ranges from 4-to-1 to 1-to-1, teachers can tailor instruction to a child's specific needs.

In addition, teachers conduct games and activities with Smart Board interactive whiteboards, while students use the same company's AirLiners, wireless slates that can interact with the teacher's board. "When you walk into a classroom," says Scullion, "you see students engaged in learning and technology that's so seamlessly integrated into the curriculum that you almost don't know it's there."

In music class, students experiment on a Yamaha keyboard to learn about pitch, tempo, and rhythm. To encourage reading, third-grade students take turns using Flip cameras to photograph their fellow costumed students acting out fairy tales. And in Kevin Durden's fourth-grade class, students learn about the Revolutionary War by playing simulation strategy games and reenacting military battles through games Durden and the students created using Vassal, a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board and card games.

For assessment and evaluation, teachers employ Palm PDAs to test reading skills in prekindergarten through second grade. By using handheld clickers, each student communicates with the teacher's interactive whiteboard.

The kids' responses are recorded so the teacher has an instant snapshot of each student's performance. If everyone answers the questions correctly, the teacher moves on to the next lesson. If most students get the answers wrong, the teacher knows it's time to back up and review the material again.

Log Me In, Coach

The school's approach to project learning incorporates technology first by getting teachers on board. "We spend a lot of time working with teachers to help teach them not only how to use the technology but also how to incorporate it into their instruction," says Williams. "We bring new teachers into the fold very easily.

"A new teacher was afraid to use the AirLiner for the first time," she adds, "so she asked me, 'Will you just come to my room?' And I said yes. I went there and sat patiently. She didn't need me, but I was there if she did."

To help teachers meet the challenge of integrating ever-changing tech tools, Forest Lake holds regular training sessions based on the interests and needs of the teachers. Twice a month, the school's weekly skill-building session, "Momentum Monday," is dedicated to infusing technology into the curriculum, with an emphasis on teachers sharing their expertise and learning from each other.

The Richland School District Two also contributes by providing a technology specialist (at Forest Lake, that's Williams) for each of its 35 sites. A districtwide mentoring program beefs up the digital skills of select teachers from each school, who then are expected to share that knowledge with their colleagues.

Teachers have extended project learning into an intensive and innovative classroom called SciTech, which students visit for 55 minutes each week. Wireless laptops enable students in grades 1-5 to create projects involving technology, geography, engineering, and math.

According to Cannon, recent projects include the study of oceans during which students participated in a live Web broadcast about estuaries. The program, sponsored by the South Carolina Educational Television Network, provided hands-on activities about the ocean floor. A teacher-created WebQuest, which used information from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's ( Ocean Explorer site), gave students additional hands-on instructional opportunities about ocean life.

"Using images of Earth taken from space, students are able to see the seasons of the year, how hurricanes are formed, and how erosion has occurred over time," Cannon explains. "Students also gather information about how to become a geographer."

Entrepreneurial Spirits

To help finance all this technology, Forest Lake established an educational foundation. The school partners with area businesses and solicits contributions for fundraising events, such as this year's student performance of Annie, Jr., and a silent auction that raised more than $12,000.

The Forest Lake administration continually applies for grants, awards, and programs that enable the school to purchase and maintain technology. In addition, the school district provides software, hardware, Internet access, and support.

Clearly, its efforts have paid off: Forest Lake's success is reflected in its standardized-test scores, which have shown significant gains over the past few years. The school's scores on the South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (which measured student learning in language arts, math, science, and social studies) for the class of 2016 increased 10 percent in science and 5 percent in math between 2006 and 2008.

In addition, Forest Lake has won numerous awards for the way its faculty uses technology to enhance learning. The litany of honors includes being named one of the Magnet Schools of America's 2008 Schools of Distinction and a 2006 Intel and Scholastic Schools of Distinction Award for Technology Excellence.

In 2008, Principal Kappy Cannon was a finalist for the Distinguished Principals of the Year award, sponsored by the South Carolina Association of School Administrators. But perhaps the best indication of the school's success is its students' excitement and enthusiasm. Says fifth grader Krishna Gorrepati, "It's a surprise every day!"

Go to " How to Build a Technology-Based Curriculum."

Mary Best, a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina, writes about technology, health, and travel.

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